Beer Impression, Balance vs. Impact

I think there's a place for both and enjoy both. I don't need to be "wow'd" every time, I just want a well crafted beer with some substance.

 

Balance. Anybody can make food or drink that will blow a customer's face off. I mean, anybody.

The need to have your head blown off with every sip is a sign of youth. We all have to go extreme for a little while.

Eventually you'll come around. We all do.

 

A steady diet of German hefeweizens and lagers can bring your taste buds back to enjoying the simpler flavors in beer.

 

You lost me when you said you didn't get a "impact" from Pliny hahaha Bias I know but I'm honest about it hahah Cheers

 

Damn ! that's a lot, it's 5:50 at the brewery. I didn't know Pliny made it way out there. How fresh is it when it gets to you ?

 

Beers with that amazing balance give me that impact. I dont look for impact but it happens. Schlafly Kolsch for example. It was so good i finished it in less than 5 minutes but was so tasty that i still remember it almost a year later.

 

I like both impact and balance:

Two Hearted
Prima Pils
Founders Porter
Red Chair
Best Brown
Left Hand Milk Stout(non nitro)
Dogfish 90
SN Ruthless

The oldies but goodies can still provide a good punch

 

This reminds me of the first time I had Sucks on tap, bad weekend, sitting at a pizza joint with my wife. Ordered the Sucks and I looked at my wife and said "We are going to be here a while". I don't mind the occasional Impact beer, but if I am buying more than one, it is going to be a balanced beer. I keep Sucks (when I find it fresh), MetaModern and soon to be when they get thru canning it 11 Below Color Blind at my house for recreational drinking .
But I am going to have to disagree on Heady and Bomb being impact beers. I find Heady a tremendously balanced beer, and Bomb to me is a great Imperial Stout, that carries it's ABV quite well. When you say Impact beer I start thinking about Palate Wrecker and Boozy RIS that don't stand a chance of cooling off no matter how long you age them.

 

If your planning on a beercation the place to come is California. Your getting those beers pretty fresh, that's awesome.

 

This is true. Almost like an IPA-detox. :-)

 

Apologies to the OP, but this truly reads like a parody of the whole scene lately.

 

I like em all and I don't get bored, variety is its own reward.

 

It's beer specific. Great world class beer comes as a result of the whole. Some do it with impact, others with balance while most do it with a combination of factors. That is why it's called the brewers art.

 

Please. Don't ever taste IPA's back to back. The first IPA alters the taste and experience of the second IPA, so much so that the second IPA would have come across your palate differently by itself the next day. That has been my experience 100% of the time.

These beers are expensive to get out of distribution.

 

Balance for me, anyone can make a super bitter IPA or a super Bourbon tasting BA Stout. Give me balance, because i think that is tougher to achieve, and I enjoy a balanced beer more

 

I've never had a Pliny a month out so I can't say what it was like, but if its just a week old or so the hops cascade through your sinuses without any hint of bitterness on the palate. Very smooth body with malt presence, but no malt taste. Then, miraculously, the beer finishes crisp and clean. Its the type of beer you could drink one after the other all day long no matter the situation or the weather.

The hop bill on the Heady is obviously smaller. It does not send hops cascading through your sinuses like the Pliny does. But the Hop profile is much more advanced that the Pliny, to the point where the beer tastes almost like some kind of wit. No real bitterness, but it kind of leaves you in awe of what can be done with hops these days.

Both excellent beers, but so wildly different that they have no business ever being compared to one another.