general assessment to becoming a hop-head

Since I have started brewing at home, I have slowly but surely become a hop head. In the past, a 20IBU beer would have been way too hoppy for me. Progressively over the past 3-months of brewing, I have turned to the 'green-side' of beer, and become a hophead.

Tonight, a 70IBU IPA felt just right.

It has to be the mouth-adjustment/acceptance of acid levels in the hops. The more you drink of a hoppy beer, the more required to impact the taste buds?

I know for sure that I will still appreciate a very malt-forward (I relate to this as a nutty flavor) from here forward, but the high IBU IPA has my vote as of now.

I am usually somewhere in the 80-120IBU range at this point and tend to think anything in the middle is watered down. I have a hard time with APAs and regular IPAs, though my enjoyment of all the other styles hasn't diminished.

my father is this way. i was starting to become one but then realized (imo) there is more to beer than hops.

dont get me wrong i love IPAs even high ibu IPAs but i still love all styles of beer.

it really depends on my mood i guess

theveganbrewer said:

I am usually somewhere in the 80-120IBU range at this point and tend to think anything in the middle is watered down. I have a hard time with APAs and regular IPAs, though my enjoyment of all the other styles hasn't diminished.

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Did you see a progression of your desire for more IBU's? I compare this to my love of hot food as well. The hotter the pepper, the better. There is a time when it can be 'too hot' - but for the most part most heat additions is a good thing.

You can see that I have an IPA in the fermenter that is much too 'balanced'. I am still learning. I think though that this will be an excellent opportunity for dry-hopping.

I definitely progressed, I don't think I started brewing double IPAs until maybe 20 batches of other varieties. Most of my originals were 40-60IBUs. Then 70, then 80, then 100+

The main problem I have is that the more bitter the beer, the more salty snacks I must eat in return.

I have kept all my IPA's between 60-70 IBU since I started brewing, but I have adjusted my hop schedule over time. My progression has been towards reducing the amount of bittering hops additions and adding more and more hops closer to the end of the boil, while still keeping that 60-70 IBU range for my IPA and IIPA. I also dry hop with a lot more hops now.

To me, the IBU rating is important but I like to get slapped in the face with hop aroma from arms length with a glass of IPA and want good hop flavor also.

I need to make a good hop sauce for pasta, then I'll start working on hop mouthwash!

I wonder if garlic and hops would work well together in a sauce? ?

taste buds are strange at times. i went from malty beer to ipa/s and double ipa/s as my fav.. also during this change, i liked my food spicier and spicier. i recently stopped drinking (not for good) for a dietary thing im doing...and im craving a malty beer and the hot sauce i was using is not way hotter then i remember. i attribute this to the higher amounts of booze in my beers and the intense flavors on a regular basis. man i cant wait to drink some beer!

Mmmm....... I love extra hot spicy foods.
At home one of my favorite ways to get there is with a wok full of meat and peppers. Enough vegetables and noodles to add texture and make curry to mix in with it all.

I wonder if there is a correlation between people who love hot spicy food and people who love extreme hoppy beer?

I hate spicy foods. One time when I was in S. Korea my friend dragged me to this famous spicy chicken restaurant. The line was out the door and the entire sidewalk in front of the place, maybe 50 feet or so, was lined with milk crates full of bottle returns 6 feet high. The closer you got to the place, the hotter it got. By the time we were inside it was a complete warzone, people puking, chugging milk, running to the bathroom. Yet there was always a few stone faced customers, tearing through the fire chicken. Those brave souls are the hop heads of South Korea, doing their thing with fire chicken because they have no hoppy beer to wreck their tastebuds.

I think you are on to something with hop/spicy food acceptance. Not everyone can handle the acidity from a hot pepper. I don't think it is a preference issue for them but rather a chemistry issue with what their mouth and taste buds can handle.

Therefore, you can make the assumption that folks who like the higher IBU are probably those who do not react to the acidity of hot peppers as well. I doubt it has anything to do with taste buds being burn't of with beer preference.

HBC said:

I think you are on to something with hop/spicy food acceptance. Not everyone can handle the acidity from a hot pepper. I don't think it is a preference issue for them but rather a chemistry issue with what their mouth and taste buds can handle.

Therefore, you can make the assumption that folks who like the higher IBU are probably those who do not react to the acidity of hot peppers as well. I doubt it has anything to do with taste buds being burn't of with beer preference.

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Agreed.

I have been a big fan of spicy food and peppers since I was a kid and never "really" liked beer until I discovered Sierra Nevada Pale Ale way back when. Now that's what I drink for a mellow readily available brew, I am an IPA, DIPA man almost exclusively though, the more hops the better. Its fun to now be making the beer I like, got a DIPA and a Ruination (almost) clone in the ferm's now, my second and third batches, so I hope the turn out well, smell great so far!