Awkward ABV spot

For Archer fans, and for the OP, you're talking about...


Also, to @SFACRKnight -just had Deep Space last night @10% and didn't get any booze off it. Ridiculously smooth. Dangerous... but it was only 2 weeks old..

 

Yes, but the health issue (herniated disc/sciatica) is not really affected by alcohol, but rather it prevents me from being active...thus a need to reduce my calories and volume to offset the likelihood of gaining weight.

Get this...I've been drinking Miller Lite...and get this, I actually find it to be enjoyable if ice cold.

 

Personally I find the 8%-9%ish range kind of dangerous. Especially for IPA's. At 10% plus I'm usually pretty careful and slow in drinking them, they also tend to be non IPA's as well. When you have a few high ABV IPA's on the other hand they go down a bit too quickly. I've learned to not break out the high ABV IPA's at family gatherings....

 

You're a wise man. I too learned this long ago after a rather disastrous Christmas Eve,

 

If I'm only drinking 2-3 brews, I like the 7 to 7.5% range. Jai Alai and Centennial are great 12oz beers for this. Singlecut has thrown me for a loop a couple of times, but only because those 16oz cans catch me off guard. I had a Modern Times - Citadel (7.5%) bomber the other night that I finished up my night with, and when I was done that, I was DONE!

 

My kingdom for reliably fresh hoppy beers in the 5-6% range.

 

6-7.5% is where I prefer my hoppy beers, for the most part.

 

I love a good shunning at a family gathering. Nothing makes an afternoon or evening more fulfilling than dirty looks from relatives about whose thoughts I couldn't care less.

 

I can't say any particular ABV is awkward, like style just depends on my mood.

 

Agree. Enough body to be a little chewy, but not boozy/thick and sticky nor the other extreme of session IPA "hop water".

 

Hate to break from the group, but if you consider 7% a DIPA by default that's just ridiculous. In that case just make every IPA a DIPA and reserve IPA for sessions. FOH! For me most DIPA's are 8% plus, with only a few true DIPAs in the 7's.

 

I've learned the opposite, my family doesn't have the stomach for them so nobody takes my beers! Cheers!

 

Agree, I don't think it was NEIPAs specifically, just the timeline when brewers started to navigate towards the extremes vs. the median ABV. Most of the classic American IPAs and even West Coast IPAs that were widely distributed and regional are between 6-8%.

 

Once upon a time there was a lighter IPA-like beer style that was simply called a pale ale too.

 

Most Tree House DIPA fall < 8%

 

Those pale ales don't sell as well as IPAs, you know.

 

deep space isn't a huge boozy mess, however deep earth is of a similar ABV, and it's less obvious. Both are great beers in their own right, but in comparison to each other the booze is more prominent in deep space.

 

Yep, I've been saying for a while: I like single IPAs (<~7%) and TIPAs (>~10%), but I almost never buy DIPAs anymore. That 7-10% range can be too easy-drinking to have just one, but too strong to have more than one. At least the 10+ percenters feel like sippers. Some may disagree with my style definitions (or the very existence of a "triple IPA"), but there is my logic, nonetheless.

 

I get what your saying OP with this awkward ABV range. In my experience, the only time beers in that range become awkward is if they don't drink like the bigger beers that they are. When, for instance, that 7.5% goes down like a 5%. When in doubt, balance it out during a session, and respect the ABV.

 

Ive always considered 8% as the minimum ABV for a DIPA. IPAs clocking in over 7.5% would just be considered strong IPAs.

Agree there's been an awesome uptick in hop forward, super flavorful, lower abv ales in the last few years but don't really think there has been a decreased in 7-8% abv brews either.

#drinkmorepaleales