Before last weekend I would have said that while I enjoy drinking IPAs I don't like them. I have had several tastings of different IPAs, and in November I brewed my own - a mildy powerful dry hopped IPA.
Well, last weekend I was out at a restaurant and the most interesting thing on the menu was a Lagunitas, so I went ahead and ordered it. Given my feeling about IPAs I would normally get through half the glass and appreciate the flavor but not like it enough to finish it. Well, when the beer gets to the table I take a sip and immediately I thought I had been served the wrong beer. It tasted like a modestly flavored brown ale. I asked my wife, who is very sensitive to strongly hopped/bittered beers, to double check. She took a sip and almost spit it out - confirming that it was indeed the right beer. Apparently my regular IPA tastings have paid off, and now I can see why going hop crazy becomes an addiction. Once you get used to it, you have to keep taking it to the next level.
And this time I gladly finished the whole glass. I must say, I would have sworn up and down that I would never like IPA's, but now I think I am going to have to disagree with myself.