IPA Freshness Hype

I made a homebrew double IPA and recently kegged 5 gallons. The beer goes through stages. it tastes similiar for a few days or a couple of weeks and then makes a change. If you love the hop flavor and aroma, fresh is certainly best. After a few weeks in the keg it definitely is still pretty hop forward, but no where what it was right after kegging. However, my homebrew probably changes faster then bought beer, because it is not handled as well and has live yeasts (although others have yeast too, but probably not as much).

 

Bitterness fades, but at a much slower rate. Drink this year's Bigfoot and one that is 8 years old, and you will see that the bitterness has receded and the malt has taken over the finish.

 

Maybe some people don't seem to mind whet happens to a beer with some age. Seems like the general consensus is that fresh is better, and I agree. But either way there is clearly a difference.

 

I don't believe the freshness hype, but I do like to drink my IPAs quickly!

 

Double Jack is time sensitive IMO, when it's fresh it's great, as it gets older the malt overwhelms .

 

The first Abrasive I ever had was canned 5 weeks earlier. No big deal. I thought it was one of the best beers I'd ever had. The next one I had was canned 2 days previous. It was, and is still, the best f-ing beer I ever had.
That got me wondering about the fall off also. I did a blind with Big Sky IPA that were a month apart. I easily could pick the fresher one. Point being, they were all good beers, but the degree of goodness can change quickly.

 

If you absolutely must have MAXIMUM FLAVOR and MAXIMUM AROMA in a beer that uses 2x-4x as many hops as most beers, then you should definitely go out of your way to drink it as fresh as possible.

I'm usually happy with anything up to three months old for an IPA. I've drank much older IPAs and they didn't taste bad, they just had less flavor and aroma, but still had more flavor and aroma than most other styles.

 

The only beer in recent memory that I loved fresh but didn't care for with some age was Ruination 10th anniversary.

Otherwise I don't mind the hop presence fading a bit. I've notice with Enjoy by that the beer blends nicely a couple weeks after bottling.

 

Blends into what? I don't even understand that statement. But to each there own..

 

I feel like most people who say freshness doesn't matter that much aren't drinking the right IPAs.

 

if you ever, even for a second, think about "how someone is taking things too seriously" because they like this beer and not that beer, or this music but not that music, etc, take a few minutes and contemplate how stupid you are being. *how in the world* is having a different preference being "too serious"?

really, i'm not trying to start an argument or even insult anyone. if even for a split second you have a thought like that, stop, and think more about it. what is going on with you that you think such a thing? are you stressed out about something else in life? do you feel self-conscious about something to do with your own preferences or knowledge or something? why are you upset?

 

Thank you for starting this thread. I completely agree. Call me an amateur or someone with a weaker palate but hey, I like what I like. God forbid someone drinks a hoppy beer thats more than an hour old. Cheers man.

 

I really hate this kind of hyperbole and straw man argument. NO ONE is making such extreme statements. Many people and fucking science say that hop character fades over time. Not in a fucking hour, or week, or two weeks but it does over three months and beyond. The OP turned his argument around to preference, when he wasn't making an argument for preference at all, at least not in the OP.

Very recently, at a bar, six DIPAs were placed in front of me and I had no idea what was what. I picked five out of the six DIPAs and I did it based on color, aroma, and flavor. I think the argument that we can't tell one beer from another in the same category is total bullshit. Many of us can and many of us can tell when the hops have faded from an IPA or DIPA. It really is that simple. Science is science.

And yes, we all have our preferences too, but that's a different argument.

 

No, the bitterness does remain but the fruitiness & overall over hop flavours will fade away. They will be taken over by the malt & yeast profiles which are often less exiting in IPA’s. In Hopslam for instance the overt hop goodness will become subdued quickly & the honey will start dominating. These beers won’t go bad although given that they were usually not re-fermented in the bottle with a lesser malt profile, after 3 years they will show clear signs of age & frankly will not be very good. The change will happen the fastest in the beginning, meaning the difference between a 2 week old & 2 month IPA will be much bigger than between a 2 moths and 6 months old one. If you are already comparing quite old IPA’s maybe you have a point. Yes I do find a world of difference between a fresh & old IPA.

You can age an IPA if the malt & yeast profile is substantial enough but if you want to experience a showcase of the hops, fresh is by very far the best. Frankly I don’t get why you would drink an IPA if you are not interested in a showcase of hops.

 

That happened to me. I did a blind taste test of New Glarus IIPA and a Lagunitas Sucks. I have already tried them both but the point of the blind taste test was to pick which I like best without knowing which is which. I had it preoccupied in my brain that I definitely was going to like the NG IIPA better - its more expensive, comes in a four pack, and is a thumbprint (meaning limited) series. After tasting both glasses, I pointed to one glass and I said "this is definitely the NG IIPA because it taste so much better (not my exact words )." Turns out I pointed to the Lagunita Sucks. Funny how when one beer is 'bigger' and 'badder' that I have the bias judgement that I will like it better. Doing the blind taste test is definitely a learning experience!

 

I haven't done side by sides with IPAs (why would I age them when they're so tempting to drink now?) But I have done six month old Big Foot, okay, not side by side, but it was WAY less hoppy than when it was first released. And this was six months in the fridge.

Another observation: I recently had a Stone Double Bastard aged seven years, and there was still some hop character, however muted. But the fact that hops fade over time is just that, a fact.

 

you're confusing people making claims about objective fact with them making claims about objective quality. IPAs don't objectively "get worse," but the hop oils do break down, and quickly. get over yourself and try to wrap your brain around this.

 

Had a old Daytime IPA. Actually held up.
But quickly followed that with a very fresh Zombie Dust

 

I think you missed his point.