Ukrainian Golden Ale Doesn’t Need Your Approval
On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Lana Svitankova had a blog post cued up about an emerging indigenous style in her home country. Like the craft beer industry in Ukraine, it isn’t very old, but Lana makes a case that it has developed both the contours of a recognizable beer type and an organic popularity local beers must develop to stick around. She concluded her post:
“So, in 2021 the Association of Independent Breweries, together with beer enthusiasts, began the process of making the style official. It involves getting it approved as a local style by the BJCP, raising awareness in Ukraine, unification of labels, arranging international collabs, etc. It is a long road, and we have a long way to go... but we are hopeful.”
Given the atrocities committed by Ukraine’s neighbor, the appearance of a potentially native style—just a decade after craft brewing started in Ukraine—is a cause for delight and celebration. But look—forget the BJCP. If Ukrainians consider golden ale their style, they don’t need anyone’s permission.
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I spend too much time thinking about taxonomy—what belongs as a style, what doesn’t, and whether the framework of “style” even makes sense. My conclusion, a couple decades in the making, is that the far more important consideration is whether a beer is made and drunk by locals and has enduring support. Is it a cultural artifact? If the answer is yes, who cares what an American homebrew organization thinks?
Golden Ale
According to Lana, “golden ale” is a term locals understand. It refers to a strong, sweet ale (~7%) with subdued hop character. Some examples include coriander. The new, small breweries (call them craft if you must) wanted an offering for domestic lager drinkers that tasted beery enough to satisfy, but offered the flavors they’d find if they dug deeper into the taplist. Lana seems bashful about golden ale’s character (it “lacks a wow factor,” she says), but I don’t know, a 7% boomer made with ale yeast, very low attenuation, and possibly coriander—that sounds pretty distinctive to me. If you want more details, all presented on a handy infographic card, visit Lana’s post.
If it were to survive and flourish (and honestly, no one will know for decades), my guess is that it would morph a bit in the brewhouse. Local barley, which Ukraine has in abundance, locally malted, seasoned with local hops (of which Ukraine also has quite a few acres)—it would at that point be fully indigenous.
Local specialties emerge out of a stew of different ingredients, simmering long enough to become fixtures across a region. War has long been a factor in shaping local tastes. Eoghan Walsh has pointed out that the popularity of German beer dipped after WWI in Belgium, not shockingly. British beers went on a diet following WWII. Following the first Russian invasion in 2014, Ukrainian pride blossomed—exactly what Putin overlooked when he engaged his current malignant folly. It’s not at all hard for me to imagine a country embracing all things culturally relevant in coming years. Hell, I see a lot of people borrowing that fierce Ukrainian pride outside Ukraine. If pride attaches itself to golden ale and it becomes a major beer across the country, it hardly matters whether the BJCP recognizes it or not.
In the meantime, I hope I see examples of Ukrainian golden ale appearing on taplists on this continent. It sounds fun, and it would be a great way to share a tiny slice of Ukraine’s rich culture here. Ukraine has far more pressing concerns than beer, but I love the whole idea of golden ale and hope it flourishes in coming years. Godspeed, golden ale!