Slate: Against Hoppy Beer

Growing sales and growth rates certainly do indicate "doing something right". With InBev consistency is paramount to their growth (and with everyone I suppose). Just because they're making borderline deplorable beer doesn't mean they're not doing something right.

 

The power of advertising is quite impressive. Advertising is so strong that most people have no idea what good beer tastes like, they simply think Bud is in fact a good beer. Not to mention, the average person couldn't care less how good the beer is they're drinking, they just want to feel like "it's cool" to be drinking Bud because everyone is doing it and AB-Inbev is a pretty damn good at selling "coolness" to the masses.

 

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with ya here.

we're talking about selling great beer, not saving the fucking rain forest. what they are doing is working.
So it isn't for everyone; neither is Budweiser. I'm not going to lose any sleep over possibly alienating someone when what they *are* doing is obviously working so well, and with such delicious results.

cheers--
--Michael

 

Interesting article. I remember reading it when it came out last spring. It made me think about my first reactions to craft beer. The first time I had Sierra Nevada pale ale I thought it was bitter and a chore to drink. I barely finished my first Old Rasputin -- an absolute ordeal. But then Chimay and Ayinger and Belhaven were wonderful from day one. Now? I'm drinking a Bells Two Hearted as I write this, and there's always Old Raspy in my fridge. The author was silly to write an article about one person's first response to a hoppy beer. IPA's are like dry red wines. For a lot of people they're going to be the last beers they develop a taste for (Except sours).

 

I also didn't say growth rates and sales indicate someone is doing something wrong either. My point is, we don't need more hoppy beers (IPAs or not), and we don't need more light adjunct lagers. Just because it's popular, doesn't mean it's great.

And I love IPAs, so I'm not saying the style is awful (unlike light adjunct lagers).

 

Maybe the IPA's of the 90s and early to mid 2000s, which were more bitter. But today's IPAs? They're extremely easy to enjoy. It's the most popular style among craft beer, and you need not look further than the ratings here on Beeradvocate to see how easy people develop a taste for today's IPA.

I would say many lagers are like dry red wines. Takes many Beeradvocate's awhile years before they begin developing a taste for subtlety.

 

I'll take your word for it that IPAs were more bitter in the past, but in my experience as someone who is now proselytizing craft beer madly to friends who have never had it, it's a mistake to start with an IPA. A palate conditioned for years on light lagers can't be re-educated in a day.

 

This reminds me of my favorite urban legend - the one about people going on vacation who come home to a ransacked room only to find nothing was stolen. When they come home from vacation and have their photos developed (I heard this one in the '90s) they find pics of some locals with their toothbrushes, then with said toothbrushes in one of the locals a-hole in the next pic.

Anyway, this article was pretty bad and had a couple of errors like the thing about session beer existing to not wreck your palate (no, it's about not getting hammered), foosball being the mechanism behind DFH's hop thing (it was Electronic Football, the vibrating one)...and at least one misleading line about Bruery seeking to make balanced beers, but I just don't get the logic behind asking brewers to stop making the most popular styles. Just buy non-hoppy beers if you don't like them. There are plenty to choose from...now more than ever.

 

That writer is an idiot. There are tons of craft beers with very little hop flavor. It just so happens that hops are delicious.

 

For a while I thought I simply didn't like beer due to the bitterness, until I tried a belgian style beer which I found I enjoyed. Its definitely not that difficult to find a non-hoppy beer.

 

Buried in the nonsense, the article does make a point I don't completely disagree with (though I love me some hops). It seems to me like there are tons of great hop bombs, but relatively few, say, dunkelweizens. In Minneapolis, I can chose from about a half dozen or so really great local IPAs (Size 7, Saga, Overrated, Masala Mama, Bent Paddle Golden IPA, Sweet Child of Vine, Sheephead). I can get Harriet's Woluptuweiss or El Hefe Negro occasionally if I'm lucky enough to find it on tap somewhere, and I can't buy either in a liquor store. I realize it's a reaction to what the market wants. It's quibbling, because I love all those IPAs. I'd just like to see the same embarrassment of riches for other styles.

 

I enjoyed the article. Agree with her that I think over hopped beer is a fad, one that has never really appealed to me. But to each there own.