OKAY Enough with IPA madness

There are plenty of spots where the styles you desire are found in Seattle. Head over to the Northwest forum, and the folks there would be happy to provide specific suggestions.

Or, if your intent really is just to tilt at the windmill of IPA popularity, rage on.

 

IPAs are a new fad? You must have missed the Monkish crusades from 10 years ago.

 

Most of these breweries CAN'T make a halfway decent beer that isn't on the IPA spectrum. Ask them to create a proper old world style lager (pilsner) for example, and they wouldnt be able to do so without bastardizing (ie dry hopping) said beer.

 

I see this thread once a day here at least.

 

So Pivo Pils is a "bastardized" pilsner?

Interesting take.

 

I'll hold the door for you all, it could not be more wide open. @JackHorzempa @moodenba @steveh @MrOH

 

Sorry, popular for many reasons. I for one, love the infinite variety of aromas and flavors that hops can offer to IPA's.

While I agree they are dominant, and at times receptive at places, they are still my most frequent go-to.

 

Have you had Sierra Nevada

Have you had Sierra Nevada's pilsner? I thought it was a bottle of their pale ale.

 

TL;DR I went to one brewery and didn't like the selection.

 

So, the thing is, these days in pretty much every decent size metro area of this country you have producers of very high quality craft lager beer. I am not so sure I could say that in the days of the craft beer boom. These rants are kinda dated.

 

I went to Asheville and had to actively hunt down places with IPAs specifically hazy things. Everywhere was wilds and lagers with maybe 1 IPA to satisfy IPA drinkers.

 

OK Mike (@MikeBinLA), just to demonstrate how unwise I am, I will step into these shark infested waters.

Permit me to first preface that earlier this evening I had two homebrewed beers: Belgian Dubbel and Classic American Pilsner (CAP). And then to ‘round things out’ I had a can of Sierra Nevada Pils.

Back to some topics from the OP:

“It was disappointing. His lager was cloudy. My IPA was a very center of the road IPA. But sadly nothing there that you’d call artistic as an option.

‘I get that owners want to maximize profits and IPAs answer that goal because they are:

· Easy to make,

· Cheap to make,

· Fast to make,

· The high hop level masks imperfections,

· Most people use beer as an alcohol delivery device and the high ABV level of IPAs provides that,

· It’s the current fad so it sells fast”

IPA beers can be quite expensive to make since they utilize a large quantity of hops (both kettle hops additions and for dry hopping). And with the dry hopping aspect there is added production time.

“But at some point isn’t there a limit to how many variations you need to have on tap?”

I happen to share this thought. I too am often not thrilled to go into a brewpub/brewery taproom and see that more than 50% of the beers available are IPAs of some sort. But…breweries will produce what they think (know?) their customers want to drink.

“Couldn’t you be arsed to provide a few other options for people that want an artisan beer?”

Again, I am sympathetic here but if customers demand IPAs of various sorts so…

“I know Pilsners are hard to make and you can’t hide imperfections meaning you have to be a good brewer. There are no shortcuts.”

Yes, there is indeed a fair bit of technical skill to produce high quality Pilsners (e.g., my homebrewed Classic American Pilsner) but a brewery really should exercise the same level of care and brewing process to produce all of their products. Brewing the myriad of IPAs should exhibit the same level of care. I presently have an IPA which features Motueka hops in my primary fermenter in the dry hopping phase and I used the same level of care to brew that beer. This beer will not have to go through a lagering phase so that aspect in not present but…

“Maybe a Belgian beer? Ok I know, Tripels are also hard and take a particularly skilled brewmaster…”

Not really. What makes a Trappist/Abbey style beer is proper primary fermentation which includes a wise choice of yeast strain and proper fermentation conditions (e.g., fermentation temperature, pitch rate, etc.) Again, the same level of control for all beer styles. For the Belgian Dubbel I recently produced I chose the Westmalle yeast strain (i.e., Wyeast 3787), produced a yeast starter, and fermented warm(er) at around 73 degrees F.

“How about an Irish Red or English Pale Ale? I mean the real European versions of these not a quick American version.

While we’re on about British beers, what about a “Bitter”?”

Again, I am sympathetic here but breweries will likely choose to not produce these beers from an expected level of sales perspective. In a couple/few days I will be brewing my annual batch of Bitter Ale using Thomas Fawcett floor malted Maris Otter Pale Malt, East Kent Goldings Hops and the Timothy Taylor yeast strain (i.e., Wyeast 1469) purposefully fermented warm. I enjoy drinking this beer but would this be a commercial success?

There were a number of other beer styles mentioned. Some of them I homebrew, others I don’t.

I suppose my suggestion to @MitchSeattle would be: how about you too learn to homebrew so you can too ‘scratch your itch’?

Maybe the below linked article would be inspirational to you”

Cheers!

https://morebeer.com/blogs/articles...over-buying-beer?_pos=14&_sid=dde81e75c&_ss=r

 

I'll blow everyones' minds -- a local was having a great sale on Goose Island IPA 15 packs and I felt like a hop hit (it's really more AIPA than the English IPA they claim it to be).

I'm really enjoying a little detour from my usual go-tos. It's delicious.

Embrace diversity.

 

I think we should all get a free beer every time a new BA’s very first post is a rant thread on some random topic and then they never follow up.

 

My taste buds are stuck in the 20 century. Beers to my taste are out of fashion, similar to the observation by the initial poster. I'd prefer to find more to my liking, as the poster, when I make my rare forays out. But:
@ScaryEd said "So Pivo Pils is a bastardized pilsner?" I'd say yes to that question (but also Miller Lite, Brooklyn Crisp, Mexican Bohemia, etc). But I'm so far out of it that I say the same thing about Pilsener Urquell when I mentally compare it to the Urquell I drank 40 years before.
I can find enough stuff that I like, though.

 

Not sure why I'm catching strays all of the sudden after a nice day off. WTF did I do? I'm not sure what OP is on about? There are too many newer breweries that are throwing hoppy, cloudy beers at a dartboard? Yes, I agree. Same could be said for fruited sours and all the barrel aged, flavored, big old stouts. I'm looking at you Sapwood.

Are they filling the want of the typical consumer of local craft beer? yes.

Couple of day ago, after visiting Stone in RVA for it's last day, I stopped by The Answer for one last beer and some food (I do most of my public imbibing in the afternoon). Ordered what was listed as a traditional Pale Ale ale off the menu because I needed something hoppy to cut through the pork belly banh mi I had also ordered, and it was the only thing that didn't have NE or Imperial in the description. That glass was cloudy as hell, and I was pretty upset, but it had enough bitterness to cut through the fat of he pork belly (at least a half pound on the sandwich, no pate, but such is life) and fries, and with the happy hour deal, it was only $13 for the sandwich, fries, and beer. Can't really complain, the beer paired very well with the sandwich, even if it wasn't what I was expecting.

Would I have preferred something along the lines of a SNPA clone given the description? Yes, absolutely. Am I going to bitch about getting a beer that seems like what the average craft consumer wants, a sandwich with at least a half pound of meat that was delicious, as well as a generous portion of fries that stayed crispy even after cold while getting to be an old man and talk about how different RVA used to be before I moved away to Philly and then the DMV to the young man next to me when he struck up a conversation, all for $13 before tax and tip? No, there's no room for that.

I forgot what I was rambling about.

 

Also, pretty sure the other folks that got @'ed are at least 20 years older than me, so I take that as a compliment as me being wise beyond my years. Reinforces my nickname of Old Man from my time in Philly kitchens when I was only in my early 30s

 

That I actually know what movie this is from kinda makes me angry at myself. I shouldn't.