American Beers = Overly Hopped

There's a segment of buyers who love the shit out of massively hopped beers, and a lot of breweries are more than happy to cater to them. Cos, guess what? It sells and they can do the things that successful businesses do, like stay in business and invest in their future. Also, you're only listing one style and its subcategories that happen to meet every qualifier of the first sentence. They tend to be massively hopped and people tend to buy them up.
Too, get to know your hops cos there are a few that brewers are falling over themselves to get a hold of because sometimes they are about as original as a 3rd generation photocopy. They see how a few varieties of hops are responsible for beers that people on sites like this routinely have morning wood over and they want the reach around, and its subsequent happy ending from grabbing on to that. Re: Zombie Dust, Heady Topper, etc.
Consider this your mulligan. Try something else, and branch out of your self imposed stylistic box.

 

I've been in Australia for the last five weeks. Let me tell you something: I miss hops.

There are some decent beers with very mild but satisfying profiles here. But really, I miss the more intense and varying flavors of American craft beer so much right now.

 

4 of the top ten beers are an IPA of some type, I'd bet 3 of those 4 have been there for at least two years. The rest are ba brews, the first sour hits at 12.

 

Hoppy beers dance on the palate like no other beers.

 

I made my bed in hops...cant stop dreaming of more

 

Sorry but Tank 7 does not taste like an IPA. Some hop presence does not an IPA make.

 

The US is noted for hop growing and not for its barley.It makes sense to showcase the hops and shadow the malt.
But some beers don't need a lot of hops, in fact they need not to have a lot of hops.
Personally, I like a beer to have a bit of everything in the taste , malt hops and yeast.Not the yeast per se but those lovely esters the right yeast creates.
I do like hops to taste of hops though, not grapefruit or lychees or whatever.

 

I think the important question is this: For these "overly hoop" no -IPA styles would they be better beers with less hops?

 

Both Brewers you mention describe their own beer in ways that clearly indicate up front they are using American hops to create a variation on the style being brewed and so, particularly when fresh, the beer is supposed to show identifiable American hop flavors. Sounds to me like they hit their target but it's not a target you happen to like. Personally I'm now finishing my second case of Tank 7 and find it very different from an IPA, with lots of flavors that are very much a Saison but one with flavors contributed by American hops rather than the traditional European hops.

Perhaps what you really don't care for is a classification scheme that seems to require putting everything into one category or another but which in reality has fuzzy boundaries that make some overlap possible?

 

On the whole in terms of craft, yes IPAs sell more than pilsners or Helles. But what is lost here, is that neither myself or the OP said to eliminate IPAs/hops altogether. The point was EVERYTHING has hops in it, the name “IPA” is tossed into everything. Even if a brewery tries their hand at a lager or a low abv beer, it will be an IPL or a session IPA, as opposed to a more balanced pilsner or an English bitter. As you stated, this pushes other styles off he shelf (like Kellerweis).

Sierra Nevada did just roll out a new pilsner this year in ADDITION to Summerfest. Not to mention their fall pack which has a traditional Vienna, and no IPAs. There’s a balance, and the difference is some brewers have the skill to do both, and others do not. So they fall back on what’s easy….hops. Locally our Notch Pils is the number one seller at my local liquor store after Bud/Miller/Coors/Sam Adams…….it’s neither overly hoppy or high in alcohol (only 4% abv). I’ll say it again, if it’s a world class beer, it’ll sell.

After that rant, I'm not as upset as the OP is though. I feel the trend is moving towards a wider spread of styles, as brewer's find it harder to make an IPA and have it separate itself from the over saturated market. There's even breweries like Olde Mecklenberg, who I have yet to try, but by all accounts do amazingly well, and only brew traditional German styles.

 

Then don't buy them. Like saying "I am sick

This is kind of like the Princess and The Pea. I was sick to death with the days when there were no good beers in the US. We are living in a golden age. If you don't like "overly hopped" beers, there are many, many other choices.

 

Vermont must have a better selection than my area. All I see on shelves are IPAs, DIPAs, and IPA wannabes any more.

And I agree, I was not happy with the choices in the days before the Micro Boom®, but it seems like the variety that was once so good has now become a choice between which IPA is the latest fad.

 

Perhaps what he doesn't care for are brewers who seem only able to explore those fuzzy boundaries by adding MOAR (hops, malt, "flavor") to most every "style" -- even those with quite clearly established boundaries -- they attempt.

 

You can thank Stone brewing company for this school of thought. They over hop damn near every hoppy beer and they have been doing that forever. I think that arrogant bastard is ridiculously over hopped, even though I know that beer has a decent amount of people that like it.

 

We have the usual selection of Belgiums, Porters, Stouts and Lagers. I have to admit that I love hops myself.

 

My only issue with the trend to worship the almighty hop is that other styles that aren't so hop forward can get left by the wayside. It's annoying that I am always seeing scores of new IPAs but it's rare for the local bottle shop to have a new porter or a new dunkel. I like hoppy beers, but I like other beers too, and I think the market leaning so heavily towards the one comes at the detriment of the other.

 

Hmmm, didn't realize that there were clearly established enforcable boundaries that one could point to except in the minds of a few people. Who is the responsible party for enforcing those boundaries and where were they when German brewers crossed them in brewing Pilsener beer?

 

There are no clearly established guidelines for Koelsch? Lambic? Trappists? (EDIT: with their respective organizations/member brewers being responsible for enforcing those boundaries.)

Anyhow, that wasn't the primary point. Of course brewers can cross these boundaries. But why must so many of them -- primarily "craft" ones based on the American model -- do so simply by adding more of things?

It all reminds me of a story I heard about the band REM back in the 80s. The producer of one of their early albums said they were the only band he had ever worked with where each member wanted their part turned down in the mix instead of up. Of course, this was the age of hair metal, with its cartoonish, adolescent antics...kinda like many U.S. "craft" beers.

 

Agreed. The most perplexing issue I have is that American brewers are hopping the shit out of styles that weren't even meant to be hoppy.