IPA course correction

Hands down. That said, if we had access to as much bottled Pliny and/or Sticky Hands as we could sell, one of them would take the lead.

 

I'm gunna disagree with the OP.
When I first started drinking local IPAs, they were all obsessively bitter up front, with lingering pine and grapefruit. The bitter coated the tongue, and never left.
The concept of bitter IPA is a big turn off for a lot of people. Most individuals don't view that as a highly drinkable beer. Take pacific brewing "hoppy bitch" for example --- literally nothing but bitter. It's not even palatable.
Everyone I know who isn't big into beer tells me "I dont like IPAs". When I ask why not, they say they're too bitter.
If I introduce them to something like fresh squeezed, sculpin, nelson, etc... they're almost always impressed and willing to give IPA another shot.

Personally, I prefer the floral, aromatic dankness, or smooth citrusey goodness.
IMO, those are much more enjoyable to drink than a bitter bomb that just destroys my senses for a few minutes and makes me not want to finish the pint.

I wish MORE Washington IPAs would switch over to the new style and ditch the old watery, piney, bitter routine. Obviously California, Oregon, and Vermont are making a killing with the dank/citrus IPA. Maybe it's time to follow suit.
just my .02

 

You just insulted the California breweries by saying their IPA's aren't bitter hop bombs.

 

I've never found the "typical" WA IPA to be watery. If anything, they have more body than most folks in other parts of the country like, so our brewers crank even more hops into the beers.

Plus, "dank" (like a serial killers basement) is not a positive in my view. Even "dank", in the way you mean, like weed, isn't going to be an aspect that makes me want to try a beer. If we wanted weed, we'd smoke weed, we would.

 

You would know

 

To each their own, just voicing my opinion.

but truthfully, judging by the ratings and hype revolving around beers like Alpine Nelson, Heady Topper, and Boneyard Hop Venom -- compared to the ratings of Hoppy Bitch or several other up-front, long-lasting "bitter" IPAs... I would say that there are quite a few people in agreement.

I agree that people dont drink beer to smell weed. "Dank", IMO, refers to the floral explosion of heavy late/dry hop additions of very pungent hops. (Correct me if I'm wrong... although some hops do give off a marijuana-esque scent)
I mean, most of us ITT are from WA. We could easily just brew weed beer nice and legally if that's what we were after.

Everyone's palate will be different, though. I choose not to drink IPAs that taste like someone smashed up a bunch of pine needles in grapefruit juice, and then watered it down.
Perhaps this isn't the thread for me

 

Well, generally speaking, when folks use "dank" they're referring to a weed-like scent and taste. Good weed these days is often called dank by aficionados. There are several varieties of hops that have a strong weed presence. I know it's just slang, but that really bugs me for some reason. Hell, here in Bham we've even got a whole brewery that describes itself and it's beers as Dank, and I promise you, they mean weed : http://www.aslanbrewing.com/

 

I feel you. When I first moved out here years ago, I decided I didn't like IPAs. Later I learned that it was just certain hops that were ubiquitous in the ones I was drinking. I still have an aversion to overly bitter hop profiles so I'm happy with the trend towards less bitter, more juicy IPAs.

 

Interesting.
I actually want to try those and see if they live up to the name.

Heathen's "Mega-Dank" is actually really good. I was impressed with it...
Although I think the word "dank" is now just more of a marketing term than anything lol

 

I don't know. I think you're stretching here. Most new breweries are inconsistent regardless of the style of beer they make. (Also, most new breweries are, and arguably should be, tweaking their recipes from batch to batch to try to find the best version.)

 

I would think Boneyard has contracted out for most or all of their hops by now, but RPM has in fact been through multiple changes due to not having enough of certain hops as they grew. They also fine-tuned the the ABV as recently as 2013, I believe.

 

I can definitely confirm that Hop Venom's last couple of batches have been noticeably different than batches I remember from further back. (not in a bad way)
Heady Topper isn't anywhere near as good as it was during it's hype "prime", either.

I don't know any of the brewers personally, but I would assume this is a result of recipe 'tweaks' or hop availability. (I could be wrong)

 

Well, the Alchemist is quite openly working on the recipes for everything other than HT. As 3-Way is a brand new beer, I wouldn't be shocked if there were some small changes over the course of the summer. And, Boneyard was also openly tweaking their recipes at least up through last year.