Are IPAs becoming less popular?

No it's marketing!

 

Indeed they do, to some portion of the population, which my hypothesis doesn't contradict at all. Are you implying they taste fucking great to literally 100% of humanity?

 

Are IPAs becoming less popular?
Not in my house.

 

I think IPA's are bigger now than ever.

 

"Hippy lager"?

 

Made with granola and hemp!

More likely it's just a typo .

 

Well look at Sam Adams IPA lineup from just a few years ago, and look at it today. There is your answer.

IPA's evolve. I'd guess the ratio of English styles available in relation to American IPAs available today vs. 10 or 20 years ago. Then from American you can get into the West Coast vs. New England argument as which is trending up or down etc. but will skip that one.

 

simple answer: no

they're actually getting even more popular

 

I agree...at least the good ones taste fucking great. But now there's a lot more of them, and so many of them are just a fucking mess.

 

These are just some of the beers out now, out soon, or out this quarter from national and regional breweries of note:
Founders
Azacca IPA
Samuel Adams
Rebel Grapefruit IPA
Nitro IPA
Pack of Rebels (12 pack cans of Rebel, Rebel Rouser, Rebel Grapefruit, and NEW variety pack exclusive Rebel Cascade)
Harpoon
Take 5 Session IPA
Hoppy Adventure Double IPA (draft-only, year-round)
Green Flash
Tangerine Soul Style IPA
Coronado
Stingray IPA
Merbear Rye IPA (collab. w/ Bear Republic)
Heavy Seas
Double Cannon IIPA (previously seasonal, now year-round in 2016)
Sierra Nevada
Beer Camp Tropical IPA
Five Hop IPA (available in the 4-Way IPA variety pack)
Great Lakes
Steady Rollin' session IPA
Hop by Numbers IPA (available in the "Fridge Filler" variety pack in March)
Stone
Pataskala Red IPA
New Belgium
Citradelic Tangerine IPA
Alaskan
Hop Turn IPA

That's just off the top of my head and these are just new beers from a few breweries. Nope. The IPA is doing fine.

 

As everyone else has said, the West Coast IPA is dying down while the New England IPA is coming up stronger than ever. This, and everyone moving into other styles. Sours and BA offerings are huge right now.

 

i think they just become less popular in the winter because of the amount of Stouts/Porters and other styles similar to those.

 

Was at my local bar last night and even the bartenders were talking about how many ipas they had on tap, especially for the winter months. At least 1/3 of their taps were ipas.
I can't see their appeal fading any time soon.

 

No freaking way.

 

Personally, they're getting less popular with me. Not that they arenot delicious. I'm still picking up two DIPA bombers from 18th street tomorrow

 

No. IPAs are going bonkers over here in New England.

 

Not in my fridge.

 

This needs to be touched upon more than just the "are IPAs becoming less popular" topic? I think the older way IPAs have been made are becoming less popular. Juicy, fruity, non abrasive is so IN, it's not even funny.

Annually, New Mexico does this IPA challenge where the states breweries brew up a new beer/use their core lineup IPA in a blind ipa challenge. Regular joes vote. It's a blind popular vote winner. I've seen some trends change there. I overheard some of the brewers saying that the old IPAs they would do would be almost any type of hop just thrown into the kettle to just be as extreme and bitter as possible. To many, that's what we grew up to expect out of IPAs. And I'm just talking within the past 8 years. I didn't care for those too too much. There have been a number of IPAs to change my opinion in just a short 5 year span.

Now this new breed of IPAs has new to craft people instantly jumping to IPAs. It took me a good 3-4 years to adapt. Maybe the variety and quality is better now.

As those brewers were casually chating, they made a mention that there is more into the hop picking, hop selection, when to boil/dry hop, and which varieties work together. It's more technical than ever before imho. I wouldn't call it lazy. But they made it sound like for the old way they would do IPAs, they could just buy a crap load of hops and throw it into a secondary fermenter and that's your IPA. Now with more selection, and flavor profiles changing, It's becoming much more of a challenge to stand out. I believe this years NM winner was a 6.5% less sweeter, somewhat of a tropical fruity (el dorado hops among a couple more) beer. Almost no sense of any abrasive IBUs... Three years ago, that's all there was.