My perspective is that the "basic" people can't wait to bring up how much they despise IPAs and without a single exception the reason is always "they're just SO hoppy!!!"
Which is exactly why I think it's an unnecessary and boring thing to talk about. If someone asks them, they should just say no I don't like it. Instead they volunteer the information and emphatically state the reason as though it's a surprise or unique in some way
They're probably just trying to be helpful, you know.. You sound very aggravated about them simply stating a preference and the reason for said preference.
If someone were for example to offer you an overly sweet type of confection or cake, wouldn't you similarly answer "no thanks, too sweet for my taste?"
No one is offering them an IPA or asking their opinion. You seem like maybe you're one of these people? Since you're ignoring what I wrote. They volunteer the information and then harp on it. I have heard this since I started drinking IPAs in like 2012. Ok we get it, you all hate my beer. I'm not talking shit about their awful sour beers or whatever, I keep it to myself unless asked.
Nope, I'm not "one of those". While I too don't like beers to be too hoppy, it's not something I go out of my way to tell people like some crazed stereotypical vegan 🤷
I can see how that would get annoying in the long run though and I'm 💯 with you on sour beers lol. Second worst beer I ever tasted was a gose and the worst wasn't an IPA either lol
I heard a real-world explanation about why IPAs are the most common and commonly-sought craft beer. Half the reasons are unflattering, but a few are valid.
They're harder to fuck up because the Hops covers every damn thing and is so forgiving. Ever heard a cooking show talk about how hard a perfect Filet Mignon is because you can't hide behind anything and everyone knows what it should taste like? Ditto with a good red ale or even pilsner.
Similarly, nobody is known for their signature Filet Mignon because (within reason) a filet is a filet. Ditto with most types of beers. IPAs give opportunity for a lot more variety. Which is why you have more breweries making them, and then more people consuming them. I go out of my way to find non-MGP whiskey because MGP whiskies all taste the damn same to me, and I usually find a couple unique bottles every year. I can respect someone who wants to try a totally new beer every week and just fall back on a few faves.
Related again to #2. Beyond being "SO hoppy", IPAs have more unique flavor profiles than all other beers combined. Different hops can net you notes of orange, lemon, grapefruit, or notes of the pith of one of those, or notes of the rind of one of those. Different amounts or processing of hops can give you different intensities of those. That's a lot of flavor profiles from sweet to sour to bitter, all in the same category.
So I'm "basic" nowadays re: beer, and I despise IPAs because I literally cannot stand the bitter&pithy ones (esp Grapefruit Pith), and there's no easy way to know what an IPA will taste like till you've paid for it and cracked it open. I also get reflux and nothing blows that shit out of the water like an IPA. There's a hops shop down the street from me, but if I'm going to brew a beer (super rare, I usually make whiskey or mead) it's gonna be something will a chill flavor profile.
there's no way to know what an IPA will taste like before you crack it open
That's why I like brewers that publish their hops. I'm the opposite of you, I live for the citrusy, fruity type of hops and despise the more traditional floral/piney strains. If I see simcoe on the bill I'll go to bed sober, but if you've got Willamette or Cascade I'll make tea from them.
Stands for India Pale Ale. i was originally told they used to brew stronger beer to make it last the long trip to India before refrigeration was a thing.
So it tends to be higher ABV and more bitter or hoppy to go with the higher alcohol content.
The hop part is a bit more interesting. The strong beers of the time weren’t enough to keep the beer from getting infected. However, hops are a natural preservative. The oils have antibiotic properties. They were initially used as a preservative for weak British ales and the taste was a side effect but not necessarily the desired effect. When they had trouble shipping their beers across the world, they would pack the beer full of hops so it would make the trip. Eventually, Brits in India developed a taste for the bitter beer that was shipped to them and a beer style was born.
I don't care what other people drink. In fact I love it when people show me their favorite drinks. Even if I don't like it I enjoy the experience of something new. I get bored very easily.
That being said, I moved to the Pacific Northwest a few years ago and it seems like local breweries only make IPAs. They'll have like eight local or inhouse brews and 7 will be IPAs. I just miss the variety I used to be able to find in other parts of the country. It also seems a little lazy and uncreative on the brewery's side.
But like... Pumpkin Spice is a seasonal artificial flavor that is I think annoying to people because it's made its way into everything from marshmallows to crackers to milk.
I don't know if it's like this where you are, but in Scandinavia if you like beer but don't like IPAs, you're shit out of luck for like the last five years at least. It has completely taken over the beer aisles at like 70 % of the offering. As someone who hates that bitter taste with a passion, the fact that it makes the selection of beers that I enjoy so much smaller, means it's akin to how I imagine pumpkin spice taking over in the US during fall, except it isn't just seasonal.
That sucks. It was like that here in the US about 5 years ago with IPAs. Every micro brewery made like 10 IPAs and nothing else. They are still the most prevalent style but there is a noticeable shift toward making lagers or less hoppy ales the past few years and it's been a really nice change.
I hope we'll see that soon as well. I've been mostly into malty, full-bodied varieties, and recently also sour beers and gose. Those have started to appear in stores, but not reliably. It feels like they're testing the waters, and are cycling through brands quickly, so once you find a favorite, it's already gone. Hopefully it'll stabilize with a decent selection of all types.
They're both popular, and something that you can just not buy if you don't like them, but people like to complain about because they see the popular thing around, and it bothers them.
Also, pumpkin spice doesn't have to be artificial. It's just the spices found in pumpkin pie. It's usually just cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and ginger.
It can be artificial, but it's like complaining that "apple" is a seasonal artificial flavor.
I’ve had your beer while in your country. Much respect and all given the history and contributions to beer over all, but after a week…it got boring.
I’m happy to be a peasant with never ending variety of styles and variations within styles without being hamstrung by some unimaginative and restrictive laws.
There's variety too, you just didn't get to see it during your stay. The laws are now much more liberal than they used to be.
But yeah, when you go to a basic place, many German beers have a similar character I would say. Normally there's just the difference between light, dark, (red), weizen and then the mixed ones.
I never liked beer until I tried it in Germany. I’m here now on vacation, a Radler is probably my preference just for sweet tooth but even the basics go down nicely.
I'm German too, while I usually prefer southern german beer with a strong wheat, malt and yeast flavour I also occasionally like to explore other flavours like IPA or more exotic ones from different countries. I mean, drink what you like or don't drink at all (which might be better, health-wise). Gates open, come on in.
Never said it was anything special. But it's largely available (even in neighbor countries) and I do confirm everyone feels good after three of them ;)
It can be quickly summarized to the line in the article, "marketers have an insatiable appetite for turning human enjoyment into target-based profit". Couple that with the fact that females tend to receive more ridicule for their consumption habits, and you've got this article.
Something I should mention: I do like IPAs (not only IPA but they are tasty) and can find all 3 of the style of shirt in this weird AI looking stock image in my closet.
IPAs aren't really seasonal? I always associate fall with Marzen style lagers for Oktoberfest, and big winter warmers like barleywine and sweet stouts.
To be honest, as a French from Lille (which means I have access to a whole lot of beers) the very first time I drank an American Pale Ale it tasted like a lighter, more subtle IPA.
I’ve never really considered hops to be an interesting flavor. It’s just… flat and bitter to me.
I truly don’t understand why so many people love IPAs, or try to sneak extreme hoppiness into other beer styles. (An IPA with fruit juice is not a saison! And a 70 IBU “kolsch” is a war crime!)
As a person who prefers the complex, bright and earthy flavors from grains and yeast, getting face-fucked at the end of every sip by a one-note weed pine cone is so disappointing.
I am not an IPA fan for the same reasons. The problem are the Brewers thinking they can just add any old hop into the mix and expect it to taste good. Then you have the consumers freaking out over a 120 IBU DIPA even though, on average, the human pallet is unable to taste anything beyond 70 IBU with an average threshold of a out 4 IBU.
Don't get me wrong, I have had some great IPAs, but the places I've enjoyed them were places that knew what they were doing. Barely any bitterness and all the hop flavor and aromas.
I used to work as a brewer where the owner wouldn't let us make any recipes of our own. All the recipes that he made us use, regardless of the style of beer, had an unforgivable amount of hops to it. The stout? 80 IBU. Fuck you, Dave.
I'm not a big beer drinker, but there are few things as disappointing as finding a bar that serves stout on tap, then discovering it's been all hopped up.
I'm the opposite. I prefer a pale ale over an IPA, but recently I found hoppy larger and it is great. I find straight larger so tasteless most of the time.
Though if I am only drinking 1 or 2 beers for the night then I would choose a dark beer.
I don't have a refined palette, and I like fairly hoppy beers. It has to have a good flavor to it though. If it's made hoppy for the sake of IBUs, then it's probably bad. Like joke hot sauces are disgusting, but there are some that are delicious but really painful for me to eat, even one bite.
Older IPA hops like cascade are great but only slightly hop heavy with their classic hop flavors. The hops used more recently (I think citra and mosaic?) have great flavors when pushed to high IBUs.
Hops have amazing range. Fuggles smell like dirt. Lemondrop has a strong citrus smell.
About half of beer variety is from hops. Unless your talking about Belgians. Then it's all yeast.
While making my earlier comment, I actually looked it up to see if maybe there was something unusual about my perception of hops, but didn’t want to overload folks with info. It seems that some people are more sensitive to bitter tastes, such as those in hops, and some folks can’t taste them at all. It’s like if the whole cilantro/soap thing were less a dichotomy, and more of a spectrum. (And I’m one of the people to whom cilantro tastes like soap.)
That’s not to say I don’t recognize or value the contribution of hops to beer, but hops aren’t the primary driver of most beers flavor profile, nor should they be.
In most beer styles, the bitterness of the hops are used to balance the sweetness of the malt so the beer doesn’t taste like syrup. This allows other flavors in the malt to come out, or flavors from the yeast to say hi.
For me it’s a very fine line. I think I’m more sensitive than the average person.
If the bitterness does more than balance, then it dominates all other flavors, including any flavors within the hops themselves. It’s just bitter, flat, and tastes like how bad weed smells.
I don’t believe it’s a matter of unrefined taste. I can talk to you all day about floral notes of lightly roasted grains, the heavier flavors of darker roasted malts, or what kind of funk a yeasty beer has.
But hops. Too much, and it’s just one flavor for me. I think the only time I’ve been able to enjoy a hop’s flavor was when I ate a fresh one on a brewery tour.
I truly don’t understand why so many people love IPAs
Flavor nuance. I don't like hopsy beer myself, but there's a LOT of different profiles out there. I've even found a few IPAs I liked.
As a person who prefers the complex, bright and earthy flavors from grains and yeast, getting face-fucked at the end of every sip by a one-note weed pine cone is so disappointing.
That I'll agree with. Not a lot of drinkers respect the mashbill anymore.
If they weren't so overplayed it wouldn't be so bad, but every microbrew has like 3 IPAs, 2 dry-hopped pilsners, and a seasonal novelty that if you're lucky is something noticably different like a wheat beer or a porter.
I brew my own as well, but I think I only brewed an IPA once or twice (I got black IPA once by accidentally being too liberal with my hop additions). Never saw the need for it since I can just head to my local beer store, throw a stone and hit an IPA.
If you like IPAs, that's fine. If you're buying someone, like me, a beer at karaoke, trust me when I say that I want the cheap Modelo or Milwaukee's Best on tap. Don't buy me an IPA that costs twice as much, but I won't drink it cause it tastes bad.
Oh, ew! Why would it cost more than a dollar more than Pabst? You're not in the Northwest are you? I assure you there are fantastic ones that are palatable to any palate and don't cost a fortune
Oh, you can still be simple and find an IPA that has such a pleasing and effervescent flavor that it drives you to make bad life decisions.
I feel you on the hoppy part, though. Not every IPA needs to be dry-hopped (the process of running the fermented beer through hops again to impart flavor).
Breweries just don't want to invest the time and effort it takes to brew good porters, baltics, stouts and barkeywines anymore. Where are the dubbels and triples and red ales? Scotch ale, ever heard of it? What happened to the variety? Laziness and cost cutting. Nothing but bitter piss as far as the eye can see. I quit drinking over a year ago, but sometimes I think I'd like a beer, till I look at the wall of IPAs that passes for a beer isle. Then the urge is gone.
The craft beer isle has all sorts of options at my grocery store. About half are IPAs but there's plenty of other options. Maybe you need to try a different store.
I haven't had any opportunity to try a barleywine that wasn't my wash going into a still, so you're right on that one. That said, there's fairly limited profiles to a lot of those types of beers.
IPAs do have a lot of variety, and all you have to do to change it up is use different hops. I don't love IPAs, and I hate that they're all I see in beer aisles, but I also don't shop beer very much so whatever :)
I can take you to my local beer store in suburban Pittsburgh and show you each style you listed, alongside fruit sours, goses, and a pretty incredible variety of ciders. Pittsburgh is a hard drinking town, but I don't think our craft beer scene is leaps and bounds ahead of other similarly-sized cities. What that tells me is that the beer you (used to) want is there if you look and that you're more bitter than the 2x NEIPA that you're railing against.
I like IPAs and I'm secure enough to not be bothered by the mockery my basic brothers and I face online.
This thing got really popular for some reason. It must be awful!
My perspective is that the "basic" people can't wait to bring up how much they despise IPAs and without a single exception the reason is always "they're just SO hoppy!!!"
Well given that they're the most hoppy of the common types of beer, that reason for not liking them is hardly surprising or in any way illegitimate 🤷
Not liking them, and not liking other people liking them are very different things.
Such is true.
Which is exactly why I think it's an unnecessary and boring thing to talk about. If someone asks them, they should just say no I don't like it. Instead they volunteer the information and emphatically state the reason as though it's a surprise or unique in some way
They're probably just trying to be helpful, you know.. You sound very aggravated about them simply stating a preference and the reason for said preference.
If someone were for example to offer you an overly sweet type of confection or cake, wouldn't you similarly answer "no thanks, too sweet for my taste?"
No one is offering them an IPA or asking their opinion. You seem like maybe you're one of these people? Since you're ignoring what I wrote. They volunteer the information and then harp on it. I have heard this since I started drinking IPAs in like 2012. Ok we get it, you all hate my beer. I'm not talking shit about their awful sour beers or whatever, I keep it to myself unless asked.
Nope, I'm not "one of those". While I too don't like beers to be too hoppy, it's not something I go out of my way to tell people like some crazed stereotypical vegan 🤷
I can see how that would get annoying in the long run though and I'm 💯 with you on sour beers lol. Second worst beer I ever tasted was a gose and the worst wasn't an IPA either lol
But of the near-infinite number of things a person dislikes, they only meme about a couple. The Internet loves an easy target...
Are you NEW? 🤦
Nope, just bored to death by the seagulls constantly squawking "THING BAD! THING BAD!"
I heard a real-world explanation about why IPAs are the most common and commonly-sought craft beer. Half the reasons are unflattering, but a few are valid.
So I'm "basic" nowadays re: beer, and I despise IPAs because I literally cannot stand the bitter&pithy ones (esp Grapefruit Pith), and there's no easy way to know what an IPA will taste like till you've paid for it and cracked it open. I also get reflux and nothing blows that shit out of the water like an IPA. There's a hops shop down the street from me, but if I'm going to brew a beer (super rare, I usually make whiskey or mead) it's gonna be something will a chill flavor profile.
That's why I like brewers that publish their hops. I'm the opposite of you, I live for the citrusy, fruity type of hops and despise the more traditional floral/piney strains. If I see simcoe on the bill I'll go to bed sober, but if you've got Willamette or Cascade I'll make tea from them.
Meanwhile I don't even have an idea what the hell am IPA is. Is it like a kind of beer?
Stands for India Pale Ale. i was originally told they used to brew stronger beer to make it last the long trip to India before refrigeration was a thing.
So it tends to be higher ABV and more bitter or hoppy to go with the higher alcohol content.
The hop part is a bit more interesting. The strong beers of the time weren’t enough to keep the beer from getting infected. However, hops are a natural preservative. The oils have antibiotic properties. They were initially used as a preservative for weak British ales and the taste was a side effect but not necessarily the desired effect. When they had trouble shipping their beers across the world, they would pack the beer full of hops so it would make the trip. Eventually, Brits in India developed a taste for the bitter beer that was shipped to them and a beer style was born.
Thanks, I knew I was missing something. It’s been probably 10 years since I did a brewery tour that actually taught anything.
Those dudes are so basic the pic looks ai-generated.
IP-AI?
you seem racist
Ah, projecting our own thoughts onto others I see.
I don't get it? IPAs are good year round.
And you don't drink them in the morning.
you don't drink them in the morning 🍺😊
Can't drink all day if you don't start early!
I just need a couple beers to stop the shakes and I'm good to drive
Yep, then just a couple of road beers to get a nice buzz going. Gotta be vibin for the kids, you know?
Yeah, the meme should have said "Pumpkin Ales" instead of "IPAs"
I don't care what other people drink. In fact I love it when people show me their favorite drinks. Even if I don't like it I enjoy the experience of something new. I get bored very easily.
That being said, I moved to the Pacific Northwest a few years ago and it seems like local breweries only make IPAs. They'll have like eight local or inhouse brews and 7 will be IPAs. I just miss the variety I used to be able to find in other parts of the country. It also seems a little lazy and uncreative on the brewery's side.
Good beer is good beer.
I don't get it.
I don't even like IPAs all that much.
But like... Pumpkin Spice is a seasonal artificial flavor that is I think annoying to people because it's made its way into everything from marshmallows to crackers to milk.
IPA is a style of beer. That's it.
IPAs don't even taste the same, people just think of the (ex: Sierra Nevada) hoppy taste and assume it's all like that.
I don't know if it's like this where you are, but in Scandinavia if you like beer but don't like IPAs, you're shit out of luck for like the last five years at least. It has completely taken over the beer aisles at like 70 % of the offering. As someone who hates that bitter taste with a passion, the fact that it makes the selection of beers that I enjoy so much smaller, means it's akin to how I imagine pumpkin spice taking over in the US during fall, except it isn't just seasonal.
That sucks. It was like that here in the US about 5 years ago with IPAs. Every micro brewery made like 10 IPAs and nothing else. They are still the most prevalent style but there is a noticeable shift toward making lagers or less hoppy ales the past few years and it's been a really nice change.
I hope we'll see that soon as well. I've been mostly into malty, full-bodied varieties, and recently also sour beers and gose. Those have started to appear in stores, but not reliably. It feels like they're testing the waters, and are cycling through brands quickly, so once you find a favorite, it's already gone. Hopefully it'll stabilize with a decent selection of all types.
It's not even a seasonal style of beer.
They're both popular, and something that you can just not buy if you don't like them, but people like to complain about because they see the popular thing around, and it bothers them.
Also, pumpkin spice doesn't have to be artificial. It's just the spices found in pumpkin pie. It's usually just cinnamon, clove, nutmeg and ginger.
It can be artificial, but it's like complaining that "apple" is a seasonal artificial flavor.
I'm German. I look down upon these pesants. The best beer is dark and unfiltered. Anything else cannot compare.
I’ve had your beer while in your country. Much respect and all given the history and contributions to beer over all, but after a week…it got boring.
I’m happy to be a peasant with never ending variety of styles and variations within styles without being hamstrung by some unimaginative and restrictive laws.
There's variety too, you just didn't get to see it during your stay. The laws are now much more liberal than they used to be.
But yeah, when you go to a basic place, many German beers have a similar character I would say. Normally there's just the difference between light, dark, (red), weizen and then the mixed ones.
Drinking weizen makes me feel like I've had drink and food at the same time, so rich.
My stomach says thanks but no thanks haha
I never liked beer until I tried it in Germany. I’m here now on vacation, a Radler is probably my preference just for sweet tooth but even the basics go down nicely.
Canadian IPA is dark and unfiltered.
Wow wow wow, take it easy there, them are some fighting words.
Vegans, PSL girls, IPA guys, furries, and anime nerds seem to be the most popular targets for boring, basic memes.
It's the middle of Oktoberfest season, and you went with IPAs for this meme?
Not to mention, there's literally pumpkin spice beer.
Well, they couldn't go with Helles because it's actually good.
Oktoberfest beers (Märzens) literally have carmel malts, they're the Starbucks of beers.
I'm German too, while I usually prefer southern german beer with a strong wheat, malt and yeast flavour I also occasionally like to explore other flavours like IPA or more exotic ones from different countries. I mean, drink what you like or don't drink at all (which might be better, health-wise). Gates open, come on in.
3 chouffes later everyone's having a good time ;)
No... La Chouffe isn't anything special... Try something like Orval or Oude Geuze.
Never said it was anything special. But it's largely available (even in neighbor countries) and I do confirm everyone feels good after three of them ;)
The best part is, I can have an IPA all year round!
Everyone who doesn't get it needs to read this.
It can be quickly summarized to the line in the article, "marketers have an insatiable appetite for turning human enjoyment into target-based profit". Couple that with the fact that females tend to receive more ridicule for their consumption habits, and you've got this article.
Hasn't aged a day
Yeah that's not how ipas work.
OP just doesn't know good beer. (shrug)
if it isnt brewed in a monestary in belgium whats even the point #notlikeotherguys
But Abbey beers are the shit though.
Rage bait.
That’s pretty true. People are so passionate about having an ipa
Beer is great
But have you had
You know what's better?
Free beer!
Except (in my own subjective opinion) if it's too hoppy and IPA is the kangaroo of beers.
cant get much else craft beer wise where i live.
i like a porter ale but theres only like one shop that does one.
Stouts are nice but guinness is overplayed. Brewdog have released a stout that seems to be doing well though, but i like variety
Something I should mention: I do like IPAs (not only IPA but they are tasty) and can find all 3 of the style of shirt in this weird AI looking stock image in my closet.
Soooooo...
IPAs aren't really seasonal? I always associate fall with Marzen style lagers for Oktoberfest, and big winter warmers like barleywine and sweet stouts.
...International Phonetic Alphabets?
Linguists are such basic removed
I have no idea what any of those words mean
Yeah, but I don't drink 16 pumpkin spice lattes in one sitting.
You ok, friend?
No, but ask me again after 16 Ninkasi Prismatics and the answer might change.
To be honest, as a French from Lille (which means I have access to a whole lot of beers) the very first time I drank an American Pale Ale it tasted like a lighter, more subtle IPA.
I’ve never really considered hops to be an interesting flavor. It’s just… flat and bitter to me.
I truly don’t understand why so many people love IPAs, or try to sneak extreme hoppiness into other beer styles. (An IPA with fruit juice is not a saison! And a 70 IBU “kolsch” is a war crime!)
As a person who prefers the complex, bright and earthy flavors from grains and yeast, getting face-fucked at the end of every sip by a one-note weed pine cone is so disappointing.
Single greatest description of the taste of IPA I've ever read.
I am not an IPA fan for the same reasons. The problem are the Brewers thinking they can just add any old hop into the mix and expect it to taste good. Then you have the consumers freaking out over a 120 IBU DIPA even though, on average, the human pallet is unable to taste anything beyond 70 IBU with an average threshold of a out 4 IBU.
Don't get me wrong, I have had some great IPAs, but the places I've enjoyed them were places that knew what they were doing. Barely any bitterness and all the hop flavor and aromas.
I used to work as a brewer where the owner wouldn't let us make any recipes of our own. All the recipes that he made us use, regardless of the style of beer, had an unforgivable amount of hops to it. The stout? 80 IBU. Fuck you, Dave.
I'm not a big beer drinker, but there are few things as disappointing as finding a bar that serves stout on tap, then discovering it's been all hopped up.
Jesus.
If you see Dave around, tell him I think his management style is as unpalatable as his beer.
I'm the opposite. I prefer a pale ale over an IPA, but recently I found hoppy larger and it is great. I find straight larger so tasteless most of the time.
Though if I am only drinking 1 or 2 beers for the night then I would choose a dark beer.
I don't have a refined palette, and I like fairly hoppy beers. It has to have a good flavor to it though. If it's made hoppy for the sake of IBUs, then it's probably bad. Like joke hot sauces are disgusting, but there are some that are delicious but really painful for me to eat, even one bite.
Older IPA hops like cascade are great but only slightly hop heavy with their classic hop flavors. The hops used more recently (I think citra and mosaic?) have great flavors when pushed to high IBUs.
Hops have amazing range. Fuggles smell like dirt. Lemondrop has a strong citrus smell.
About half of beer variety is from hops. Unless your talking about Belgians. Then it's all yeast.
While making my earlier comment, I actually looked it up to see if maybe there was something unusual about my perception of hops, but didn’t want to overload folks with info. It seems that some people are more sensitive to bitter tastes, such as those in hops, and some folks can’t taste them at all. It’s like if the whole cilantro/soap thing were less a dichotomy, and more of a spectrum. (And I’m one of the people to whom cilantro tastes like soap.)
That’s not to say I don’t recognize or value the contribution of hops to beer, but hops aren’t the primary driver of most beers flavor profile, nor should they be. In most beer styles, the bitterness of the hops are used to balance the sweetness of the malt so the beer doesn’t taste like syrup. This allows other flavors in the malt to come out, or flavors from the yeast to say hi.
For me it’s a very fine line. I think I’m more sensitive than the average person.
If the bitterness does more than balance, then it dominates all other flavors, including any flavors within the hops themselves. It’s just bitter, flat, and tastes like how bad weed smells.
I don’t believe it’s a matter of unrefined taste. I can talk to you all day about floral notes of lightly roasted grains, the heavier flavors of darker roasted malts, or what kind of funk a yeasty beer has.
But hops. Too much, and it’s just one flavor for me. I think the only time I’ve been able to enjoy a hop’s flavor was when I ate a fresh one on a brewery tour.
Flavor nuance. I don't like hopsy beer myself, but there's a LOT of different profiles out there. I've even found a few IPAs I liked.
That I'll agree with. Not a lot of drinkers respect the mashbill anymore.
If they weren't so overplayed it wouldn't be so bad, but every microbrew has like 3 IPAs, 2 dry-hopped pilsners, and a seasonal novelty that if you're lucky is something noticably different like a wheat beer or a porter.
I brew my own and I basically the same spread. Ipa is just the base beer and everything else is a change of pace.
I brew my own as well, but I think I only brewed an IPA once or twice (I got black IPA once by accidentally being too liberal with my hop additions). Never saw the need for it since I can just head to my local beer store, throw a stone and hit an IPA.
I guess it's about frequency since it's our (my friend and I) main alcohol consumption. We make around 12L/week.
If you like IPAs, that's fine. If you're buying someone, like me, a beer at karaoke, trust me when I say that I want the cheap Modelo or Milwaukee's Best on tap. Don't buy me an IPA that costs twice as much, but I won't drink it cause it tastes bad.
Oh, ew! Why would it cost more than a dollar more than Pabst? You're not in the Northwest are you? I assure you there are fantastic ones that are palatable to any palate and don't cost a fortune
Imperial Beach, so south west. I've tried so many IPAs. They're all way too hoppy. I'm simple. Gimme a Budweiser or similar.
Oh, you can still be simple and find an IPA that has such a pleasing and effervescent flavor that it drives you to make bad life decisions.
I feel you on the hoppy part, though. Not every IPA needs to be dry-hopped (the process of running the fermented beer through hops again to impart flavor).
IPA stands for....
Insert pecker anally
Internally Prolapsed Anus
Inebriated Pale Anglos
Isopropyl alcohol (don't drink it)
To add, IPA is a style, it does not indicate location of origin of the beer. These are not of the style Pale Ale that were brewed in India.
Insipid Piss Analogue
Introspective penile assessment
I made ye. Wake up.
A new craft brewery opens, the beer list is 3 IPAs, a double hopped IPA, a triple, and a bowl of hops spritzed with bitrex.
Haw!
Are you a wrestler? Because you just did an excellent half Nelson 😉
Oh, is that what they are? I thought they were just bottled cat piss...
Pumpkin IPAs are where it's at!
Yes OP you are very unique and smart.
Shipyard Pumpkin ale is better than a latte and almost as good as a yummy NEIPA.
Breweries just don't want to invest the time and effort it takes to brew good porters, baltics, stouts and barkeywines anymore. Where are the dubbels and triples and red ales? Scotch ale, ever heard of it? What happened to the variety? Laziness and cost cutting. Nothing but bitter piss as far as the eye can see. I quit drinking over a year ago, but sometimes I think I'd like a beer, till I look at the wall of IPAs that passes for a beer isle. Then the urge is gone.
The craft beer isle has all sorts of options at my grocery store. About half are IPAs but there's plenty of other options. Maybe you need to try a different store.
I haven't had any opportunity to try a barleywine that wasn't my wash going into a still, so you're right on that one. That said, there's fairly limited profiles to a lot of those types of beers.
IPAs do have a lot of variety, and all you have to do to change it up is use different hops. I don't love IPAs, and I hate that they're all I see in beer aisles, but I also don't shop beer very much so whatever :)
I can take you to my local beer store in suburban Pittsburgh and show you each style you listed, alongside fruit sours, goses, and a pretty incredible variety of ciders. Pittsburgh is a hard drinking town, but I don't think our craft beer scene is leaps and bounds ahead of other similarly-sized cities. What that tells me is that the beer you (used to) want is there if you look and that you're more bitter than the 2x NEIPA that you're railing against.