I am an unabashed hop head, I love IPAs of every shape and color and geographical origin. I recently had the pleasure to drink some amazing IPA/DIPAs from European cult king Verdant Brewing. For me these beers were exciting and delicious, even though comforting and familiar, they played games with my palate in ways it hasn't experienced in a long long time. What were these amazing new aromatics and flavor profiles ? They were new hop varietals that most brewers here in the US have yet to grasp a hold of. Hey, I love a great Monkish beer brewed with Galaxy and Mosaic, BUT......are we beginning to experience the " same old same old " scenario with regards to the usual hop bills and their collective combinations ? I think we are. One of the hop bills In one of the beers I drank called Raised Beds had included the hops Jester and Godiva used in conjunction with Citra and Amarillo and I think a couple others I dont remember that completely created a new flavor profile I was completely unfamiliar with and I loved it.It really opened my eyes to the familiarity of most of our West Coast IPA/DIPA recipes. What do you think about the same hops used over and over again, albeit in different configurations ? Do you think everything is starting to taste the same ? Would you like to see your favorite brewery expand their hop palates if they could, or do you think most are terrified to kill the golden hazy goose ? Cheers,
No argument here. Even when my local (Cellarmaker) had access to South African hops (before AB-InBev hoarded them all), I may not have liked their exotic flavors, but I really appreciated having the unique profile. In fact, they made a J17/African Queen Pale Ale that I growlered and I still dream about. Mmmm. But Cellarmaker is one of those breweries who experiments all the time, and doesn't have a "flagship".
Hop varieties reminds me a lot of winegrape varietals. Over the many centuries of winegrapes being isolated, crossed, hybridized, selected, etc.......we have a very diverse selection of winegrapes. Big bold reds, silky smooth reds, earthy rustic ones, light aromatic whites.......you get the picture. This hop thing is only a very recent thing. Who had a Galaxy hopped beer 5 years ago? Most of the popular IPA hop varieties I don't think have become somewhat widespread for very long.......about 5 or 7 years? So getting the hops thing going is going to take a while. It just takes a long time to select/breed, propagate, get to production levels, find out how to use them right, etc. I would think when we are old and gray, there will be all sorts of new interesting hops, making more diverse beers than which we have now. But stuff like this - developing an agricultural product which is harvested once a year, which is totally transformed into a different product, takes a while. Decades at least.
