Dear subscriber,

as per last BJCP update on the new style guideline release, the following has been announced: "Italian Grape Ale is renamed Grape Ale, rewritten to allow non-Italian varieties, and moved to Fruit Beer (although it also remains as a Local Style".

This is simply not acceptable!

We ask now for your help to prove the BJCP how you are disappointed about this decision. What to do? Just send an email to style@bjcp.org with object: Don't touch my IGA

text of the email to copy and paste:
The efforts of BJCP in recognizing the historical value of Country with traditions in beer is priceless and commendable. The first BJCP mission is "Encourages knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of the world’s diverse beer, mead, and cider styles". IGA is a relatively new style in a relatively new beer Country that is contributing to the beer knowledge in Europe. Losing the BJCP recognition on the style's name (Italian Grape Ale) would be a huge loss for our beer tradition, a gap in knowledge of European beer history that could affect the beer diversity. 

We appreciate that there is the interest of other countries to produce IGA and that may not want to name their beer as IGA because of the italian prefix but we strongly believe this is not a good reason to erase the geographical indication from the name. This would at the same time erase the credit our country has on this style. It's very important to understand that "Italian" in the IGA appellation is not related to the origin of grape varieties, it is related to the peculiar use of grapes that Italian breweries make when producing beer.

As a beer enthusiast, I ask the BJCP to fully recognize the IGA style in the next release of the BJCP style guideline acknowledging "Italian Grape Ale" as an Italian style of beer originated in Italy.