Belgian Graphs

Descending further into the blurred line between work and home, work and fun, fun and obsession, and the ability to talk in math, I present more charts from the BJCP style guideline.  I took on Belgians, but didn't get a ton of good information. Still, here are some relatively interesting charts. Overall I've learned the Belgians aren't as dogmaticaly practical in their brewing as the Germans, which when extrapolated as reliability in life might help explain the latter half of the 19th C and the 1st 46 years of the 20C. Or its just being downwind of Holland, which is the only excuse I can think of for Lambics. But enough of my bellyaching (also, I might be in Belgium for a few days in July, so my tune may change). 

Back to the math graphs. First up are the IBUs by ABV. I find it easier to think in ABV, as mentioned previously, and here we don't see the strong trend. Still, it is interesting to see all the beers lined up- the Belgian/French Ale category (16) along with the strong Belgians (18) (most made, coincidently, after 1945). 

 With the three strongest beers we see the mid-point IBU decline as the mid-point ABV increases slightly. We also see the very low ABV and IBU of the Wit- to be expected of a wheat based beer. Perhaps more interesting is the comparison of IBU and SRM- which is where Belgian beers get seperated (all of them pretty white-lightning strength on their own).

Crowded though this graph is, there are some interesting points to be made. The sweetest of the beers are the dubble and dark strong, which makes sense as they are the darkest. The hoppiest are in the middle range, the pale ale and Saison. The Triple, golden strong, and blonde (sorry, mis-spelled on graph) hang in there, but all are pretty big beers. Not IPAs certainly, but hoppy and alcoholic. As for hop flavor and aroma-- they didn't really graph too well, and I'm going to let them be for now. I ran up graphs for the hybrids, but being a catch all category it is not too interesting. I'm going to do the American and English beers for next week- so stay tuned!