Hop burnout. Is it just me?

I'm not burned out, but I smell what you're cookin'. Whenever I travel, I like to pick up a few unfamiliar beers to share with my friends back home. I stopped at a small liquor store just this afternoon to look for something promising and found myself sorting through piles of IPA's before stumbling upon a six-pack of brown ale. That's not to say that I won't be coming back home with a few IPA's, but between those, lagers, and seltzers, there ain't much room left.

 

I'm only burned out on the same hop varietals all the time, e.g. Citra, Mosaic, so on. Not the hops on their own but when it's the same two or three in a hop bill over and over, it's a bit boring. I know there are many factors at play that make those hops so prevalent but I appreciate the creativity of certain brewers throwing in some different/unique/rarer hops along with those varietals and how their particular yeast choice works with them.

In such a hop-centric style, exploring newer or lesser known hops is fun; revisiting staple ones that are less popular these days is also fun.

Though the majority of my beer buying revolves around IPAs, I buy and enjoy a lot more lagers of varying styles these days, along with a normal rotation of Belgians, stouts, etc. Helps to reset, challenge and refine my palate.

 

It’s real and it’s miserable. I’ve had it last months, even beers like Miller Lite made me gag. So I drank mostly wine and bourbon, gin for that time.

So, at that time I drank all IPAs, good, bad, mediocre, so I narrowed my window to only drinking the better IPAs, I severely limited my intake and went back to Pils and AALs. This problem is best kept at bay up front than getting hit with it and trying to get around it. Don’t drink all IPAs everyday even if you love them, as I do, hop burnout is inevitable unless you scale the hops back. And it’s not just mediocre IPAs, I flamed out on Hill Farmstead and Heady Topper in Vt, but once it hits it’s pretty ugly, again moderation of the hoppy stuff is the key.

 

I hear you. Over the years I have learned to deliberately keep my IPA consumption low so they continue to taste vibrant and exciting to me. Oddly, I don't need to use this strategy with other styles that I love most.

 

depends.

 

An ounce of prevention.... it seriously is no fun.

 

I have nothing but fun drinking beer.

 

I gave away maybe 5-6 Growlers of Hill Farmstead, to anyone who wanted one, I was sitting in BlackBack Pub in Waterbury Vt drinking a HF Susan when it hit me. Jesus, it was like bam I can’t take another sip.

 

I love IPAs and hoppy beers but I get burnout too. I like to keep my fridge stocked about half and half malty/hoppy beers. I like to alternate between them when I’m drinking. Fortunately I don’t seem to have any trouble finding good local beer of many styles.

 

I haven’t hit that wall yet. Maybe because my tastes are so variable and I gap my IPA’s with other varieties. Obviously I was hot and heavy into them when I first got into craft beers as most people are. But as I discovered all the other styles it divided my attention a bit, enough to keep me excited about everything.

 

I think the key is to mix it up. If all you drink is Hazy ipas it does get redundant. mix in some wild ales, porters, stouts, etc.

 

Switch styles up often, and even radically, to keep things interesting. It helps if you like many styles, but if you do this simple thing with even four or five styles you will never get burnout, LTS, or bored.

 

Absolutely agree. I drink a shit-ton of IPAs, but I throw in more than an occasional stout (FBS) in the evening to break things up. When I want a change of pace, PseudoSue stomps across my palate.

 

As others have posted variety is the spice of life. Drink a variety of beer styles to keep your palate happy.

Cheers to variety!

 

Happened to me years ago, kind of. Even when IPA was most of what we would enjoy, always had other styles in the mix to break up the flavor profiles.

I still buy and enjoy IPA's (often west-coast varieties primarily now), I'd say instead of 50-75% of our mix it's probably less than 25%. Anytime we sit down to enjoy a few beers a few days a week we always bounce around style to style, of course. I'd say it's pretty rare we have more than one IPA during a beer session, honestly.

Often it's lager heavy (pils, helles, rauchbier) with sours, porter/stouts, wheat beers and belgians in the mix.

 

@TheIPAHunter

I know over the years you get asked a lot and it’s prob a dead horse by now. I also know u are super loyal and always have world class ipas on hand. Is there a secret to not getting burnt out? I also know recently that you went old school for a bit but maybe you can shed some light on this topic? Thank u sir

 

I'm going to be really sad if this ever happens to me, honestly. I consider myself a huge fan of IPAs, specifically stronger hazy ones with cool and intriguing hop combinations that provide nuanced and complex flavors, but if I ever was in the middle of a glass of freaking Susan and I had this type of epiphany, I'd be pretty upset, as that's one of my absolute favorite IPAs ever.