So... I never liked IPAs until...

I'm a new brewer (3 batches so far) and I never liked any IPA I tried until after brewing my first beer. It wasn't an IPA but a wheat. Anyway, the intense smell of hops during the boil somehow changed me. I loved the smell so much that I tried a Ranger IPA the next day and didn't hate it. The bitterness took a bit of getting used to but I could appreciate it and found myself wanting more. I then tried a Sierra Nevada (which I've always hated) and I really liked it! This is really scaring me, I'm starting to exhibit symptoms of that weird creature known as the hophead...

That a boy! Hops are like vitamins for us brewers!

You will find a HUGE variety of hoppy beers! Discovering hops is like opening the other half of beer styles.

Yep I think alot of beer fans go through the same thing. All you need to do now is take a road trip and grab yourself some Russian River brews.

Welcome to the dark side! Even my husband Bob hated hoppy beers, until about a year ago. Now, his favorite beer styles are hoppy beers! He loves highly hopped APAs a bit more than IPAs, because he loves the hops without the extreme bitterness. But he won't ever turn down an IPA.

It happens to all of us. But then, sometimes, hopheads wander back to other interesting styles, and some are getting very much into sours now.

I guess it's like spicy food- once you find out you love it, you can get pretty extreme.

There is no escaping it. Soon you'll be buying hop tea bags and trying to prove science wrong by putting "150" ibus worth of hops in you beer!

Right now I have 4 sour beers cellaring that I am learning to like! Oooo it's a fun world of beer

At the moment, if I'm not drinking something hoppy, I feel like something is wrong. hehe

Hmmmm. I never liked IPAs until.....well......I still don't. Blech.

Bernie Brewer said:

Hmmmm. I never liked IPAs until.....well......I still don't. Blech.

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Neanderthal!

Bernie Brewer said:

Hmmmm. I never liked IPAs until.....well......I still don't. Blech.

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Same here, it's kinda like the sour candies. I never understood it. Oh well, it's not like there aren't 1,000,000+ other types of homebrews we can make!

Orlando

I didn't like ales 'period'.. until one day many years ago, I was at my local vons in redondo beach, and they had just started carrying a brand new microbrew called 'stone' pale ale, and sonte IPA.. (stone can thank vons for their success, somebody there liked them.. and when a major chain picks you up.. well)

The bottle intrigued me... I had been a BMC drinker for many years, then quit drinking entirely for 15 years because of health reasons, and one day had decided I missed it too much... So shortly after deciding to start again, I bought a kegerator and a keg of heineken.. Wow, that sure tasted better than the bottled stuff.. Tried some fosters.. Wow.. that was better too... What's going on here..

So now I'm intrigued about what else is out there.. And curious about the label of those stone beers, I bought a sixer of each of the pale ale and the IPA...

The moment I opened that first beer and caught a whiff of that floral hops aroma, I think was the moment that my beer tastes changed forever... I started educating myself a little about beer, and next thing you know I was intrigued by the idea of brewing my own... I had been under the mis-impression that home brewing was Mr.Beer kits and that's it..

So about three years ago I bought a B3 starter kit and an American IPA extract kit, and a carboy for my kegerator..

Some day, I will try my hand at lagers, and even my own versions of heineken or fosters or whatever, but truth is, I'd be totally happy to just drink IPA's for the rest of my life...

Whenever I open a bottle of pale ale or IPA, the first thing I do is stick my nose to the opening and just smell it for a bit... once I've fully gotten the aroma of that, then I pour the beer...love that smell!

My favorite thing I look forward to when brewing, is to stick my nose into the pellet bag immediately after I open the bag of hops and inhale deeply... The next favorite is doing the same thing when I drop the pellets into the boiling wort.. I fan the fumes toward my nose with my hands and breathe it in..

..and smile from ear to ear....

Hops are a gift from God to man for this very purpose..
Rejoice in the blessing!

PS to the OP..

If you're just now getting into IPA's I suggest you immediately go out and get yourself some Stone IPA.. That'll really put you over the edge... Hop heaven IMO...

Yooper said:

Neanderthal!

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Hick!

r8rphan said:

PS to the OP..

If you're just now getting into IPA's I suggest you immediately go out and get yourself some Stone IPA.. That'll really put you over the edge... Hop heaven IMO...

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Stone IPA is my favorite IPA and it was my gateway into hoppy beers. I was the same way as the OP and after about 9 months of homebrewing, I liked IPAs. Now I love them.

Oh man ........ If you're on a commercial IPA rampage then just wait until you've had a really good homebrewed IPA that is 3 or 4 weeks in the bottle (or even better .... in the keg). NO commercial example from the shelf can compare to the hop flavor and aroma of a phenonmenal home brewed IPA. ....... You won't even want to buy IPA's from the store anymore

Yooper said:

Neanderthal!

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Bernie Brewer said:

Hick!

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Now, now kids, what's with the name calling? Don't make me come up there! It is Christmas Eve ya know.

yeast_infection said:

Oh man ........ If you're on a commercial IPA rampage then just wait until you've had a really good homebrewed IPA that is 3 or 4 weeks in the bottle (or even better .... in the keg). NO commercial example from the shelf can compare to the hop flavor and aroma of a phenonmenal home brewed IPA. ....... You won't even want to buy IPA's from the store anymore

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+1....

My first attempt at home brewing was a B3 IPA extract kit.. Better than anything I'd ever bought in a store.. And I only waited 5 days after conditioning to try it.. As I get better, so do they...

Just brewed my first AG (an IPA of course).. We'll see how that turns out.. but I'm really looking forward to it...

whutever said:

Now, now kids, what's with the name calling? Don't make me come up there! It is Christmas Eve ya know.

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Bernie and I are good friends- I feel almost sisterly towards him. That's why the namecalling!

Busybody.

Ranger is my new favorite from New Belgium. I'm not a huge fan of their beers, but Ranger is a fine IPA. Welcome to the obsession.

Modus Hoperandi did it for me....and I was a total malthead for the longest. I recently bought a case of Sam Adams winter classics for the Fezziwig, but still have to go back to my homebrew stash of IPAs since something seems missing after awhile. I think once I started in on IPAs, I brewed 3 IPA batches in a row....still have a feeling I might run out and so I'm always planning the next IPA batch. Hops are truly amazing and after awhile you get to the point where you can't have too much!

yup, i use to hate IPA and anything to deal with hops, now i cant get enough and no IBU is strong enough to fill my needs

I never liked hoppy beer UNTIL....

My 4th or 5th batch I got a hair up my bum and decided to make an IPA loosely based on some online recipe. I used 8lbs of amber LME, All simcoe: 3oz at 60m, 3oz at 5m, 3oz dry hop for 3 weeks. Those were pellet hops. Maybe one day I'll recreate this super simple concoction.

It was a hopsplosion! I actually embraced the bitterness and was converted...although I still keep malty stuff and hoppy stuff around.

Yuri_Rage said:

Ranger is my new favorite from New Belgium. I'm not a huge fan of their beers, but Ranger is a fine IPA. Welcome to the obsession.

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NB Ranger and SN Torpedo are great go-to IPA's. I like Ranger in the bottle, but the first time I tried it was on tap and there was definitely a difference (much better on tap).

r8rphan said:

PS to the OP..

If you're just now getting into IPA's I suggest you immediately go out and get yourself some Stone IPA.. That'll really put you over the edge... Hop heaven IMO...

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Thanks but I beat you to it. The Stone was very good.

Yeast-infection
I tried a home-brewed IPA last week that was epic. So I see what you mean about that.

I'm very interested in trying some extremely hoppy beers that are lower in bitterness. I'm drinking a DFH 90 min right now.

Don't get me wrong I still prefer wits and hefs but I'm liking the IPAs too.

I am brewing an Imperial IPA right this moment. Not a bunch of time so its a mini mash. 12# light LME, 3# Maris Otter, 1.5 # orange blossom honey, 8 oz. amarillo (2 oz. every 15 min) and another 4 oz. dry hop. Pretty simple.

I wasn't a huge fan of IPA's until I brewed my first non kit extract batch in October...it was supposed to be a Christmas ale, but I treated the extract as a no boil and didn't add it until after I had boiled the hops in 2 gallons of PLAIN WATER...WOW!!!! rookie mistake

I was shooting for around 23 IBU and ended up WAAAAAY up into the IPA range with my hop tea...according to the hopville.com calculator I ended up about 67 IBU's.

I've grown to appreciate it...even kinda like it...

ranger and sierra nevada make some good pale ales. i just brewed up a 45 ibu pale ale today. what started me being a hophead? drinking s.n. torpedo extra ipa

I think it was Dogfish Head 90 minute, and stone Ruination that really got me into the hops.

me too, untill i brewed one for my brother and decided to only bitter it at 40 IBU's but still use 3oz of hops in it. the journey is starting.

I've never been much of a hophead, until Abita's Restoration Pale Ale. The hops aren't overpowering, but balanced with the malt and it tastes amazing. Then I had the DFH 60 Minute, then the 90. Both are incredible beers. Stone's brews personally don't agree with my palate. Something in the finish kills it for me. Rogue's Santas Reserve is pretty great too. I'm a convert now.

60 min, Bells 2 hearted ale,Founders Centenial IPA, IPA cristmas ales,wet hopped ales like SN Estate Ale! Good stuff..

DFH 90 minute was the one that got me hooked on IPA'S. I remember pouring that first one into a glass and taking a whiff...WOW.

Yooper said:

Busybody.

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Ha, happy New Year Yoop!

Trace

can anyone suggest some good APAs?

So far my favorite IPA is Nectar IPA, I just love their balance of hops and malt. Stone is another one of my favorites. I've yet to try DFH, mainly cause I haven't seen it around anywhere local.

Got a growler of Ithaca Brewing Flower Power IPA a little while ago, and man, that stuff is outrageous! Hoppy, flowery, and just darn tasty.

Loved it so much, now I pretty much only drink IPA's as my base "sipping" brew. Great Lakes and Saranac are pretty good, DFH 60 minute is OK (not as good as the others IMHO).

Now, just waiting a few more weeks for my first brew, an IPA to condition and I'll be set.

jonmohno said:

60 min, Bells 2 hearted ale,Founders Centenial IPA, IPA cristmas ales,wet hopped ales like SN Estate Ale! Good stuff..

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It was Stone IPA and especially Bells two-hearted and Sweetwater IPA that were my hops epiphanies. My uneducated view a few years ago was that hops=bitterness. I had no clue of the flavor and aroma qualities of hops. I had the beers above and instantly fell in love with the citrusy flavors and smell. Since I started brewing, IPA/APA have been just about the only style I've brewed, but in the last few months I've tried a stout and quasi-Belgian ale, so I'm exploring new ground. I use to not like Stouts, but that has changed quite a bit this winter.

Im about to brew my first IPA and am trying to conjure something up. any suggestions? One big question is it ok to dry hop in primary? I May just add the aroma hops at end and be done with it i heard its just as good, well at least with pelletsWhere is sweetwater from?

brew2enjoy said:

DFH 90 minute was the one that got me hooked on IPA'S. I remember pouring that first one into a glass and taking a whiff...WOW.

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This! And also, Central Waters Imperial IPA, Lake Eerie Monster. Those two are the best balance of outrageous hops and big happy maltiness that made me fall in love with IPAs.

If Any body gets a chance at Two Brothers Brewery from Chicago.The Resistance is an incredible Ipa, as far as all that i tried, its up there with Bells and Dogfish.They also had my first pale ale i actually enjoyed since this is one of my least favorite styles.Just tried it! Happy new Year!