Some good examples here, but almost alll of the major brewing traditions/ countries pretty regularly used and use sugars for some beer styles; Germany being the big exception to the rule, but even there sugars have been allowed per the 1993 Biergesetz (where the actual laws with "teeth" applicable to German production reside; not the "Rheinheitsgebot" as you often hear people say) for top-fermenting beers ("ales" in the American nomenclature).
Sugar servers two primary purposes and one secondary purpose:
-Increasing fermentability of wort, which decreases FG and results in a drier, more refreshing beer
-Adding nuanced flavor additions (obviously simple white sugar additions such as table sugar or dextrose won't serve this purpose)
-It also does boost the alcohol more than adding more malt extracted sugars as simple sugars are more fermentable
Everyone always focuses on the Belgians as having a big tradition of using sugars both to dry out a beer and to add more flavor and rightfully so as they showcase the practice the most (and Dubbel wouldn't be a Dubbel without it; same should be said for a Tripel), BUT the English have long used sugars in many of their beer styles (yes there were a few years there where sugar use was illegal in Britain but it didn't last that long in the general scheme of things) and as has already been pointed out on this thread, West Coast IPAs and Double/Imperial IPAs use / need highly fermentable sugars to result in a lower FG and higher bitterness levels. -On that 2nd note: The primary thing that drives decreased hop utilization in the boil is often listed as "wort gravity", but it's not actually wort gravity, but protein content that drives the decreased hop utilization; sugar additions do not add protein, only additional starting gravity points and wort that has more simple sugars in it will result in more IBUs remaining in the finished beer. (Just saw John Palmer present this last Friday @ Hop and Brew School at Hop Union in Yakima, WA.)
Simple sugars also have their place in ultra strong beers and as priming solutions for bottle conditioning as it is easier for yeast to consume simple sugars; sometimes after a high alcohol fermentation yeast are only capable of consuming mono or diglycerides; you can see this practice of incrementally feeding yeast very simple sugars late in fermentation with many insanely strong beers such as Boston Beer's Utopius.
As a beer culture many US brewers have a knee-jerk negative reaction to the use of sugars in brewing as we've seen flavor and quality degraded by the macro breweries over decades by replacing malt sugar with simple sugars from a variety of other sources, but sugar certainly has it's place and CAN make beers better; some styles couldn't exist without it.
Don't let beer making philosophy / dogma prevent you from making your beer the best it can be; sugar additions are one tool of many that we utilize in the pursuit of beer making perfection.
Adam
P.S. I don't think I would ever use simple, flavorless sugar in a RIS, either. High FG is supposed to be present in a RIS, IMHO.
