Tropical IPAs=Malternative?

Consider said shitstorm created. I posted awhile back questioning the allure of Grapefruit Sculpin for the exact reason. I was confronted with a backlash that left me curled in the corner of my living room for 3 days. I love tropical IPAs when it appears to come from the hop profile. However, some of the new ones have a cloying sweetness to them that hints at the addition of significant sugar and fruit juice. However, the ones that can pull off citrus and fruit without this artificial sweetness are amazing. My favorite fruity IPA is Smuttynose FinestKind.

 

haha, bag of Skittles. I better understand your perspective. Thanks for the reply. I like most of the different flavor profiles that hops can provide (not a huge fan of onion-y though). I haven't had many IPAs I would describe as tropical - however Odell IPA is one of my favorite go-to IPAs and it would be considered quite fruity and I love it. Maybe I haven't had an IPA like the ones that you are describing but I can at least say that I would not like a skittles IPA, as I prefer my IPAs to finish dry, not finish like...candy.

 

This is worthy of a post in its own. What do you consider the 1 beer that best demonstrates the flavor of beer?

 

• Two hearted ipa is balanced IMO, I remember getting a citrus note until I had my last can of it and it wasn't until the last sip so there are still ipas where the fruit flavor is even noticeable.

 

IMO if you add fruit juice to a beer (post fermentation) what you have is a Radler which is different from brewing a beer using fruit juice.

Cheers!

 

I never said anyone was wrong. I've got something inside me that instinctively recoils from zealous crowds clamoring for nothing but the latest and greatest though.

It's not as simple as 'you drink what you like, I'll drink what I like' because a lot of what I like is gone or going. Sierra Nevada Tumbler and Kellerweiss are two examples. And it's not just a loss of variety, it's a loss of history and culture. I have a hard time with the apparent apathy (perhaps even disdain) for the forerunners that made this golden age possible.

Yes, yes, adapt or die, but diversity is key to survival too...

 

yeah, a lot of the time though the flavor is manufactured and contains a small fraction of real fruit juice...then added at a very low percentage to the finished product

 

haha btw, according to mybeerbuzz, pineapple sculpin is hitting bottles soon

 

Certainly a fair point to make, though I find it interesting that BA labels all such beers as Fruit/Vegetable Beers rather than separating them into a Radler/Shandy style category, which makes more sense to me. For example, is Molotov Lite a Fruit Beer or is it a Shandy? Hard to tell, the site has it labelled a DIPA, makes sense given the obvious crafting profile and the alcohol level, but if you asked me I'd guess that the fruit juices were added post-fermentation. Citrus juice, once fermented, can produce all sorts of sharp, funky flavors that just aren't present in the brew.

Then you get into the question of, well, how much fruit juice would you have to add for a "normal IPA" to be considered an "India Pale Shandy?" Another interesting question, one we luckily don't really need an answer to because such brews surely make up an exceedingly small portion of actual IPAs being brewed, bought, and sold worldwide.

 

Oh, BTW. I'll be picking up Founders Azacca IPA and Sierra Nevada's Beer Camp Tropical IPA when they're both released in January. No juice in either of those tropical flavor profile beers either. Just beer. (Is the world coming to an end yet? Will these beers magically turn into a Bud Lite Mang-O-Rita if too many people like the way they tase?)

 

How would you classify:

• Grapefruit Sculpin
• Sam Adams Rebel Grapefruit

Cheers!

 

Drink better IPAs then. Tropical notes are a very real thing.

 

Just to clarify, I wasn't attacking you with my speculative post earlier. I'm not sure how such beers should be classified. I was just piggybacking onto your points in an effort to expand the conversation. I can't speak to either of those brews, I don't know when the juice or "natural flavors" are added in the brewing process or if they are added fully post-fermentation or what.

From what I understand, from hearsay, Grapefruit Sculpin may not have any juice added to it at all, but rather some sort of processed, but still "natural" grapefruit flavoring. I would argue, if that's the case, that doesn't make it a radler or shandy, but it certainly doesn't make it some sort of wine cooler either. Malt beverage? Maybe, I've read literature on how and why those sort of legal distinctions are made, but I still don't really understand the legalese.

 

Thank you!

 

I'm 100% with you and tried the grapefruit twice as was trying to figure out why anyone would like it

Regular Sculpin >>>>>>Grapefruit Sculpin

to me adding artificial or real fruit juice/flavor, whatever it is, makes the beer so much worse

 

the cigar city/boulevard collab i had was terrible. i would not order more of the same.

 

I did not perceive any attacking. My latest post was intended to further the discussion.

I have zero inside knowledge on the brewing process of any of the beers we have been discussing so I am unprepared to make any judgements here.

Cheers!

 

Finest Kind is a nice beer, but not what is being described in this thread. Try and IPA from TreeHouse or Trillium and notice the differences

 

The desirability you reference is such an insanely small piece of the market it's basically insignificant. Walk into any regular beer store across the country and you're going to be overwhelmed by regular bitter IPAs. You're only getting huge tropical "fruit juice bomb" low bitterness IPA from low production brewerys that you either have to wait in line for or trade your first born.

 

So just because YOU have never had a beer that resembled tropical fruits, it doesn't exist? Do I have that right?