Does anyone feel like stepping back from IPAs sometimes?

Not really. it's so easy to just grab an ipa when i have no idea what i'm in the mood for. Always a welcome addition

 

For some of my friends IPA has become a default choice. I don't think it's their absolute favorite rather it's an easy thing to order and widely available.

 

When I'm in a new place I always try the IPA first. My thinking is if they can't make a good IPA they can't make anything else well.

 

I feel the same way about Lager.

 

Interesting opinion, and one I haven't heard before. I've heard several people say they order lagers to access a brewer's true capabilities (absolutely nothing to hide flaws behind), but not IPAs.

Personally, I see more of your point of view. I figure I either stand to try an extraordinary IPA or see that a brewer can't hide their flaws behind large, abundant hop notes. Sometimes a brewery hits somewhere between the two extremes, in which case they nailed mediocre, and I've still learned plenty about them still. Regardless, I find myself drawn towards IPAs when on the road, with an eager second thought to lagers, hefeweizens and kolsches.

 

I find myself agreeing with this ordering logic. Most of my favorite beers are not IPAs, and yet I frequently find myself ordering them. It's kinda like pizza - it can be absolutely world class, or it can be meh. Either way, I end up with pizza on my plate and I win.

 

In terms of palate exhaust, I’m more concerned with Rauchbiers than anything else.

 

All the time. I love all different kinds of IPAs but big hop flavor can become overwhelming at times.

It’s nice to break it up with a recalibration from a few stouts, wits, pilsners, and alike.

 

I mix it up all the time.

 

So do I, consistently. For me sticking to just one style would be like eating the same meal every day.

 

I started out not liking IPAs at all, then got into them and drank damn near nothing but them for a while, to now cutting way back on them. Besides the palate fatigue I found that IPAs can get my reflux going and I can get terrible hangover like symptoms when I have one too many (which really isn't that many when compared to other styles). I was also finding that I was sort of shunning the styles that I loved. Also, after a while I wasn't finding that much difference between many of them so it got kind of boring.

I still drink IPAs occasionally because I get in the mood and a maltier one e.g. Victory Hop Devil can be a thing of beauty. But overall I have been feeling better and enjoying so many more styles and revisiting styles that I loved since making a conscious effort to reduce my IPA consumption.

Ha ha I know what you mean. I don't drink much during the week so on the weekend if I opened the fridge and saw an IPA I would think that if I don't drink this today it will just get another week older

 

Like your taste in beer and authors (John Updike's Rabbit Run)! Cheers!

 

It's all good to me, but sometimes too many same style brews get boring.

Cheers!

 

I've never been one to drink any one style obsessively. I'll drink an IPA when I feel like one, but generally speaking, I am more charmed by a deft brewer's hand than a heavy one. That largely means out the window with bourbon barrels, anything above 8% ABV and anything else getting in the way of a beer's worth.

 

Love a good IPA but with so many breweries and so many styles I like to try as much as I can never know what your new favorite beer could be it is hard to avoid IPA's with that said though

 

I like IPAs but all iterations of the style are overrated and overdone, that being said I honestly don't drink them very often.

 

LOVE my (D)IPA's, but am looking to expand my palate. Like stouts and some sours but there's so much more to craft beer than them. Often find thinking I should try something different but then find myself reaching for a (D)IPA. Need to change that!

 

IPA has become my least drank style.

 

And another thing that I noticed.
These so called Session IPAs, where session means you want to drink a few of the same beer back to back to back. I can't ever drink a second one, even with some highly rated examples of the style. They all seem to have a wear and tear factor. If you catch my drift.

 

I have had this same mindset before honestly. I could have a few browns, stouts, wheats, etc in the fridge that have been there for weeks, but the minute I'd buy a sixer of Zombie Dust or Two Hearted I would feel I have to drink that before even considering the others.

I'm not as bad as I used to be with the IPA freshness craze, but it definitely does still linger in my mind if I make a beer trade and I get a NEIPA over a month old.