Fruit IPAs and how we got there.

I like fruit in IPA's and cannot lie, on this you can rely, when IPA get's fruity, it makes my taste buds juicy... I have always liked IPA's with fruit and without fruit, just depends how well it is done. Do I care that they are suddenly a craze? Nope! I will drink the good ones and avoid the crap ones just as I did before they became popular.

What I can't stand is drinking a beer and it tastes like cheap extract was dumped in the batch and labeled as a fruit beer, dump it!

 

I just wonder if in 1995-2005 timeframe if Nelson, Galaxy, Mosaic and Citra hops were available over Cascade and Centennial, if larger % of population would have gone IPA crazy back then vs. now? Only a small % of craft drinkers, your hardcore hop heads were really into IPAs during that era.

 

If I may make a bit of a forced analogy, the newer fruity and less bitter IPAs are being received in some quarters like Metallica's Black Album. IPAs should be loud, harsh, bitter and not at all something your mom would have any interest in sampling damn it!

 

Blueberry ipa from licking hole has one of the best blueberry flavors I've had in beer reminds me of quaker oatmeal and it's damn tasty

 

Yeah, my dad heard me listening to Blackend back in 1988, and thought James was talking about killing your mother and such! To this day I have to explain to my old man that it was a environmental/political reference in the lyrics. Sorry, slight detour..back to fruity IPAs and Load/Reload.

 

The addition of fruit is to attract the quasi craft drinker. They already had Blue Moon with an Orange on it. They've had Shocktop with fruit.
They might not look for something that says IPA, but a Watermelon/Peach/Boysenberry IPA now that sounds tasty.

 

I generally like my IPAs without fruit, however, I thought Grapefruit Sculpin was really good compared to regular Sculpin. The other Sculpin variants did not do anything for me.

 

Roger that!

Cheers!

 

I'm into no tricks, it's why HT and the like are so well regarded. Just so basic.

 

As with all things, some will be good, and some will be bad (and that is largely subjective). I like Pineapple Sculpin more than the original and any of the variants.

 

A little goes a long way when it comes to this. It should be used to enhance the natural flavor that comes from the hops and not taste like beer with artificial flavor added. It's like anything, it can be very good if it's done well by people who know what they're doing. It can also be awful if it's not.

 

i don't mind real fruit/ juice as long as it doesn't get artificial tasting.

 

a lot of the newer folks chasing rare beer(new england ipas) don't actually like the taste of real beer.

They don't like the taste of lagers or traditional hops or belgian yeast for that matter(tripples and whites.)

 

What does "real beer" taste like? A category of beverage that non-controversially contains stouts, goses, pilsners, chardonnay barrell aged brett beers, and horse blanket flavored wild ales seems like it can easily make room for some fruit forward rather than pine tree flavored IPAs.

 

lager yeast, a few varieties of base malt and noble hops. Folks don't know where to start.

 

Sierra Nevada Beer camp 2016 was a tropical IPA with like mango in it.It was different but good for the season.

 

i really like mango and peach and apricot flavors so if i see those i get excited. I dont think ive had these "turbid" juice bombs but id try one. But im not sure if the popularity comes from thr fact that they are great or the fact that the ones released now are so local amd hard to get, its the whole i cant get it so i want it even more that clouds judgement.

A beer that i paid $30 for and flew across thr country couldnt possibly be a bad beer right?
Thats what ill think until i try for myself.

 

ill say flatly that the beer of my family is the ballast point mango even keel, mom digs it brother also likes it, they buy it independently of me. I dig it but its not real.

 

I'm personally not a fan of the overall trend of the numerous fruit-beers coming out, but I never shy away from trying something new that I haven't had before. I feel like you have to be careful with words like "real" versus "traditional". I'm not sure why an IPA with fruit should be considered less of a "real" beer than a "traditionally" made lager. It may break with how IPA's have been made in the past, but it's still an IPA. Just my two cents.

 

I'm willing to try most fruity IPAs. Some are good, some are a letdown. It really depends on what fruit is used, how natural it tastes, and if the fruit complements the hops. For example, I didn't like the Pineapple Sculpin variant, it tasted like canned pineapple juice and was just a bizarre combination of flavors to me. But I thought Grapefruit was an improvement on the original because it already has some grapefruit-y flavor to it from the hops, so it was a nice boost of bitterness that seemed like it belonged. I am getting a little tired of the swarm of tangerine, mango, blood orange, etc IPAs that are coming out. It feels like everyone's doing it just to stay trendy, not because they actually think they can bring something new to the table. But if I hear enough good things (or bad things, out of morbid curiosity) or it's a brewery I like enough, I'll give it a try.

Generally, I seem to prefer more dank/floral/resinous type IPAs, I just think those are more interesting and complex as far as flavor goes.