Interesting article about IPAs.

[Briandg]

I thought that this was a really interesting article. Rather than just being a bunch of blather about how great the IPA style is, it took a pretty insightful look at the mystique of the style. I especially liked his comments about the machismo of the drinkers, and the comparison to hot wings contests.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/heres-...150100406.html

The popularity of IPAs has allowed for a growing trendiness. Craft brewers are increasingly making IPAs a staple of their selection, and bars are increasingly making them a staple of their rotation.

Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster Garrett Oliver told Business Insider that bars and restaurants without IPAs could be at a disadvantage because so many people want them. The buzz around IPAs is so powerful that it has people calling anything with hops and a strong flavor an IPA.

"Now people are making black IPAs, which doesn't make any sense because the 'P' means 'pale,'" Oliver said. "The thing is that because people know that a lot of people like IPAs these days, putting the word 'IPA' on something that is not an IPA can automatically confer easier marketing."


Big Alice Brewing makes a rye IPA, but generally its beers are less hop-forward and more flavor-forward, like its salted caramel ale.
And it's working, especially for those still unfamiliar with the variety of beers available in the craft world, according to Kyle Hurst, cofounder of Long Island City, New York's Big Alice Brewing Company.

"For people new to craft beer, they start with IPAs because that's where the buzz is," Hurst said. "For the last three years people have been predicting that IPAs are going out and that sour beers are coming in, but that hasn't happened yet. Every year someone predicts a new trend, but it's always IPAs."

Our taste buds are changing

The popularity of bitter, hoppy IPAs could be linked to a larger movement: the changing of taste buds in America.

Americans are growing increasingly fond of bitter tastes, beer included. Mitch Steele, the brewmaster of Stone Brewing Company in San Diego, gave a simple analogy to explain how taste buds can change.

"It's a lot like coffee, I think," Steele said. "If you don't like coffee, which most people don't the first time they try it, you get used to it. It becomes an acquired taste, and then you start enjoying some of the bitter components and things that you find."


Hops look like small, green pinecones; they are harvested and dried and give beer flavor, aroma, and bitterness.Now, after all these years, people's taste for beer has evolved.
"As people continued to drink craft beer, I think they acclimated to the point where the bitterness wasn't a problem," Steele continued. "And now, what I get from it, is people in the past couple of years are much more focused on the flavors in the beer as opposed to the bitterness."

Oliver's not entirely surprised by the popularity of IPAs, given that their flavor is among beer's most prominent and identifiable.

"Since craft beer was, to some extent, a reaction to bland mass-market beer," he said, "it's only natural, I guess, that a very flavorful style would be one of the main things to jump out."

There's a machismo in drinking IPAs

"There's a natural sense of competition" when it comes to IPAs, beer sommelier Joanna Carpenter says, "like, how much hops can they handle?" It's similar to the way people compete in hot-wing-eating contests.


)Brooklyn Brewery's East India Pale Ale is a nod to the origins of the IPA.
Oliver said: "Here and there you see brewers who are out there who say, 'Our beer has this level of bitterness or that level of bitterness,' and they're using it almost as a boast."

To Oliver, hop intensity does not equate to beer quality, noting that he does not think it's a sensible way of thinking.

But above the masochistic competitiveness people feel over their ability to handle spiciness, there's an additional curiosity when it comes to the bitterness and other flavors found in IPAs.

"There's definitely still an exploratory sense to it," Carpenter added, and now, more than ever, "people want to push their palates to the limit."

[jazznut]

Interesting piece indeed, Brian.

'Bitter' does appear to be the fad flavour sensation currently, both in drinks and in foodstuffs. And though it is something of an acquired taste (just try getting a young child to eat something bitter and see what happens), it can certainly, when done right, add to the overall complexity of the flavour spectrum.

Freshly chopped kale, anyone?

"There's definitely still an exploratory sense to it," Carpenter added, and now, more than ever, "people want to push their palates to the limit."

This is the crux of the matter. When individuals (both producers and clients) try to turn the role of bitterness in foods and drinks into a 'competition' of who can make and who can consume the most bitter thing, it becomes little more than an exercise in ridiculous extremes.

I'm reminded of the recent fashion in whisky for ultra-smoky spirits, which push the limits of peat-reeking malted barley beyond the realm of reason (a pour of Octomore, anyone?). Invariably, many people quickly tire of the taste, and return to better balanced drams.

That said, I do like many IPAs and their more intense 'offsrping'. One local brew I've been enjoying lately is this one...

[KatDad]

Originally Posted by jazznut

Freshly chopped kale, anyone?

No, thank you!

[flipflop]

Wife and love fresh kale salad with walnuts, craisins, pepper and a vinaigrette dressing.

[Briandg]

It reminds me of he things that children do. Super hot cinnamon candies, super sour candies, super sour drinks, and even candies made out of bugs. I really, seriously don't believe that roasted meal worms are so delicious that kids would pass up a candy bar for a wad of toasted mealbugs on caramel.

Right now, I'm drinking an ipa, but it's light, you'd call it a session beer, I guess. I just can't stomach the ones that go off the scale. I used to be into peppers, for a while, and lost interest when I got sick as hell from peppers on my esophagus.

It was funny reading about a dark beer IPA. aren't there other names for a dark beer that is heavily hopped, such as stout, for example?

[jazznut]

Originally Posted by Briandg

It was funny reading about a dark beer IPA.

Perhaps we should coin a new term: IDA?

[Briandg]

I'da prefer that we didn't. You never know when the earth will open up and swallow the heretics.

[grtrx]

I've read that another reason for IPA's is they cover weaknesses in a brewers craft. You can cover a lot of weakness with hops. But when a beer goes from hoppy to sprucey there is something wrong.

I agree bitter is a trend, but saying it is a trend doesn't mean everyone who likes something bitter is a hipster doofus either. Europeans have enjoyed amaro for more than the past few years. And to me the dark depth of those bitters is where the discoveries lie.

Had a wonderful beer from Boulevard yesterday... a saison brett... just a great beer.... 38 IBU so it loses on the hugely hoppy scale, but it wins on flavor... yeasty, the brett... yummy in the tummy

And to close, the chase for scoville units in vodka... WTF is going on with that? I don't drink vodka, why would I want it with 50,000 scovilles of heat?

[jazznut]

Originally Posted by grtrx

And to close, the chase for scoville units in vodka... WTF is going on with that?

I sometimes look on vodka as a spirit in search of an identity.

[Briandg]

Originally Posted by grtrx

I've read that another reason for IPA's is they cover weaknesses in a brewers craft. You can cover a lot of weakness with hops. But when a beer goes from hoppy to sprucey there is something wrong.

In search of hops, we lose sight of the beer.

I'll look for the boulevard, we can get that, and for a while, belgians were a favorite of mine. I've gone through a lot of phases, ranging from the german styles to british and irish, and belgian, currently, I seem to be actually drinking a lot of PAs and some IPAs. I even had a blue moon last night. I practically never drank anything but stout or other dark beers when I was in my twenties.

Pepper vodka. Each shot gets easier to drink.