Let's talk about hops/American IPA

I am also all for those resinous, dank, in-your face bitter IPA/DIPA's... I don't really care too much about the "juicy" ones, haha.

Have me choose between most of the NE IPA's and a Fat Head's Head Hunter or JuJu and guess which I pick??

 

IPAs are here to stay. Whether that means the resinous/piney/sharply bitter ones I don't like as much, or the newer more lightly bitter but overtly hoppy offerings (often called "New England" style). I think they will gain traction overseas and already have.

Brew Dogs in Scotland certainly make some excellent American IPAs. Galway Bay Brewing makes an awesome DIPA which has won craft beer of the year there. An IPA from Cork won this year.

I'm sorry for the purists out there, and those misguided folks who think a Pilsner is more complex than a really well made IPA (not any that I've tasted), but IPAs bring a lot to the table. The reality is that it's a style that allows more freedom to interpret the style than any other. Most Pilsners taste very similar and those that don't are criticized.

 

Oh don't get me wrong, I enjoy both sides as well... But at the end of the day, I just prefer the more bitter side of the spectrum.

I think the complexity argument is in the fact that it is far easier to dump massive amounts of hops into an IPA and it will likely come out just fine... But a well done Pilsner is actually a far more intensive brewing process if you do the decoction mashing and all that. A pils was actually the most difficult beer I have brewed just because the process itself, not really the simplicity of the ingredients... Any flaws will show themselves in a pils due to the light flavor profile over the IPA which can be masked with tons of hops. The yeast and fermentation is also a bit more difficult than most ale yeasts.

Flavor wise, yeah, IPA's can have far more of a taste "spectrum"... I obviously agree with that. But the brewing process itself is quite a bit easier with IPA's.

 

Will hop-forward American IPAs ever be a much larger part of the global beer market than the current tiny niche they currently reside in?

Doubtful.

 

Unlikely. Light lagers are wildly popular for several reasons, including easy drinking over a session, whether that be with friends after work, watching the NFL on Sunday afternoon, tailgating at your college or NFL home games, an evening at the local sports bar, etc. Don't forget, in most of Europe, flavorful beers have been around for hundreds of years and even so, lighter lagers took over.

Second reason, IPAs are strong (so you can't drink as many without getting hammered) and tend toward the delicate (that is, they are a difficult fit into a volume business). (As an aside, to whatever extent the tale about the original IPA formula being to preserve the beer for the long sea voyage is true, it is certain the beer, when it arrived, did so with much/all of the hop flavor gone.)

Let's not forget that we on this site do not represent the beer market typical consumer.

AB-Inbev sold as much Bud Light in 2014 as the entire craft beer industry sold of all styles of craft beer. The top 5 selling beers in the USA (all light lagers or AALs) sold more than twice the volume of all craft beer. The only craft beer to make the top 20 is Yuengling Lager.

You might want to consider changing your avatar to a picture of Don Quixote.

 

Excellent. It should get to the Allentown area, bottles won't land in the area until April though. Ill give you a shout when I start seeing them.

Awesome Jack. I was it was a regular at TJs, as it should be. It's a top 5 IPA for me right now. I've had it on draft at home for about 3 weeks now, I think it might be my new house IPA to have on almost constantly. Love that beer.

Also Hop JuJu is awesome too if you can ever find any. I was lucky enough to have @PSU_Mike trade me some bottles. Excellent DIPA, Head Hunter x 2!

 

Keith, I have not seen Hop JuJu on tap (yet). I am aware that it is a seasonal beer. Do you know when it gets released?

Cheers!

Jack

 

I love me some Short's APA's. why can't we just drink beer and enjoy it is my question? To be honest , I can't say if I have had an IPA that was brewed outside the USA.? Speaking of Short's , their Spruce Pilsner should be the Benchmark in that style! BOOMSHOCKALOCKA!

 

Jack, it just got relased. My bottles are dated 2 weeks ago! I sure hope we get some draft here of it.....crossing fingers.

 

Not a fad. I don't quite understand those who say it is. We're living through the explosion and renaissance of a style that's carving out its niche in the beer drinking world, and it will be part beer's history. I always use the example of when the first big, bold wines came out of California...after initial reactions of them being brash compared to wines from Europe they gained the full respect they now own in the wine world.

Same goes for IPAs.

I hear the fad comment more from people who prefer nuance, delicacy, and restrained styles. It's fine that they say that, but it always sounds like it's purely a denouncement of any beer that has its volume turned up or is hop forward, as if these beers aren't worth the same respect as ones that offer restrained balance and drinkability. It's a rubbish opinion. A well-made pilsner and a well-made imperial IPA are worthy of equal respect.

I think why the IPA scene may feel like a fad sometimes is because the dust hasn't settled yet from the explosion, so there are still lots of players trying to jump on the wave but are offering mediocre examples that we all have to wade through to find the good ones....this makes even us hop heads roll our eyes at the style sometimes. But really, it's here to stay.

 

Just my opinion, but hops will be a major focus of research for quite a while for a number of reasons.

The first 'wow' moment for me came after tasting a beer dry hopped with this newly developed bittering hop called Columbus back in the early 90's. From this point, it seemed like there were more brewers learning that just because a hop was bred for alpha doesn't mean it can't be used for aroma (so they took more chances).

During this time period (early 90's- early-mid 2000's), some super alpha hops were developed and released (Apollo, Bravo, Super Galena etc) that allowed growers to produce much more alpha on much less acreage. Also around this time, the new versions of intensely hopped ipa's began gaining popularity which allowed both breeders and growers to shift their focus toward aroma varieties and we began seeing the shift in acreage from alpha to aroma hops to evolve.

Sometime around 2000, Simcoe was released, then a short time later, as luck would have it, the discovery of a chance seedling which came to be known as Amarillo helped intensify this interest in new aroma varieties AND a unique hop came out of the breeding program down in Corvallis which was named Teamaker http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/x...ciencesRegistrationTeamakerHop.pdf?sequence=1 It seems that along with this discovery, more and more medicinal compounds were being looked at in hops around this time, Xanthohumol creating a huge interest.

As a result of this type of research, new varieties which possessed a really wide range of flavor compounds began to come out of these programs with descriptors of various types of fruits, chocolate, mints etc., not only in the US but also in countries like Germany, OZ etc.. The desire of the beer drinking community to seek out the next big thing seems to be a driving force behind all this research which just seems to be getting more and more off the wall as time goes on.

And now, it seems like the Cannabis industry is providing the hop researchers with some alternative/advanced methods to be able to look closer at some of the medicinal components of hop extracts through some more advanced extraction technology that they've been working with?

I have to believe that hops have a variety of things going for them and that they'll be a center of attention for one thing or another for some time to come.

 

Can't get enough of IPAs! Hop head all the way! I love other styles also and switch up as I drink. I hope we never reach our limit on innovation in the beer industry!

 

Firefly hollow (Bristol,CT) has been using them in some of their IPAs. Hell if I could pick them out though since they use so many other hops in those beers. Their Luciferin double IPA uses Hallertau Blanc among others and is hands down my favorite beer from them.

Interested to see if anyone makes a good beer out of it. Sierra Nevada's neomexicanus ipa was pretty underwhelming imo.