Evolution of Beer: What's Next?

Here in Europe, craft beer is hitting stride like the US did in 2010. Everybody loves the Yakima hops in their American-style IPAs, and breweries like Popihn and La Debauche (France), Labietis and Laugar (Latvia), Stygbergets (Sweden) and Basqueland (Spain) are adding inspired, creative, cultural twists on their offerings. Tap takeovers are boosting brewpubs regularly. City bulletins feature local micro-breweries. Community markets present organic beers. Craft beer pubs are packed and thriving. Themed food and beer pairings sell out quickly.
What’s next?
Hopefully not a rash of pumpkin ales.,.
The cycle of growth is on the upswing on this side of the pond, and the joy is infectuous, despite the presence of giants (like AB InBev) and their brands.
We’ll see how it all shakes out in a couple of years. But right now, the market doesn’t feel like it’s cannibalizing itself, collaborations are unifying brewers, beer is a Thing, and there’s an air of real Fun going on.,.

 

When it comes to IPAs what is the percentage of Juicy/Hazy IPA vs. ‘regular’ IPA?

Cheers!

 

If Orca is asking seriously, then yeah, it adds a considerable amount of time, danger and expense to simply pouring a beer. In my experiences, it either didn't impact the flavor but only impacted temperature and carbonation - not making the process worth a repeat... or it significantly altered the flavor for the negative - not making the process worth a repeat. I suspect the differences in my experiences were due to differences in metal temperature, contact time, and residual sugar in the beers. I would like to think that when it is done in Germany with more expertise, it can hit a much nicer middle mark rather than just being a carbonation novelty or a heavy-handed downgrade. Maybe the third time will be the charm.

 

@dcotom is from Iowa so I would have expected deep-fried beer

 

Most Euro IPA, DIPA, TIPA brag ‘Unfiltered and Unpasteurized’., they claim a 2 year BB date., and everything is ‘bottle (or can) conditioned’., so, my guess is 90% ‘hazy’.,.
There’s some good West Coast style - my Summer beer has been Gallia Nouveau Western, with its mix of Simcoe, Cascade and Columbus hops. What’s interesting is the use of European pilsner malts, which makes for a different flavor.
New Zealand hopped brews are around also., moreso than I’d seen in the States.,,
Cheers!

 

Just for clarification, "unfiltered and unpasteurized" does not necessarily = Juicy/Hazy.

Juicy/Hazy IPAs are brewed using a significant amount of protein rich grains (e.g., wheat, oats, etc.) along with certain yeast strains which promote the juicy/hazy aspects. And for many of the US brewed Juicy/Hazy IPAs the other attribute is lower levels of IBUs.

And claiming a BB date of 2 years is absolute nonsense. Last evening I had a Hill Farmstead DIPA that was canned in August and continuously stored cold since my purchase at the brewery and at 2+ months of age that beer was a 'ghost' of what is was when fresh.

Cheers!

 

Unfiltered is admitting you don't have the space for a centrifuge. Good cellar practices can get you a very clean and clear looking beer, however. Unpasteurized is just how craft beer should exist. Period.
Hazy can mean one of several things. Bad cellar practices is a huge one. If you've ever harvested off of a yeast cake. This was Bells Two Hearted calling card for many of its early years in existence. This can be as simple as rushing the beer into production before its ready, or more likely nowadays in tandem with that. It will be that oats, and wheat have been used in combination with hops.
You will have a superior carbonation, and you might get some more life from bottle conditioned, but, outside of an actual barleywine. Two years for most anything pale ale related is being mighty generous of your expectations that it will have flavors worth remembering. The modern TIPA is just a barleywine pretending it should be consumed quickly. It might handle age better than its lower abv cousins, but more than likely not. Because it wasn't brewed with being kept in mind.
There are so many more interesting base grains to work with than x.xx per pound two row in making these varietals. But, in tandem with quantity of and also the price of the hops they use when they are so much per pound It's just a matter of cost in producing them and how its gets passed along into your buying it.

 

Well, a "Chronology of one beer drinker's preferences" anyway.

 

To clarify: In my previous response I was not asking seriously, I was being completely facetious. I’d never heard of this practice before and assumed it was a joke. From the photo it looks insane (then again, I tend to avoid engaging in most activities where the use of safety goggles is advisable). All of that said, I’m not at all surprised that it began in Germany—and I say this as a 3/4 German.

I’ll just stick to pouring my beer into a glass and drinking it—kind of like my response to @dcotom’s recent thread about adding ingredients to cheap beer to make it taste better, I believe that beer worth drinking shouldn’t require any amendments or “tweaks” on the consumer side.

 

I'd never heard of it either until this thread from February 2023 popped up. I wanted to find out what, if anything, it actually did to change the character of the beer. After hunting down a suitable tool at the thrift store, I dug a Schell's Bock out of the cellar and set up a little side-by-side experiment. The result was a sweeter and silkier beer, with more depth of caramel flavor and a toasted marshmallow note. Untappd even has a listing for Bock Poked. It's legit, and you don't need safety goggles. But, hey, if you want to go through life drinking unpoked bocks, it's your loss.

 

@beergoot apparently disagrees. But this is interesting. First, who is the first person 400 years ago who thought, I’m really enjoying this beer, but what if I stuck a red-hot metal poker in it first? And second, it makes me wonder why a brewery wouldn’t just do this on a mass scale before bottling/canning if the end result is a better beer. Presumably the effect could be preserved once the chemical transformation has occurred. Or, maybe I just don’t understand how this works.

 

Yeah, I figured it was tongue in cheek. I don't know where it began, but it also has a history in the US and (I assume) the UK in some shape or form. "Evolutions" in beer tend to look backwards as much as forwards. At it's most complicated, people were doing this to beer that had extra items added to it (like egg), but at it's most simplistic, it can create a warm foam on top of a cool beer.

Ha.

 

I would like more pastry beers and fruited seltzers


Oh wait . . .

 

Gotta be someone familiar with brewing who had a hunch that it would create some interesting flavors. But also, like @zid mentioned, the tradition seems to be tied up with a whole history of adding other stuff to beer like egg.

This sounds to me like trying to package pre toasted toast.

 

I feel like you need cask/real ale in your life. I see you like the style but has this serving method struck your curiosity at all? Cheers.

 

Another great idea! To paraphrase myself above, why hasn’t that caught on?

Well, no, I didn’t think you were kidding and, what’s more, I had the same idea. Hmmm… let’s combine fire, red-hot metal, an alcoholic beverage, and glass—what could go wrong? It sounds like a Darwin Award waiting to happen.

 

I feel like my tastes and beer preferences have changed several times over the years. Sometimes it's the result of traveling and trying something new. Sometimes it's a matter of learning what other people like and why. Sometimes it's a matter of industry trends. Other times it's random luck. I'd suggest drinking what you like most of the time, but don't be afraid to try new beers or revisit older ones you didn't love at the time. As long as the beers you enjoy are still available, you have a fallback if the latest trends don't jive with you.

 

I assume you're addressing this to me. I've been looking for cask ales for years. I thought I'd finally found a place in Des Moines that offered ale on cask, so I drove down there for lunch one day. I had fish & chips and what I thought was Fuller's London Pride on cask. After I posted about that, a couple of eagle-eyed BA's did some investigating and discovered that the beer was actually kegged beer. During a trip to Columbus back in April I did a little brewery-hopping and finally found my holy grail at Barley's Brew Pub: AMP IPA, an English IPA on cask. I would absolutely LOVE to get cask/real ale without having to drive hundreds of miles for it. Hope springs eternal.

 

I have the good fortune that I can get cask beer relatively close (several places less than 15 miles from me) but I infrequently make those trips since there are lots of high quality places much closer. I should caveat that I enjoy drinking my homebrewed Bitter Ales since they are bottle conditioned and consequently fit the description of being Real Ale.

Cheers!