Enough with the hops already!

Not that easy: http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/enough-with-the-hops-already.112787/page-5#post-1780564

 

I hear ya, but I just see a boat-load of crappy IPA's on the shelves everywhere I go. I would guess the average shelf in my area has 15 shitty IPA's to every good one.

 

Buy what you like, easy as that. Unless it's a lager because quite often lagers are not available at bars due to their popularity or lack there of in America.

 

Got it. Sounds right.

 

Actually I would put hoppy in the same category as the rest of those.
Sour and bitter are two things I never want in my beer.
And I never fail to find beer that I like when I look.
Although I do have issue with the lack of IBU ratings on the bottles, but that's a different topic.

 

Sounds wrong to me. The bar in Philly's 30th Street train station has 10 taps and when I walked past there on Friday a couple of weeks ago 5 of them were lagers, including 3 Okstoberfest beers. I'm confident that when I next walk through that area this coming Friday the O-fests will have kicked but that at least 3 of the 10 taps will still be lagers.

 

So I suppose I'm now guilty of confirming other posters' biases?

 

Once Ipa's hit 100+ ibu's, I think some beers can lose there character and complexity

 

Try Resin from Sixpoint.

 

Naw,It struck me as something funny to say, playing around.

 

I really appreciate a good IPA (more specifically DIPAs), but I'll never consider them my favorite brew. If I get ahold of some good ones I'm very happy, but I find the style as a whole somewhat boring. There are so many more interesting things to do with beer and IPA just feels kind of basic and monotonous at this point.

 

Hop-head and proud.

 

I think that most people bringing up Belgian beers as an argument are only familiar with the great breweries in Belgium.
The majority of breweries in Belgium are making subpar & dull beers. You are really cherry picking breweries & beers which are head and shoulders above the rest. The sweet hop-less Belgian beer style became more dominant in the 1970s when the quality of Belgian beers fell down because pale lagers grew in popularity & brewers were trying to compete for costumers which preferred cheap pale lagers. Before that beers like Duvel, Westmalle Triple & Tripel Karmeliet were quite hoppier than what you get now.

Plenty of the better brewers in Belgium experiment with hops. Belgian brewing culture is at large shrinking & stagnant, you shouldn’t rebuke brewers who are trying to look for innovation.

USA craft beer scene is large, highly evolving & very diverse. I am pretty sure that you can find beers that suit your pallet if you don’t like hoppier beer or imperial beers. If not you have great access to exports compared to some other places. Lots of brewers are experimenting now with more balanced styles.

Complaining about the state of the American craft beer scene is really nitpicking. Especially compared to the waste-land that it used to be in the 70s.

 

Or using other posts to confirm your own?

 

How about using others' posts to confirm others' biases that hoppy ales rightfully dominate the market?

"We make small runs of classic German styles all the time. One of our head brewers (currently head of NC, but formerly head of all R&D and small batch beers) is German-trained from VLB and one hell of a German traditionalist brewer. We make world-class pilsners and Kolsch from time to time (literally, World Beer Cup, GABF, Euro Beer award winners) and many of the comments we get go something like this: Good, tastes like Budweiser. Now where's the Hoptimum?"

 

TLDR version--- I went to a pub and I am upset because they didn't have the exact style of beer I wanted at that moment and I had to drink some Enjoy By and Wehenstephaner HefeWeissebier. I am also upset that almost half their taps were dedicated to the most popular styles of craft beer in the country.

 

Funny thing about hoppy beers, they are seasonal like everything else. Come Spring and Summer, we see every brewery go hop-crazy. Some strike it out of the park with a great flavor profile. Others seem to just wanna capitalize on the business fad that is going on right now. But worry not, we are heading into my favorite time of beer season; porters and stouts.

 

Where have you visited in the US? I've been to Brussels and Bruges. I couldn't find Bud Light or anything like it if I tried. I was easily able to find beers such as Westvleteren 12, Cantillon's offerings....Rochefort 10 was cheap.

I live in Boston, if you visited Boston proper you'd be hard pressed to find the best the US has to offer if you strolled into a random bar. The scene is even worse in New York City. Sure, craft beer compared to the US in the 70s has astronomically improved. But at this point the volume is increasing, while the quality and variety is lagging behind.

You're on a US-based website, and sure you can search and find thousands and thousands of beers. But you may be doing the same thing, cherry-picking breweries and beers in the US which are head and shoulders above the rest. Yes, the US has definitely nailed the IPA. And yes, the US is certainly creative with what they brew. But I wouldn't call asking for higher quality all-around, and more variety nit-picking. I'm not trying to contradict your post, you live in Belgium, so I'll defer to your opinion. I'm simply offering another perspective.

 

No, I have not visited the USA.

Maybe I should paraphrase my point like this. 95 % of the total beers made in Belgium & not even speaking production wise can be classified with 4 styles. The breweries who are making interesting beers export 90 % of their beers. The only commonly available sour is Rodenbach which seems to get sweeter with the year. The only commonly available witbeer is Hoegaarden which is equally impressive in quality. There are maybe 7 places max. in the whole of Belgium that sell imports.

Belgium does have its equivalent of Bud Light. Most people drink Jupiler / Stella or Maes. Cantillon is rare outside of a few select bars. I think the fact that you couldn’t find any pale lagers prominently featured in Brussels bars a direct result of which kinds of bars you chose. Yes there are specialty bars which don’t ofer pale lagers, they are rarer, certainly they do exist in the USA?

The question is how many beer styles – counting only those brewed in the USA – can you get in Denver easily?
Can you get beers of good quality from more than 4 styles?

Has the situation beer-wise improved in the last 45 years?

I am talking about Flanders here, looking at the place ratings on BA for Wallonia, you will see that in most cases you need to go and visit the actual brewery in order to get something else than a pale lager in that end of the country.

 

My sincerest apologies for exceeding the modern 160 character limit on thoughts and opinions. #brevity

No, I didn't have to walk several blocks with my thirsty party of 6, ducking in and out of several multi-tap craft beer establishments in a college town until we finally came to a place where we found a beer everyone actually wanted to drink and enjoy together. Totally didn't happen. Nobody lost any business that day. And nobody paid for and was served anything that they didn't like by uninformed staff at the first place we visited. Nope.

Far be it from me to expect to be able to find something that suits my tastes in a bar with 25 taps in a country with something like 2,500 microbreweries. Look to a foreign brewer to provide me with what I'm looking for? Never! Next time I'll just shut the hell up and enjoy the amazing bounty like I should, and tell my ungrateful friends to do the same. The nerve of some of us people!

I've never walked out of a bottle shop empty handed after wasting half an hour decoding bottle dates and finding the vast majority of their shelf space being taken up by sub-par and expired IPAs. Not one single time. Who could imagine such a thing?

I for one could also never dream of finding my palate seriously fatigued by a style of beer that is over-represented at almost every single retail outlet or taphouse that stocks/serves any kind of craft beer. Ever. That's just unthinkable.