Enough with the hops already!

Yes, my IIPA goes to II

 

Witbier and Hefeweisen, there is another way!

 

I made the tongue in cheek seasonal IPA comment with no knowledge of this new beer beforehand but what did I see at my local beer store yesterday? SN Flipside Red IPA, the new Fall seasonal that is indeed replacing Tumbler...once this year's Tumbler is sold, there will be no more. :-(

I picked some up to give it a go and it is a decent beer, much less hoppier than I would have assumed. To me while good it is nothing remarkable, though, and sad to see this offering at the expense of yet another one of SN's beers that I enjoyed quite a bit. So now we have SN's Spring, Fall AND Winter seasonal beers as IPAs...and in my opinion these are not that far off from their regular year round hoppy offering, Torpedo.

 

hmmm...I guess my point is that it is a combination of all the woderful things that make beer that create complexity and flavor and uber greatness. What I am saying is that complexity and greatness is not simply found in this one ingredient nor in someone's ability to throw as much of it as you can in during a 90 minute boil.

For the record Dogfish 90min is one of my favorite's DIPA's...even more so than many lesser IBU IPA's. But I enjoy it because it is crafted with "Balance" and done equisitely. I would also argue that it is up for debate as to whether the Trappist' beers have lost complexity or are even up to the challenge of American beer. If Belgian's suffer it is because of the American taste preferanes and market. Becasue so many American's are so infatuated with IPA's that the style has never really caught on. Many of us fell in love with beer many years backs as on the same level with fine wine because we tasted a Belgian brew.

 

I wonder if people ever said this about Belgian beers back when they were invented: "Enough with the yeast and candi sugar already! I am so sick of these yeasty, sweet, overly complex alcohol bombs! Candi sugar is cheating, it covers flaws! And those lambics? How much acidity can you take?"

 

I like to say most should say in the Belgian style of not Belgian beers. and quite frankly in my opinion in the style of leaves allot to be desired. To the OP new beer or new yeast?

 

If world class Belgian beer were that easy to make, I would think more American examples would be rated as highly as the likes of Westvleteren, Rochefort, and St. Bernardus. Your oversimplification of Belgian beer is not the same thing as adding hops.

Let's turn to IPAs, in which there's HUNDREDS of American examples with a rating that is outstanding or better. And any style in which hops have been added achieve a solid rating as well.

Try brewing a world class Belgian quad, then try brewing an American IPA. Odds are brewing the quad is more difficult than simply "cheating with candi sugar."

 

Adding more hops to "enhance" world-class, traditional beer styles is like adding Neil Peart, Flea, and/or Yngwie Malmsteen to enhance the Beatles.

 

I think you missed his point..... Brewing a world class IPA is more difficult than simply hopping and dry hopping the hell out of it......FWIW....I actually have an easier time home brewing a decent Belgian than I do a decent IPA.

 

You can brew a good Belgian for relatively low alcohol. It doesn't have to go above 8. Just like you can brew a decent IPA for around the same.
candi sugars usually add to the complexity by adding more fermentables to achieve a more dry finish. If your Belgian's are getting overly sweet from the candies, then chances are you aren't brewing good Belgians.

Balance.... my Padwon....is the key to the Force...

 

I'm being facetious.

 

lol....hard to tell around here sometimes.

 

Definitely. People think you can just throw hops in a barrel and it will turn out OK. I have had plenty of bad IPAs and brewed some bad ones myself.

 

The shame and self-loathing of decades of nothing but adjunct lagers being made in the US?

 

I played an afternoon festival gig in a college town this past weekend, went with the band to a craft beer bar afterward. I asked the girl at the bar what they had on tap in the way of Oktoberfest lagers, she tells me "hmm, well, we have Stone Enjoy By 10/25, that's an October beer". On 25 taps, they literally had zero lagers available. But they had 10 different IPAs and IPA variants. Went with Old Rasputin on nitro (which was absolutely stellar), but my craving for seasonally proper malty goodness went unsatisfied. One of my bandmates took her advice, got the Enjoy By and sat down grimacing saying "what the hell did I just get?". I asked him what he liked, ordered him a Weihenstephaner Hefe and drank his Enjoy By (which was also stellar, but not really what I was looking for right then). But seriously? Not even one lager tap? At a 'craft bar'? In October!? I had to walk to 3 other places before I found Spaten Oktoberfest.

I was reminded of an exchange I'd had with another friend earlier in the week. He had purchased a bomber of Rogue Honey Kolsch and was absolutely incensed that it wasn't a hop bomb. "This shit tastes like Miller High Life!". He fired off an angry Tweet to the brewery talking about how he felt ripped off and he couldn't believe they were 'passing off' such a beer on the public. So I asked him what he expected a Kolsch, a pale blonde German-style summer ale, to taste like. "Not f'ing Miller High Life!". Then he sung the praises of some DIPA he bought alongside it that totally moistened his panties. Rinse and repeat across the country. Hops sell.

Hops are what the people want and what the people will pay for. So that's pretty much what we're going to get. It's not just craft beer. I personally can't stand purple or Kush strains of cannabis or the endless hybrids thereof. They're completely useless to me. So much so that I won't even touch them. I much prefer old-school Sativas. But just try finding one of those on the US market done correctly anywhere these days. Ain't gonna happen. Because very few people are willing to pay what they're truly worth, nobody bothers with them anymore.

The market is the market. The masses want what the masses want. Don't like mad hops? Get to kettle shopping.

 

IPAs are difficult to brew. It's hard to brew anything consistently great, let alone world class. Easier to just drink everything and brew as best you can.

 

Fair enough, but that's n = 1. And I definitely understood his point, and the numbers support my response.

4 of the top 10 rated beers, and 7 of the top 20 are double IPAs. You have to go 800 double IPAs into the database to find one that is rated UNDER 4....out of 5. You have to go 1800 beers into the database to find a double IPA rated average at a 3 out of 5....almost to the end of the list.

Clearly brewers aren't having a difficult time making IPAs. How many of these brewers have years of experience? How many have started brewing in the last ten years, five years....maybe the last year?

 

I dunno, I like hops. I like malty beer, fruit beer, wheat beer, sour beer..all beer is good beer.

I'm just tired of seeing so many beers over 7-11%.

 

Buy what you like, easy as that.