Is Sierra Nevada Pale Ale an ESB?
One particular medal awarded at the recent World Beer Cup has been the subject of much discussion: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which took gold in the ESB category. I nodded when I saw the award, and figured others would understand it as an artifact of: 1) the inexorable migration of styles, 2) the consequent migration of a 45-year-old beer to meet changed standards, and 3) the overly rigid style categories of the Brewers Association’s competitions.
I was wrong.
People seem miffed that the quintessential American pale ale would find itself in exile over in a remote British category. It seems like a great opportunity to unpack the situation, repeat the truth of beer’s One Iron Law (styles evolve, even if beers do not), and explain why the judges got it right.
(Brief apologies to Michael Stein of DC Beer, who reached out for a comment on this issue. I was going to wait for his piece to come out, but when Evan Rail posted a lengthy piece about the issue in VinePair, I swung into motion. I’ll link to Michael’s piece when it comes out.)
Pale Ales, Special and American
Let’s zoom back to the late 1970s, when Americans were opening the first little breweries. They largely looked to the UK for inspiration, making a range of styles that closely mirrored the tradition of English ales. I think people forget that there was no stylistic difference between bitters and pales in the UK; they were synonyms for the same beer. The words “pale ale” were more often used on bottled products, while punters called these beers “bitters” at the pub.
Since the world wars and the great gravity drop, British beers have been weaker than American ones. Ordinary pub bitters com in around 3.5% and “special” bitters maybe 4.2%. Strong bitters were usually around or just above 5%—5.5% in the case of draft Fuller’s ESB, the beer that exemplified the style in the U.S (bottles ESB is 5.9%). Fuller’s did not invent the style of strong bitter, but because their example was familiar to American brewers and bore the name ESB, Americans started calling all strong bitters ESBs. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is … 5.6%.
On our side of the pond, Americans were making their “chromatic line” of beers (pale, amber/red, brown, and porter), and they were basically English beers, using similar ingredients and methods. From the start, pale ales were usually the star of the show because they at least superficially resembled “beer” as Americans understood it.
American pales were often very British, with pale and crystal malts, often English yeasts and hops. On the West Coast, the biggest deviation was the use of American hops, which at the time was enough to seem really avant garde. (The Chico yeast strain was also nontraditional in its lack of English expressivity, but that’s a quirk rather than a major stylistic break.)
American Hops
In the 1980s, West Coast pales didn’t track as British because American hops were so shocking. It’s almost impossible today to appreciate how radical SNPA tasted to Americans who had only ever encountered domestic pales. For those few who had tasted the “warm, flat” cask ales of Britain, SNPA would have seemed only slightly less shocking.
Things have changed. Now many British pales and bitters employ New World hops. In 2025, a Citra-hopped bitter is every bit as “British” as one made with East Kent Goldings. And among the bitters using American hops, half-century old Cascades seem positively nostalgic. Indeed, as Evan pointed out in his VinePair piece, English farmers have been growing Cascade since 2002. To add to the Anglo-American commingling, Cascade is a daughter of Fuggle, once the characteristic English pale ale hop.
American ales of SNPA’s vintage were inspired by English pale ales, and in the interim, English pale ales have moved in the American direction. I’m not going to argue that Sierra’s Pale would strike a Brit as a bang-on strong bitter, but we have to acknowledge that the US tradition, which once took its cues from across the Atlantic, has become the more influential partner.
American Pales and Competitions
Meanwhile, American pales have done their own evolving and are now quite a bit distant from where Sierra started nearly a half-century ago. Although no one would claim SNPA isn’t a legit American pale ale, I think most would acknowledge it’s a legacy example of an earlier time. A brewery releasing a beer like SNPA today would have to characterize it as a “classic pale” or something similar so drinkers wouldn’t be shocked to find caramel malt and Cascade hops in their beer. Today’s pales are heading in the direction of pilsners with American hops: they’re light, very pale, crisp, and bright, with none of the past generation’s affection for malt sweetness or caramel flavors.
In competition, judges are going to be looking at examples that track to where the styles are today, not what they were like in former decades. It’s always very important for breweries to read the style guidelines, because they often describe beers that wouldn’t normally be considered the category in which they’re entered. The World Beer Cup guidelines, for example, describe ESBs as amber beers with medium bodies, medium levels of bitterness and hop aromas, “typical of American or other origin hop varieties.” The guidelines continue: “Entries in this subcategory exhibit hop aroma and flavor attributes typical of hops of many origins, which may deviate substantially from the hallmark attributes typical of traditional English hop varieties.”
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale would not be appropriate in the American pale ale category today. (Guidelines: “Hop aroma and flavor [is] high, exhibiting a wide range of attributes including floral, citrus, fruity (berry, tropical, stone fruit and other), sulfur, diesel-like, onion-garlic, catty, piney, resinous, and many others.”)
Whether these style guidelines make sense or not is a debate for another day.
To conclude, the World Beer Cup judges knew what they were doing. They chose the best beer based on the style guidelines they had to work with, and though it may seem weird to people, the history and interaction between the US and UK traditions means these beers were never really that dissimilar. Beer styles evolve, and that often means that the world’s exemplar of the style, even its originator, will eventually become nonstandard. So it is with Sierra Nevada Extra Special Bitter.