Looking for generally unpopular opinions you might have, or any hot takes with regards to beer or breweries (and their respective culture). Doesn't matter if it's mild or not (everything is relative) but the more controversial, the better! I personally believe that some variety of disease should kill off enough hop varieties (temporarily, until genetic engineering / breeding fixes the problem) used most-commonly by breweries for IPAs and pale ales, to the point where - for a few years - it's too expensive to brew the styles, allowing for greater creativity in other styles (and more marketing for different styles in an obscurity arms race).
Hazy IPA’s are the American Adjunct Lager of the craft beer world. Some taste ok, some taste horrible, but damn few taste excellent. Plus 75% of them all taste the same.
Slight twist on what you said: I'd say that 75% of them taste the same - awful. I've had my mind blown by some hazies. But quite frankly, most of the breweries out there are terrible at making them.
Barleywines are overrated. So are doppelbocks. There isn't a nickel's worth of difference between the best macro AAL and the worst macro AAL. Insipid swill is insipid swill. (Except for Bud Light Platinum. That stuff is world-class nasty. It smells like the stagnant ditch water we played in when we were kids. Good times...) I've never had a bad glitter beer. Pumpkin beers rule, if they're brewed with pumpkin. Five dollars an ounce for KBBS is worth it. There should be an app so you could scan a beer's UPC and find out which conglomerate, if any, owns the brewery. I'd buy that one. I love taprooms that have 50 different craft beers on draught. If they have lambics and/or English milds, so much the better.
As far as LA: Highland Park you can go fuck yourselves with your $9 plus pints of non BA beer and $10+ BA 5oz pours ( @Beersnake ) your awards don't mean shit. Also please ban fucking strollers. Adderal Mom Meeting Group with bored , out of shape and balding Beta Dad in tow is fucking annoying. Homage please shut down already..your shitty fruit beer ,hipster haven dj night brewery is the worst thing to happen to LA . And your beer sucks. Monkish please stay the FUCK in the south bay and OC area. Last thing we need.is more hipster losers walking drunk on sunset during lame ass baseball season. And your beer is soooo fucking 2014 mulebro era. fuck you guys. Angel City ... i did a backflip when i heard you are probably shutting down. Shoulda veen you and not Mumford , you fucking losers. I think that's it
Citra ruined beer. Before Citra (BC) was introduced, I never heard the word “tropical” to describe beer flavor. Before Citra, beer tasted like beer, now it tastes like some cocktail with an umbrella stuck in it that you sip poolside in Acapulco.
Pliny the Elder's label looks gorgeous. I was actually confused when I heard people talking about how 'ugly' it is.
A corollary to this is the 50-tap bar that gets me in the door because of the extensive selection only to discover that half of the taps are used by ciders, seltzers, meads, and even (shudder) wines.
There is more to the lager world than just Pilsner. Breweries-if the answer to “variety” in your 12 draft lines of hazy IPAs is a Pilsner, Italian Pilsner, west coast Pilsner, American Pilsner, Mexican lager w/lime or your “fun” interpretation of a Kolsch (because you put grapefruit in it and can’t actually brew a decent pale lager), do some research and explore the possibilities of brewing in the lager catalogue.
Blasphemy! Love me some helles from a 16 oz can. In a related note - Jack's Abby - y'all used to be the best value in the game with the $9.99/ 6 pack 16 oz cans and then you pulled the okeydoke with selling 4 packs of 16 oz cans at the same price you used to sell the 6 packs at.
And to add to this - if you breweries out there can't brew a proper pilsner, thats okay. Whats NOT okay is branding your pale ale as a "pilsner" - thats straight bullshit and I dont want any parts of it.
