What beer style will be the next big craze?

I don't think IPAs or big BA stouts are going anywhere in the near future. But, I think the beer nerd focus will shift a bit to more of the subtle styles (particularly German). The Suarez Family is already getting tons of hype and they tend to do those styles.

 

Just when you think the IPA crazy is dying someone will come out with some other stupid IPA addition to make it popular again.

Id like to see things kinda go back to the ways it was and start making "clean" beers again instead of all these stupid hazy fruit crap IPA's.

 

Brown ales

 

How about good old fashioned drinking (as opposed to sipping,collecting and talking about) beer?

 

Pilsner.

 

It's going maybe 2 different ways. Either the fruit additions are going to keep getting more and more excessive until we have some sort of craft Zima that doesn't even resemble beer or brewers are going to try and lump what's popular into a single beer and hybridize impy stouts and DIPAs into some kind of 15%abv cascadian dark with coffee vanilla cherries barrels AND teeth stripping hops.

 

My money is on Saison. The hoppier versions can serve as a gateway for hop heads.

 

I think that trends within styles will certainly shift in popularity. For example, new hop varieties will continue to be developed to highlight different flavors. I for one do hope that skleice is correct. Especially in the case of big adjunct stouts/ barrel aged sours, the more breweries doing these styles the more bad examples out there where corners were cut in order to get in the gravy train.

 

Hoppy pils and saisons

 

My hope: Polish Grodziskie
Reality: some bullshit marketing beers like rainbow IPA with melon rind

 

Speaking of Zima I saw a brewery in Florida that was making hard seltzer water. Could be the new Zima.

 

Cheap, low abv beer sold by the pitcher. Paying $8 for a thimble of beer is getting tired.

 

Maybe Belgian-style IPAs? I had a Parallelogram from Finback last week that was just gorgeous.

 

The word "Unfiltered" will be more prominent on more bottles and cans in the immediate future.

Related/unrelated to that, I wouldn't be surprised if brewers attempt to produce pale opaque beers with Belgian yeast.

 

I think NE-style IPAs are overrated myself (although I like them), but I'm not sure I understand the hate.

It's not like filtered WC-style IPAs have gone anywhere? If anything, the shift towards haze means it's easier to find your favorite filtered IPA. Hell, even in San Francisco, we've gotten Maine Beer Co and Toppling Goliath in the past year probably because they're not as sought out anymore.

 

I hope really good German style Dunkels have their day. The beers are often excellent and seriously overlooked.

 

You just made me crave some Hirter Morchl