Are Bittering Hops Over?

I started home brewing recently and to be honest I surprised myself with the results, especially with hoppy beers (an ounce of hops in a gallon batch). It made me think about the trend of lots of late hop additions.
I know this is very simplistic, but to people who really like the non bitter character of hops isn't it almost impossible to make a bad beer (providing you don't really mess up and infect it).

 

You'd be surprised at how easy it is to make bad beer.

 

I'm more disappointed in the reduction of standard imperial stouts for sugary, barrel aged stouts than I am about the NEIPA takeover.

To stay relevant to this thread, I don't think the use of bittering hops is obsolete. They're still around, although less so than before. I believe they will make some sort of come back in the future as well.

 

Give me Old Rasputin and Pliny the Elder and I'll be a happy guy.

 

While “bittering hops” (or early additions) aren’t the rage right now, they’ll be back.

The pendulum is always swinging. I have seen some brewers returning to a more “bitter” profile for their IPA’s like we saw 10-15 years ago.

Pretty soon, someone is going to take a shot at brewing something akin to the original Ruination. I, for one, can’t wait. Lastly, I will say I don’t care how many late hopping techniques (whirlpool, flameout, hash, etc.) you employ, one cant get the same level of bitterness and bite without a solid early charge (be it extract or whole hops).

 

I have varied experiences here. For example the Trillium beers that I have consumed have had noticeable (moderate) bitterness. In contrast the Tree House beers that I have tasted were less bitter.

I suppose you get to choose what you prefer here.

Cheers!

 

I think the flavor and aroma hops can mask a mild off-flavor that is due to a brewing error, but I don't think they can mask a weak malt base because the beer will have a very unbalanced taste to it. That's an error that is not frequently seen (at least not for me) but it is easily noticed once it smacks you in the face. It essentially causes a beer to taste like hop tea.

 

Problem solved- every NEIPA should be served with a lemon wedge on the lip of the glass- you want more bitterness, squeeze it...

 

Beats the alternative

 

That SN Hazy is low in bitterness to me but a "comfortable" low in bitterness, if you catch my drift.

 

You said it, my good fellow!

 

Yeah, it's a separate demographic from folks like us. There was a post by Bill Manley not too long ago that confirmed that that's how they were looking at the overall market.

 

I recently visited a "highly hyped" brewery that has made their name producing NEIPA's. Not only did their brands lack in character (within 1 or 2 degrees of separation, they really all tasted VERY similar), the only bitterness I got was in the form of yeast bite and residual hop particulate.

Personally, I don't understand this trend. While I have had a couple in the style that I have enjoyed, I don't have patience for rushing beer...If you recognize my avatar, Duvel (and especially Duvel Tripel Hop Citra) is my benchmark for well crafted (i.e. consistent), pleasantly hoppy, beautiful looking and food friendly ale that is hard deny.

 

While I do love trying all different styles and techniques of the IPA category, the Citra/Mosaic Double Dry Hopped and Hop Bursting is getting stagnant to me. I’m sitting here sipping Sierra Nevada’s Hop Bullet with Magnum.. I grabbed it because it was a Magnum Hopped DIPA. Minty, Spicy and Resinous...the flavors I’ve been missing for a while now. So no. Bittering hops are not dead...you just have to fish them out in the sea of Hop Smoothies out there.

 

I think the bitter IPA trend has died down quite a bit but I think it will come back eventually as the pendulum swings the other way again. To me these trends are tiring because they seem to dominate everything and then they start to squeeze out some of the other styles that aren't like them or those styles become versions of them (IPLs, anyone?) but such is life...it is a business after all.

 

Melvin, Comrade, and La Cumbre are all making great beers that are firmly bitter but also bring huge aroma and flavor to the table. I crave these beers, and while neipa are pretty ok, I will always crave some bitterness.

 

Rome fell, the Pax Brittanica has passed, America will inevitably lose its influence, no matter the time span, and New England milkshakes will be replaced as well. I enjoy the new generation of IPAs, but all things must pass. Five years from now I could be chasing sour browns with botanical additions. Or I could eschew beer entirely for single malts. Who knows. Drink what makes you happy .

 

Chinook is great. Columbus and Magnum, too.

 

Yes and no. Overall? No. For IPAs? No, but they're less important. I don't know if any of you have had Liquid Truth Serum from Dogfish Head, but that's an IPA that uses no hops during the boil, and yet there is still a discernible bitterness to it. It's quite a pleasant beer, actually. I like it quite a bit. On the other hand, I have had some NEIPAs with absolutely no bitterness to them. I really liked them, but because they finished dry. I do love some bitterness in my IPAs, but dryness is the more important aspect, in my opinion, because it's the possibility of being cloying that is the bigger threat when it comes to lack of bitterness.

 

Well obviously we need a new style!