Why do Rabbits like IPAs? Because they're hoppy!

April 12, 2024 4:25 PM

I'm the Draft List at This Brewery, and No, You Can't Have a Light Beer "Sure, we made a 'normal' IPA once. But then we were like, why make a beer that's enjoyable to drink when we could make a beer that's not?" [McSweeneys]
posted by cozenedindigo (75 comments total)

IPAs are nice and it is unfortunate contrarians try to make it so difficult to enjoy anything in life.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:30 PM on April 12 [13 favorites]

It does sound like the author doesn't like beer with hops...

Here in the bay area, there's lots of light options these days! 'Session' is a prefix that generally means <=4% ABV; Session IPAs were everywhere for the last couple years. And there's lots of 'West Coast Pilsner' lately, which really just means 'pilsner with lots of hops,' and also tends to be in the 5% ABV range.

But yah, if you don't like hops, you should either get into sours or choose a different coast.
posted by kaibutsu at 4:35 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

The place here in the PNW that I frequent has had a dearth of interesting IPA choices available lately...

The Westy Roosevelt in Seattle. Food is great. Give Dave a big tip!
posted by Windopaene at 4:38 PM on April 12

There was a brewery here with the motto “beer flavored beer”. They did have one triple IPA, but otherwise had a really good standard IPA a Brown ale and a Belgian table beer at under 5% ABV of course they went out of business.
posted by CostcoCultist at 4:50 PM on April 12 [7 favorites]

As far as I'm concerned IPAs are how unscrupulous brewers cover up substandard brewing practices.
/s

After working in the yard for a couple hours on a really hot summer day, an IPA is really great; the rest of the time I'm not a fan. But I recognize that a lot of people like them and it's not all about me. My only real objection to IPAs is that for the past 10-15 years it's seemed like IPAs invariably take up about 75-80% of the space in every store's craft/microbrew beer section, making more full-bodied malty styles scarcer than hen's teeth. What about just one Scotch ale? A brown ale or two? Is a Marzen out of the question?? Hrumph.

Old Man Shakes Fist At Inflorescences
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:57 PM on April 12 [27 favorites]

What’s good for a gose is good for a gander, I say.
posted by GenjiandProust at 4:59 PM on April 12 [14 favorites]

One of the developments I’ve been happiest with in the craft beer world is in the increase in “non”-alcoholic decent beers. I like craft beer, but I’m in my forties and have various health issues and live away from public transit, and all of those things mean I am not often going to be able to drink.

So I’m pretty thankful that several decent craft breweries have NA offerings. Now if only my local would start carrying more of them..
posted by nat at 4:59 PM on April 12 [15 favorites]

(Oh, also I hate sours. Ugh. More gose for everyone else, I guess.)
posted by nat at 5:00 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

My only real objection to IPAs is that for the past 10-15 years it's seemed like IPAs invariably take up about 75-80% of the space in every store's craft/microbrew beer section, making more full-bodied malty styles scarcer than hen's teeth.

This. The 75-80% is barely an exaggeration - there's a bunch of different breweries represented at my grocery store, but all with IPAs, double IPAs, triple IPAs, and hazy IPAs; and now more recently fruit IPAs. There's 5 different types of Sculpin alone, and the most common alternative is a blonde lager - like only the ends of the spectrum with barely anything in between! I have noticed a recent uptick of breweries offering Mexican-style lager and getting it placed in the stores, but that's still pretty light stuff. I felt like I struck gold a couple weeks ago when I went to a liquor store and found a saison.
posted by LionIndex at 5:06 PM on April 12 [11 favorites]

I feel like this piece is several years too late. At least here in the Midwest, every brewery makes multiple simple and decidedly drinkable beers. In particular, Mexican lagers are de rigueur. At the brewery I work at, our taproom offers five beers at 5% or lower. We have a golden ale, Modelo-esque lager, a helles adjacent lager, a cold IPA, and a very mildly fruity passion fruit pale ale. My sensibility is that the industry has very much course corrected from the excesses of the milkshake days.
posted by barrett caulk at 5:07 PM on April 12 [23 favorites]

A new (very) microbrewery opened up a few miles from my house recently. I live in suburban New Jersey, so this is not an every day occurrence. When I dropped in for a few crowlers to go, I was pleased to see they had a pale ale, a pilsner, an ESB, and a porter, all between 5 and 6% alcohol by volume. Of course they had a few IPAs, but at least one clocked under 7% and was billed as a traditional IPA. I've seen this at a few other very local breweries recently, too. At least here, it seems like this trend is just beginning, and it's not reflected in the selection offered in liquor stores yet. I like this trend. I love hops, but I also prefer them to be balanced with the malt.
posted by mollweide at 5:18 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

We're definitely swinging back on this trend - except for the hipstery places.

He says as he finished chilling a Clam Chowdah Saison. *sigh* I'm part of the problem aren't I?

Also, oddly, one of my favorite beers in LA right now is a 3.5% bitter called "Tread Lightly Rabbit For There Are Enemies About"
posted by drewbage1847 at 5:20 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

We definitely need more bitters and milds.
posted by mollweide at 5:29 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]

Oh I feel this. The “craft” beer scene here in the PNW has become an exercise in “how much hops can I cram into this (so-called) beer?”
I feel like a truer measure of actual beer-brewing craft is a good lager or Pilsner. There’s one place that brews a malt liquor in the summer and it sooo good, not at all Colt-45, if you know what I mean.
All you kids get away from my lager.
posted by dbmcd at 5:29 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]

Coworkers wanted to go out for a drink after work and they picked a pub-style restaurant near work. I don't usually drink but would drank something if I could tell i'd like it, but this place had gone all fancy beer and expected me to order from an elaborate menu of microbrews and specialty beers that could easily have just been a bunch randomized words, I couldn't process it. I ordered a Mountain Dew instead.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:36 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Come to Denver, where we have entire breweries that specialize in lagers and pilsners and other beers I hate!
posted by McBearclaw at 5:37 PM on April 12 [4 favorites]

Years ago my wife gave me a beer-of-the month club subscription as a birthday present. There were always one or more over-hopped selections that had the bouquet of a rubber tire burning in a junkyard. Not a fan. Most of the rest were standard beery-beers. But two that stood out were a saison and a milk stout. Those I would buy again...
posted by jim in austin at 5:41 PM on April 12

The “craft” beer scene here in the PNW has become an exercise in “how much hops can I cram into this (so-called) beer?”

That’s my position, too: it reminds me of the parallel hot sauce culture which started decades ago with a healthy rejection of the incredibly bland mainstream white American diet but then continued into this silly macho “how hot can you handle?” competition trying to approach chemically pure capsaicin, ignoring minor details like whether something was enjoyable to eat. It felt like a band competition where everyone was trying to see how loud the guitar could get.

I do agree with other people suggesting the long needed correction has happened. We don’t drink much any more but I’ve been very happy to have more variety and the newer places have been IPAs which have flavors more complex than “we cranked the hops up to 11.” A friend mentioned that they’re seeing a lot more variety in the type of hops available in the market, too, which would fit with people getting tired of the same thing.
posted by adamsc at 5:44 PM on April 12 [6 favorites]

This seemed like an extremely long walk to say, “The kind of beer that I prefer is not readily obtainable at the places where I, for some inexplicable reason, choose to purchase beer.”
posted by kyrademon at 5:50 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

I feel like this piece is several years too late.

This is definitely a “2015 called” situation. Maybe 2018 if I’m being generous.

If we’re grousing, though, I want more English-style ales, goddamnit.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:00 PM on April 12 [10 favorites]

It's more like, if this is a phenomenon that seems familiar to you (as it does to me and a few others apparently), that every place I could buy beer is pretty much like that. Like, if I go to a brewery, they'll have 10 beers on tap but only 3 will not be IPAs or something similar and I'm not real excited about the options. And for whatever reason the local stores don't feel like stocking the non-IPA varieties. It'd be nice to be not have to go to a specialty store to get a beer, or even just routinely be able to find a beer that I'm somewhat enthusiastic about instead of "meh, I guess this'll do".
posted by LionIndex at 6:01 PM on April 12 [5 favorites]

it reminds me of the parallel hot sauce culture which started decades ago with a healthy rejection of the incredibly bland mainstream white American diet but

I've said my bit on this issue previously ...

I never really bought into excess hops. Much as I've never bought into those single malt scotches that taste like they were strained through an acre of peat bog before going into the bottle. The common issue seems to be one of heavy-handedness for which I blame the drinkers as much as the brewers (ie: how can I know if I'm drinking something special if it doesn't SCREAM the fact to my taste buds? the alcohol equivalent of rare death metal or whatever)

not that there's anything wrong with death metal; it's just not the only thing I want in my jukebox
posted by philip-random at 6:06 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]

I feel like a lot of how this lands depends on your local beer culture. I've been lamenting this situation for years, and it seems it's been slow to change here in New Jersey, or at least where I go. Sour beers have been a welcome departure from hazy, tropical, or milkshake IPAs here for a while now, but that doesn't seem to have expanded into a broadening of brewed styles similar to the extent of what we saw in the 1990s. And I'm if going to be having a few beers in whatever context, maybe one of them will be a sour. The difference in selection between stores and breweries/brewpubs is an issue, too.
posted by mollweide at 6:08 PM on April 12

Oh, and not to abuse the edit window: I wholeheartedly agree with uncleozzy that English style ales need to be the next thing. Real English style, too, not just throwing a ton of caramel malt into a pale ale with some English hops and calling it an ESB.
posted by mollweide at 6:10 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]

As a 20-yr resident of Seattle, I fail to see the satire of this piece.
posted by Pedantzilla at 6:14 PM on April 12 [8 favorites]

IPAs are nice and it is unfortunate contrarians try to make it so difficult to enjoy anything in life.

The article is making fun of a real thing but as others have said it’s not particularly timely. In fairness, it makes fun of a series of subsequent trends as well. To what extent these are still in effect probably depends on where you live.
posted by atoxyl at 6:15 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

You want hoppy? You like the hops? I see your IPA and raise you a barley wine. Why hasn't that taken off yet?
posted by zardoz at 6:17 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Why hasn't that taken off yet?

It kinda did, as a subset of the referenced trend of extremely strong beers.
posted by atoxyl at 6:20 PM on April 12

I wish all these IPA dominated tap lists were in my area. We get a lot of stuff that's called IPA but it's really more of a marketing term, all these hazys or milkshake ones that seem to mainly use the term because that's what folks expect.

I realize I'm now the old man yelling just like folks were when the initial IPA revolution took of about how they hated the new fangled trend.
posted by Carillon at 6:31 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

RIP Blue Bell Bitter
posted by hototogisu at 6:46 PM on April 12

hops are a crutch for someone who doesn't know how to brew beer. same thing with fruit, lactose, coffee, chocolate, and all the other novelty additives. if you brew shit beer, people don't drink your shit beer. if you brew shit beer with a buncha mango, murder a couple of bines in the wort, and throw in some belgian candi sugar to raise that starting gravity until the end product has a double-digit ABV and could be problematic for diabetics - now you have something. sure it still tastes like shit beer, but now it also tastes like a buncha of other things besides shit beer
posted by logicpunk at 7:28 PM on April 12 [5 favorites]

Come now, that sounds like Framboise slander, and Framboise is amazingly delicious.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:37 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]

i see a lot of blame cast on shitty brewing and halfassedness in the comments here, and those criticisms aren't wrong, i just think we are missing the forest for the trees

the fact is, Americans really, really like American hops, and beers with characteristic flavors derived from American hops. If my customer came out here for a $9 pint of beer, odds are, that person is gonna be very disappointed if I don't have some very hop-forward brews to serve, with distinctively American aromas

I found the article humorous. I am not pumped that a lot of places do 100 variations on the same style. But a lot of it is just consumer choice. Consumers ask for things, consumers get things.

"Fortunately" for all the beer obsessives out there, the bloom is off the rose. Sales are falling, bars and breweries are closing, the trend is over. Beer as-a-thing is not what it was ten years ago. So when it goes back to being a weird niche interest, maybe the folks so dogged they operate unprofitable brewpubs will go back to trying to get more than one house style off the ground.
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 7:49 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

> You want hoppy? You like the hops? I see your IPA and raise you a barley wine. Why hasn't that taken off yet?

at least half the "IPAs" on my local store shelves stink like fusel oils and wouldn't pass muster as a "barley wine"

It tastes like your worst and stupidest's cousins freeze-distilled apple jack, but with hops

(there are good products ALSO but the bad ones stick in the memory)
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 7:52 PM on April 12

hops are a crutch for someone who doesn't know how to brew beer. same thing with fruit, lactose, coffee, chocolate, and all the other novelty additives

I can only thank the Cosmos that I haven't stumbled across any hopped cider, yogurt, coffee, or chocolate so far...
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:54 PM on April 12

Come now, that sounds like Framboise slander, and Framboise is amazingly delicious.

can i interest you in my Hammsboise recipe? you empty a thirty of Hamms into a bucket, put in 5 lbs of raspberries, and let it sit for a week.


refreshing!
posted by logicpunk at 7:56 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]

While we're griping I'd like to register a complaint about places where the beer menu is all entries like "Fluffy Zingola, Paintbrush Breeze, Hipville CO". What does that mean? Which part of that name is the brewery? What's the flavor, or the style, or anything? And that's not a problem if it's someplace local because I can see "Strange Cattle" or whatever on a list and recognize it and know I like it. But traveling? Or giving a reasonable experience to visitors coming here? We need proper labeling!
posted by traveler_ at 7:58 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

If my customer came out here for a $9 pint of beer, odds are, that person is gonna be very disappointed if I don't have some very hop-forward brews to serve

I'm gonna be disappointed to the point of disappearing if some joint is charging 9 bucks a beer.

More seriously, I don't think I agree that the "All IPAs All the Time" trend was consumer-driven.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:58 PM on April 12 [5 favorites]

METAFILTER: like your worst and stupidest's cousins freeze-distilled apple jack, but with hops
posted by philip-random at 8:21 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

The article is pretty far behind the current trends. It's not that breweries don't make a ton of IPAs, but there are a ton of breweries making delicious lagers and pilsners, and most brewers I know would much rather drink those than an IPA at this point.

The thing is, all of the complaints about IPAs always ring just a smidge hollow to me. As a lover of non-IPAs (I love stouts and ales, pale, brown, reds they all make me happy), I get that it's frustrating to go into a bar with 10-20 taps and only see maybe one pilsner, one stout, and maybe a sour, and twelve IPAs. It can be a bit monotonous, but it's that way for a reason: those IPAs sell, and sell well. Working in a bar, seeing how quickly the taplist changes, how quickly new IPAs are put on, all while that stout that was tapped last week will still be there next week. People complain about style X not being on tap, but when it is, they're still probably not drinking a ton of it. Browns, reds, and stouts might be delicious, but they just don't move like IPAs do. Bars need to make money, so they stock the things that sell. More often than not, the IPA they're selling is being drunk by someone who complains about how bars don't have enough variety.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:27 PM on April 12 [7 favorites]

I'm gonna be disappointed to the point of disappearing if some joint is charging 9 bucks a beer.

More seriously, I don't think I agree that the "All IPAs All the Time" trend was consumer-driven.

Juxtaposing these two sentences suggests to me that maybe you are not altogether in touch with current market conditions, my friend

This summer I ordered two cans of beer at a hole-in-the wall piece of shit joint near the hospital

I laid down a crisp twenty on the "bar" (a series of 2x4s laid across cinder block -- it was not a nice place!) and the bartender looked at me like I had grown a third arm out the back of my neck

my ACTUAL bill for two well-known (fancy) canned beers was $31. I wasn't guessing. I knew these beers, I thought I knew my local market conditions, this is a piece of shit neighborhood bar for hospital workers, and here I am, lookin like an idiot assuming a can of beer costs less than $10.

I haven't been back to that particular piece of shit beer bar, but, let's just say, inflation chastens us all
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 8:30 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]

While we're griping I'd like to register a complaint about places where the beer menu is all entries like "Fluffy Zingola, Paintbrush Breeze, Hipville CO". What does that mean? Which part of that name is the brewery? What's the flavor, or the style, or anything?

once upon a time, terse menus were meant to be an invitation to open a conversation with a skilled salesperson who cares very much about your beer enjoyment

the pandemic has not made those service jobs easy to do, your mileage may vary. but the tradition comes from the right spirit.

You got questions? They have got answers! (hopefully)
posted by your postings may, in fact, be signed at 8:33 PM on April 12

As far as I'm concerned IPAs are how unscrupulous brewers cover up substandard brewing practices.

I had someone online literally argue that as a feature: that IPAs, especially hazy IPAs, were a lot more "forgiving," and thus, more commercially viable than other styles such as stouts.

I tend to find phrases like "covering mistakes" in the service of capitalism the way doors fall out of airplanes. Just sayin'.
posted by MrGuilt at 8:36 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

Even more than the usual McSwee fare, this feels like 2004 called and wants its casual ultra-hipster hipster bashing jokes back.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:45 PM on April 12 [4 favorites]

maybe you are not altogether in touch with current market conditions, my friend

I lived in Asheville NC for 14 years, and have lived in Portland Oregon for another 15 (both of which were for many years constantly vying for "Beer City USA" status). Not once have I paid more than $7 for a pint, and that was a rare change from the far more typical $6. None of them were at a "hole-in-the wall piece of shit joint" and they were all on draft, no cans.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:46 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]

the premise feels kind of "people are simply performatively faking their enjoyment of capsaicin in food, in order to shame me, personally"
posted by DoctorFedora at 8:52 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

Like I feel like I’m in a time warp. This is a trustafarian whinging about a California brew pub in the mid-aughts, right? The last 20 years didn’t happen and instead of existential dread we live in the daily horror of craft brewers making beer styles we don’t prefer.
posted by aspersioncast at 8:56 PM on April 12 [3 favorites]

As far as I'm concerned IPAs are how unscrupulous brewers cover up substandard brewing practices.
I've been a home brewer for many years. Making a clean crisp lager is a challenge. The tiniest off flavour will stand out. It took me many tries to get it right and I still get misses. Of course after the second bottle that becomes academic.
posted by night_train at 9:39 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

As a homebrewer in the 1990s, so many electrons were spilled on Usenet and The Homebrew Digest in pursuit of clear beer. I was never a clear beer zealot, but making beer intentionally hazy was beyond the pale. Except for hefeweizens, we weren't idiots back then.
posted by mollweide at 9:47 PM on April 12 [2 favorites]

instead of existential dread we live in the daily horror of craft brewers making beer styles we don’t prefer

nowadays the craft brewers live in existential dread because of declining beer sales, or that’s the sense I’m getting from the thread
posted by atoxyl at 10:47 PM on April 12

But two that stood out were a saison and a milk stout. Those I would buy again...

I feel so seen! I am someone who only orders beer when I am at a brewery trying something they've made onsite, but I love a super-dark or a super-light beer and not a single thing in between. (What I really love is a barleywine, but I've only had a truly great one at Cambridge Brewing Company.)
posted by mykescipark at 10:50 PM on April 12

It can be a bit monotonous, but it's that way for a reason: those IPAs sell, and sell well.

And I think we all know the real reason for this. In the mind of the consumer, IPA means "three pints of this will get you shitfaced".

IPA means >7% ABV. Fucking New Belgium Brewing has turned into a company that lets you fool your wife into thinking that you're not drinking yourself to death because it's only beer, right? Those skulls are on the can for a reason.
posted by mr_roboto at 10:53 PM on April 12 [1 favorite]

I mean, it's amazing that they figured out a way to sell malt liquor to white people. They just needed to make it taste bad.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:04 PM on April 12 [11 favorites]

People can drink what they want. But as an Englishman who’s been drinking traditional IPA for fifty years, I weirdly feel my culture has been appropriated and debased.
posted by Phanx at 1:01 AM on April 13 [4 favorites]

More seriously, I don't think I agree that the "All IPAs All the Time" trend was consumer-driven.

Big Hop certainly did a great job marketing patented varietals with memorable names. Even more so than Big Grape did for wine.. and as far as I know, nobody has a patent on Chardonnay.
posted by GeorgeBickham at 2:38 AM on April 13

The “craft” beer scene here in the PNW has become an exercise in “how much hops can I cram into this (so-called) beer?”

I think a lot of the mega-hop trend had a lot to do with how well hops grow in regions like the PNW. It’s a curse of abundance.

I do love a good IPA. But, for me, a “good” IPA (or APA, if you will) is nicely balanced between malt and hop, and that’s a balance too few brewers seem able to walk. It can be a fine line to tread, too. Here in the midwest, I think Bells hits the malt/hop balance just about right with their Two-Hearted. It’s hoppy, but also has a solid malt backbone that smooths things out. Its only real drawback is it’s a 7% ABV brew.

I put mega-hopping in the same category as high-ABV beers...lazy fucking brewing. It’s simply too easy to stuff a ton of hops in a beer, as well as make a high-ABV beer. I have yet to try a double/triple/imperial anything that didn’t taste horribly unbalanced and alcoholic.
posted by Thorzdad at 4:25 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]

I don't like looking at a list of 17 IPAs, two berry-flavored beers, a porter, and maaaybe a pilsner.

Lagers and pilsner and hefeweizens, yes! 🙏
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:38 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]

Lagers and pilsner and hefeweizens, yes!

The tricky part, of course, is that ales are a hell of a lot easier to make than lagers, which is why they dominate the “craft” market. Craft brewing has its roots in home brewing, and ales are far, far easier to brew in a home setting, which eventually evolved into the craft-brewing scene we enjoy today. Brewing a true lager at home was difficult at best.

Around here, I see lagers and pils showing up more often, though I can’t say they are all that flavorful. Hefes have been pretty common on menus for awhile now.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:01 AM on April 13

Well I'd like the professionals to get tricky with it!
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:13 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]

My local microbrewery is currently offering:
1 Kölsch
1 Hazy Pale Ale
2 IPAs
1 Hazy NE IPA
1 Oatmeal Stout
1 Belgian Dubbel
1 Belgian Blonde
1 Hefeweizen
1 Berliner Weisse

That seems like a pretty solid mix. I'm unlikely to enjoy a randomly presented IPA but with that said, brewers that use a diverse range of hops can highlight some pretty distinct flavors just by using different hops. For example, a beer made exclusively with citra hops can be quite pleasant and tasting of citrus flavors without adding an citrus adjuncts to the beverage.
posted by mmascolino at 6:14 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]

(And duh, hefes been "on the menu" for awhile now, yes. We're discussing trends, and IPAs are definitely still a trend here in Chicago.)

This discussion reads like people saying "this is how I feel about the beer menus I read" and others replying, "you're wrong" lol
posted by tiny frying pan at 6:19 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]

Oh dear, I see I'm going to have to introduce everyone to Behemoth .... enjoy yourself as you scroll down to "im-PEACH-ment: sour ale", "Dump the Trump: American IPA", "Collusion: American hopped Russian imperial stout" and so many many many more
posted by mbo at 6:34 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]

Fucking New Belgium Brewing has turned into a company that lets you fool your wife into thinking that you're not drinking yourself to death because it's only beer, right?

New Belgium was at one time a 100% employee-owned Certified B-Corp, but then they were acquired in 2019 by a larger company that seems more interested in filling convenience-store shelves with endless iterations of tall-can high-ABV IPAs than in oak-aged cherry sours or whatever.
posted by box at 7:06 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]

a stout so strong that we’re legally obligated to watch you drink it. - make me for real LOL.

But...

I get the point here. I was thrilled when the first IPAs arrived and brought hops to the table. But that was a long time ago. Nothing succeeds like excess, I guess, but too many IBUs and too high ABVs are ruining the fun. Luckily for me as a homebrewer I can make my own < 5% nicely balanced pale ales that I can pour right from the keg (and have more than one).
posted by tommasz at 7:42 AM on April 13

It's nice to see the backlash against overdone IPAs continue. I started drinking beer in Portland in the 90s and really didn't like it. It wasn't until 15 years later when I started traveling around middle Europe that I realized all beer didn't have to taste like that. Any random town in Germany has a great answer to “Dude, why don’t people make more beers like this?”. Or two or three (but not 100, which is refreshingly simplifying.)

It was the early 2010s I first started reading about the IPA backlash. Specifically people pointing out that the double IPAs, etc were succeeding in competitions because after tasting 10 beers a punch in the mouth was all anyone could taste. We talked about this on Metafilter several times then: here or here or here.

Here in the year 2024 I'm drinking Michelob Ultra. I'm not going to pretend it's a great beer. But it's pretty good, and lower calorie and carbs and gives me the same pleasure at dinner as a more ordinary beer (and way more than an IPA).
posted by Nelson at 7:50 AM on April 13 [3 favorites]

When confronted with a list of any length of unknown beers, I always ask the serving person, “What do you have that is dark and nasty?” After they recover their composure, they usually point at one item on the list. I order it and have rarely been disappointed.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:59 AM on April 13 [2 favorites]

This feels at least ten years old.

(That said, all beer tastes terrible, please put a nice dry or semi-dry cider on the menu so that people with taste can have something to drink, too.)
posted by praemunire at 9:38 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]

But as an Englishman who’s been drinking traditional IPA for fifty years, I weirdly feel my culture has been appropriated and debased.

at first, with things like bell's two-hearted ale, i thought we americans had come up with a more hoppy but still balanced take on the ipa

but it's getting overboard - it just seems that balance and subtlety have been lost and the hops are to mask the high gravity bite of alcohol

worse, other styles are being neglected - bell's used to make a brown ale, but that wasn't blowing people away so they stopped making it

it doesn't seem like anyone wants to try making a bitter

also, there's a secret in american beer culture - the initiation rite of giving a bud or miller lite drinker an ipa and seeing what happens next - i've seen something as balanced and mild as samuel smith's ipa cause choking and near convulsions in yellow fizzy beer drinkers

i had to finish the beer off - so sad ...
posted by pyramid termite at 10:16 AM on April 13

Of all the beers I’ve home brewed, my all-around favorite is the house brown ale where I accidentally used Citra hops instead of Cascade, and it was fantastic. Really need to do that one again. I like hops, but there’s so much joy to be had in exploring malt flavors too!
posted by xedrik at 11:08 AM on April 13 [1 favorite]

...bell's used to make a brown ale, but that wasn't blowing people away so they stopped making it

Thankfully, they still have a porter.
posted by Thorzdad at 2:08 PM on April 13 [1 favorite]

Bells does good work overall - their Lager of the Lakes was pretty good, and Oberon release day is kind of a thing in Michigan.

I felt like the other big West Michigan brewery, Founders, could have been the place in mind for the McSweeny's piece, but I guess making wacky stuff is how they carved out their local market niche in the first place.
posted by LionIndex at 2:16 PM on April 13 [2 favorites]

I think Bells hits the malt/hop balance just about right with their Two-Hearted.

Bells Two-Hearted is my current True Beer Love, supplanting longtime favorite Racer 5.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:26 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]

Bell's Two-Hearted is pretty much everything I want out of an IPA.
posted by mollweide at 12:09 PM on April 14 [1 favorite]

I don't even like IPAs, but I enjoy Bell's Two Hearted and came here to say if you like Bell's Two Hearted, try to get a hold of Creature Comforts Tropicalia. They are an Athens, GA brewery, but since so many movies and tv shows are filmed here, they gained such a following that Tropicalia was featured in Avengers: Endgame (it's what Fat Thor was drinking when they went to find him), and now they've opened a brewery in Los Angeles. Like I said, I don't like IPAs, but this is a thoroughly tasty, drinkable IPA.
posted by hydropsyche at 3:15 PM on April 14

Like Two Hearted IPA, but not so IPA: Bell's Light-Hearted Lo-Cal IPA

Like Two Hearted IPA, but more IPA: Toppling Goliath King Sue DIPA

Not sure why it needs to exist when Two Hearted already does, but you do you: Founders Centennial IPA
posted by box at 5:43 AM on April 15