Why Pale Ales?

Haha. I've never even heard of them so I wouldn't know, but I don't doubt you.

 

I suggest you take a trip across the pond and see how they do it in the UK. They have 1000s of breweries brewing "hogwash" cask conditioned real ales and none of them is over 4.5% but I assure you they are amazing beers. As the craft beer market opens wider breweries are now brewing for a clientele with varied tastes, not just people who want to drink 7.5% IPA and have their mouth explode. I went to a real ale festival in the UK last year, over 300 casks on tap, and the interesting thing I noted was that there were as many women there drinking ale as dudes. My point is there is a market for these beers and if done right a session ale can be an amazing beer, so in my opinion the more breweries in the game the better the chance they'll eventually master it.

 

Trader pre-dates Hop Notch by a decade or so. Personally, I hardly ever drink Trader--not with Wyld next to it on the shelf--but if they ever "scrap" it, it'll be because it stops selling. That hasn't happened yet--so, evidenly, not everyone agrees with you and I.

 

No you don't get it, OP say no one like Pale Ales.
OP right.
You no like Pale Ales.
Liar.

 

Agree, you would think a brewery like Unita would want to put their best foot forward with each product they put their label on, though somethings in life will never be understood, like Sam Adams cranberry lambic, why god why...

 

Sometimes, one wants a good, unfussy, well made low ABV session Ale. On occasion, I like them. I like my IPA too. Sometimes I want something which is not a hop bomb, sometimes I want something better balanced. I like different styles.

 

I think a brewery would produce what sells for them. If it doesn't sell enough, they'll pull it from their lineup. Pure speculation on my part.

 

Actually, a well-made Pale Ale is one of the yardsticks that I judge a brewery by. Any half-competent brewer can throw a ton of hops into something, or bbl-age a mediocre Stout, and pay some extra attention to it and make very-good to great specialty. But, to make a tasty, well-crafted, "everyday drinking" beer, that can hold your interest sixer after sixer, year after year, is a testimonial to their ability. I can't count the gallons of Deschutes Mirror Pond I've drank in the 13 years I've lived in the PNW, and I still look forward to the next one.

 

All Day IPA is tasty though. I drink beer for the taste not the abv.

Just bought some SN Pale Ale today. Passed up the torpedo because pale ale is great.

 

"Good" is subjective. I don't think any brewer ever said "we're missing a substandard APA in our lineup, let's get one out there ASAP".

Out of the 28 active beers Uinta has on here, 7 are APA/IPA/DIPA. One quarter of their lineup.

About one third of HF's 61 active beers falls into the APA/IPA/DIPA category.

Since "good" is subjective, and less of their lineup is devoted to these styles than some other breweries, I reckon leave em to it. If it doesn't make economic sense to brew them all, then I imagine they'll stop.

The shit people complain about.

 

It seems Uinta's beer line up is heavily influenced by the restrictions posed on beer sales in Utah where, according to the Beer Institute, 3.2 (4% abv) beer made up 87% of beer sales in 2011 (it was 96% of beer sales in 2009). It would seem as though Uinta is simply making the most out of the commercial opportunities that exist in their homestate by brewing a large number of 4% beers. If these beers are popular in Utah it only makes sense that they would try to sell them elsewhere, where the lower abv makes them into a "session beer" alternative, rather than the "temperance drinks" that these beers represent in Utah.

I of course can't speak to the quality of their beers, but when one considers the legislative situation in Utah, their line up of beers makes alot of sense in offering more or less hoppy pale ales (or IPAs), which are the big sellers elsewhere as far as styles go, only at the government mandated 4% (in those retail channels which aren't allowed to carry stronger beers that is).

In Sweden where beer stronger than 3.5% is only allowed to be sold in monopoly stores, craft breweries brew beers at that particular abv, or at the lower abv of 2.8%. If these restrictions didn't exist, it is unlikely that they would bother brewing such weak beers, but they obviously feel that it's an opportunity to reach more consumers by accessing the grocery stores, of which there are thousands, compared to limiting themselves to the 400 government monopoly stores (and the 3.5% segment still makes up a healthy portion of total beer sales here, so there's a market to be tapped, just as in Utah with their 3.2 beer market).

 

Session IPA's don't do much for me. I don't get Imperial Pils, and pumping up Lagers to 8% ABV. I've had some tremendous lagers and Pils lately that are far from boring, and a Durham brew pub that makes terrific British inspired styles that push 4% and incredibly flavorful. IPA's need enough malt to balance out the bitter or they're just painful to drink, I think some styles would lend better to session than an IPA.

 

You truly have a penchant for being overly dramatic. If you can't handle someone disagreeing with your opinion or pointing out when you say something ridiculous you may not want to post your opinion on a forum dedicated to opinions.




Why brew so many hop forward variants? Because it's nice to have options. There are many occasions where a 4.0% beer suits me much more than one that is 7.5% ... what's wrong with having options? And honestly, it isn't as if Uinta sees such a demand for their IPA that it would even make sense to entertain the notion of of axing stuff from their lineup to make more of the IPA. They're hardly The Alchemist.





And where did I say you can't complain about it? Care to point that out? Your post, sans the info that you bought a mixed twelve pack, came off as downright goofy .... "as I sit drinking this style that I dislike/don't get but for some odd reason just paid money for ..."

 

I agree with what you said above. BUT IPA's are and have been the fastest growing segment of the craft market for some time.

 

Sometimes I want to drink a nicely hopped beer without drinking any beers exceeding 5.5% ABV. I like having those options.

 

Why does every beer from every brewery have to be a BA-centric "good beer?"

Personally, I love pale ales, I love session IPAs, and I love regular IPAs/DIPAs and I'm more than happy to pay a premium for all of them. There are plenty others out there who feel the same way.

 

i sort of know what you are saying flern. and i find this to be true among any number of breweries...

i will now submit a statement of pure heresy (i am sure.)

i live in northern cal and have been drinking Lagunitas for 15+ years. i visit the brewery a couple times a year just to see what they have on tap that you cant get outside the taproom. (i drink mostly IPAs and mix in some stouts, porters, belgians, and pilsners depending on the time of year or when i am just burned out on too many IIPAs.... )

back to the point, while i consider myself a "fan" of the brewery, i find that from their pale ale through their ipa, through summin summin, wild, the fusions, and even to a degree into their barley wine and stouts.... i find all their beers taste a little bit the same. maybe it is the water, house yeast (my guess), malt and hop choice, equipment, employees, methods... maybe it is just in the air. but there is a sameness to their brews to the point that i often feel they are just tweeking a little bit here and there as opposed to making something wholly and uniquely new.

ESPECIALLY for "pale ale"/yellow beers... i think it is the nature of the beast: unless you use different water, malts or yeast strains, they are all going to be a shade of the same.

go to lagunitas on any given day and they will have 15+ beers on tap, and about 10 of them will taste like a variation of the same beer.

 

"IPA" has become little more than a valuable marketing tool. It used to be a beer style, with specific attributes in terms of color, IBUs, ABV, etc. But then IPA became the most popular style of craft beer, and brewers began to realized that they would sell more bottles of a new "red IPA" than they would of the same beer marketed as an amber ale, and more "belgian IPA" than they would a hoppy blonde ale, and so on. The result is that by now "IPA" can mean virtually anything: we have black ones, red ones, straw colored, amber; we have "session" IPAs with ABV's in the low 4s and "imperial" with ABVs over 12, we have IPAs with IBUs in the 30s and up over 100, IPAs made with assertive belgian yeasts and "IPLs" with lager yeast. Etc etc etc.

I don't suppose this matters much. It's like arguing about the difference between stouts and porters.