IPA craze: When will it be over?!

Indeed so.
And since @ebin6 asked, the old Ballantine IPA (which was the basis of the Burton Ale pictures in my avatar) absolutely spoiled me for any other IPA...it was more aromatic and had a better hop character and an assertive but far cleaner bitterness than any IPA made today (although there are thankfully at least a couple of decent ones in a sea of mediocrity). At (usually) 75 IBU and 7.5% ABV, it was certainly unique for it's era while at the same time, being on par with some of the specs of current day takes on the style (except that they just did it a LOT better all those years ago). And so begins my rant...
The year-long aging of the Ballantine IPA prior to packaging was likely one of the keys
(besides being traditional to the IPA style), and enhaced by the added combination of a generous dose of house-distilled aromatic hop oils and dry hopping which was generously used for aroma. The original Ballantine product would stand up quite well next to--and very likely surpass--any current commercially available take on the style.
The recent reboot is not bad, even if it really doesn't bear more than just a passing resemblance to the original; definitely different hops, probably different malts, and they evidently didn't even use the original (and easily, readily available) Ballantine Ale yeast (Bry 97).
Sorry to babble on...Ballantine IPA has always been one of my personal favorite, heartfelt internet rants... and as others who remember it are sure to attest, you really had to be there to appreciate and understand that it was indeed a world class product, even by modern "craft" standards. It is one of many perfect examples of the craft beer industry hype/fallacy of calling the pre-craft days "the dark ages". Also, and significantly, it's the product that first got me seriously interested in home brewing 45 years ago.
I really wish there were something commercially brewed today that is as well made, with the care and attention that Ballantine in NJ lavished on what was, at the time, just a niche product.

 

Wow, that's quite the story. Maybe someone will pull a Dogfish in the future and try to recreate it?

Not gonna lie, it also makes me quite nervous that some of my favorites will change. I didn't get it regularly enough to judge, but it sounds like some feel the same way (to a much smaller degree) with Nelson.

Edit: FWIW, that might be my favorite BA post in years. As a history and craft beer lover, that hit all the marks!

 

Drink something else, problem solved. Noticed you said you're now seeking out stouts and Porters. Good thing there's an abundance of those as well. So you have plenty of choice beyond IPAs.

 

They are not going anywhere. We all seen this go from the crystal clear IPAs to Unfilterd now to Hazy/ and Adjunct fruit IPAs. They are just going to keep changing as time changes.

Yes, people are saying sours and Gose are on the rise. These have been and are getting more popular but not to the extent of IPAs. These are more like Hipster trending and in a year or more it will be a different style catching some buzz. But they will not get the spot light.

 

Two questions: 1) When is the pizza craze going to be over? Garlic knots have been slept on for too long. 2) When this thread is resurrected in 5 years are still going to be using the words craze and trend?

 

It does seem like it's more difficult these days to find a wide variety of different styles at the bottle shop. I'm a big IPA fan, but sometimes I want a good scotch ale or simple amber (think Fat Tire) for example, and I frequently have a hard time just finding 2-3 to choose from. Meanwhile, you have IPA, DIPA, Black IPA, etc. etc. littering the shelves, many of which are past their prime.

I don't complain too much though. Nothing beats a 2 day old IPA from a good local brewery.

 

Well a post of mine from 2 years ago was quoted on this page, and IPAs are still going strong. This craze has lasted no less than a decade at this point...silly hipsters.

 

Yup, it's more accurate to call it myopia at this point.

 

I dont think its even a trend. I think of it as the front running style in craft beer honestly and i believe they will always be here.

 

Thanks for that...and that was the edited version of my rant.

Your reaction was certainly the opposite of the flaming and elementary school level mockery I was subjected to in another forum for daring to even suggest that an American IPA made 50-60 years ago could possibly be good, let alone probably better and made with more care than any made today (it still amazes me how ingrained the craft industry hype is, to the point where so many people have begun to actually believe it and accept it as gospel!) . But for hop character in an ale, Ballantine has yet to be equalled. Even the current custodians of the Ballantine brand haven't been able to duplicate the originals (though I do give them props for actually trying...Their reboot of the Bally IPA is fairly decent in it's own right and at the same time evokes the original in some ways, even if it lacks the balance, the long aging and (especially) the intense aromatic qualities of the original (or even of the standard XXX branded ale, for which the brewery was justly most famous). The current version of that product (the XXX) nowadays sadly bears hardly any resemblance to the original.
I suppose that one of the points of my rant was an effort to at least partially debunk the utterly false notion (a notion fueled at least in part by craft industry hype) which claims that that there were no good beers of real character prior to the mid/late 1970s: there are plenty of beer lovers (including members of this forum) who can attest that such hype is bullshit, plain and simple.
As I mentioned, those brews are what got me interested in homebrewing in July of 1971...and I'm glad they did. The flavors were still fresh in my mind --and indeed, some of the commercial products which inspired me were even still available in their original form when I first started tinkering with trying to emulate them on a homebrew level. It has definitely been a fascinating and rewarding "expedition".

 

I've loved IPA's ever since I was a teenager. Still love IPA's now (29). Hopefully it's something that never ends.

 

11th December 2018.

 

When I first had a Ballantines IPA circa 1974, there was nothing like it in my memory. I agree.

 

Aging was an important part of the process of brewing a 19th-century IPA. A year is impressive in the 20th century. It sounds like a proper Stock Pale Ale*.

Always had a soft spot for Ballantine myself. Got to try a bottle of their Burton 2 years ago. Classy stuff for something that had been bottled 50 years before.


* I've a collaboration Stock Pale Ale brewed the 19th-century way about to come out.

 

Details please.

 

Did you drink Smuttynose Cluster’s Last Stand beer that was released a couple of years ago?



“So last month, Greg Koch from Stone Brewing Company joined us to brew 30 barrels of Cluster’s Last Stand, a beer that recreates the original, right-after-Prohibition Ballantine IPA recipe, as found in Mitch Steele’s, epic book on India Pale Ales.”

If so, what were your thoughts on this beer?

Cheers!

 

Over? More hop lovers being born everyday. Not Soon. Not as long as Night Shift keeps making the Best( IMHO) Beers in Boston.

 

Regrettably, no...I haven't had the opportunity to try Cluster's Last Stand...I've heard some comments about it, mostly positive (though most did seem to be in agreement that it lacked the markedly pungent hop aroma of the original, which for some strange reason no current brewer seems able to replicate).
I don't have the Mitch Steele's book in front of me, so I can't compare it to what my own experiments over the years came up with, although I do remember seeing the recipe when the book first appeared, and it really didn't look right to me based on my own very vivid memories of what the brew was like (as well as what some former Newark employees had shared with me over the years)...but then again, I'm also definitely not a pro brewer (just a longtime homebrewer geek with nerdy tendencies, especially with regard to the products from the old Bally brewery in Newark, NJ...less than 15 miles from where I grew up.) So in the end, I only know that it was one hell of an ale that was more skillfully made and far outclassed anything I've had since. Truly.

 

The Mitch Steele recipe was a reproduction of the recipe that Bill Pierce published in a BYO article entitled Make Mine Ballantine. It was a well researched article and a worth read.

http://byo.com/hops/item/2000-make-mine-ballantine

I sent bottles of Smuttynose Cluster's Last Stand and the recreation of Ballantine IPA to both Bill Pierce and Mitch Steele. Mitch Steele provided the following post on BA:

"Thanks to Jack for sending me samples. I also did a side by side tasting and found my impressions to be very similar to Jack's. I like both beers, but they are quite different. The Ballantine tastes pretty updated as far as the hop profile. It's a good IPA, with layers of different hop flavors, one I wouldn't hesitate to order. The Cluster's Last Stand tastes as I remember...a bit of a throwback to the early hoppy craft beers-which makes it fun."

https://www.beeradvocate.com/commun...-pabsts-ballantine.217032/page-2#post-2965688

Cheers!

 

See, I'm the exact opposite, myself (outside of BCS, which is an all-time favorite of mine); I'll pass on all sorts of top-tier beers specifically because I can get newer (local) stuff that's close to, if not on par. As the newer spinoff IPAs are more widely accepted (today's craze: NE-style IPAs), more and more local places try their magic with them, eliminating the need for me to worry about who I can get to trade me Julius or Heady, or whatever.

Interestingly enough, Goose Island is releasing one in the next couple weeks as well:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/goose-...ewery-yard-tickets-27151800767?aff=erelexpmlt


To answer the 2-year (really, more) old question in the OP: IPAs are going nowhere. I've been in love with IPAs ever since I started drinking craft beer, and while my tastes have matured (could barely get through BCS the first time I had it!), my love for a good hoppy beer has not lessened. The fact that there continue to be interesting new things that can be done to them (I'm a huge fan of the "fresh" and "unfiltered" movement we're running into now, ala the NE IPAs, Enjoy By, etc.) demonstrates exactly why they have such staying power.