"Perfectly balanced"

well I am old school and old and pre American hop bomb, but if you designed a beer with hops just to get the hop taste then by my definition you started on purpose down the road to unbalanced. So yea in my mind the argument a IPA is balanced is seriously not possible. as I posted above, at least not from a beer design point or a beer chemistry point. Frankly I think we have to ask some pro brewers and pro tasters. Still its fun to have a civil chat.

that's my 2.5 cents, 2014 inflation rates.

 

I don't hafta wonder, all the BA gatherings I have been to are the biggest love fests of sharing beer and getting along.

 

yea I really meant a random craft type beer party (tasting event) MOST BA are special folks I found in person.

 

?

Nowhere in my reply did I mention anything about the BJCP guidelines.

When you are talking about malted grains, hops, water, and yeast "balance" can only go in so many directions.

Bittering units and gravity units (which are actually scientifically measurable) seem to make sense when considering beer characteristics.

 

ok you made me look that up lol
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

 

Can't we all just get along... This was like asking which religion is the right one to follow....

 

we do, its fun to chat about things, beast top 10 lists every day or posts about how great a beer is I just drank for the first time. IMHO. you know? and some of us are atheist....oh no thread lock time, lol

 

I would describe most British beers as perfectly balanced to a fault.

 

You may have bitten off more than you can eschew, but good choice anyway

 

I see what you did there. (whata pun!)

 

Hah I was just reading the IPA hop bomb theories. After some Hill Farmstead IPA's I feel like people haven't had a beer good enough to appreciate both sides of the argument, but then realize it is the same arrogance that tells me others are wrong!!! Entertaining thread any who. Cheers!

 

Also for the sake of clarity my main religion is beer

 

beer pun contest time?
It's New years eve, ya know?

Time to party......

 

I been known to hope and prey a beer I home brewed is not a drain pour. lol. of course I am being silly I used beersmith and I never screw up, well only a few times........

a bottle blowing up is not that fun at the time, but later its very funny. I keep hoping I never blow up a Pony keg.

 

The article (did you read it?) cites BJCP as the source of the gravity and IBU ranges for each style. IBUs are scientifically measurable in the same way that the positions of the constellations are measurable -- it doesn't mean you can extrapolate astrology. My point is that IBUs are at best superficially related to what a beer tastes like. Using such a misbegotten statistic as a cornerstone for an 'objective' calculation is so, so ironic.

 

As I stated, nowhere in my reply did I mention anything about the BJCP.

I know many brewers locally as well as places like Sierra Nevada and Deschutes that either measure IBU's in house or send beer samples to labs to measure IBU's.

I can measure the gravity of all my homebrews with a simple hydrometer or refractometer and if I really wanted to, I could ship my beer off to a lab and have them calculate the IBU's for me. Then, BU:GU ratio can easily be calculated and I can have another reference point in a range for the balance of my beer (notice I qualified the heck out of that sentence by implying there are multiple reference points and a range, not a target).

An IBU can technically be defined as one milligram of iso-alpha acid per liter of beer, which also equals one part per million (ppm). If you have a problem with IBU's, that's a you problem. You'll have to take that up with the brewing chemists and not the BJCP.

 

In his book Designing great beers, by Ray Daniels. HE touches on and goes into y'all discussion some.

If you ever read that book?

It well it describes things scientificilly....just a thought....
Just saying...is fun to make beer and experiment on things, that effect the preconceived balance.

Like we cannot detect bitter change until 5 IBU increases or decreases...or so the science guys say...

Anyway.
Happy New year...

 

My two cents.
Balance is a matter of sweetness vs bitterness but not just that, it's also not having just one dominant flavour, not being harsh, not leaving a cloying aftertaste... It's many things, one may keep his attention on some more than others and thusly opinions if x beer is balanced or not will wary

 

It's a fine line with balance in an IPA. Obviously the style is meant to be hop forward, to showcase the flavors and aromas of them. However, I personally don't care for a beer that seems like all you have is the hops.
I prefer to have a little malt sweetness, along with maybe some of the bready, biscuity flavor behind it.
Not overpowering, but the hop-only brews seem very one-dimensional to me.
TO me, a really good one comes from, well, balancing the malt against the hops. In the case of an IPA, obviously you want a lot more hop flavor and aroma, but it's still an act to get the proportions right.
That BU:GU scale works well to put it into a number we can understand.

 

All Day IPA is pretty balanced imo.