IPA burnout

After brewing mostly IPA's for the last few years and drinking every IPA under the sun at the bars I think I hit an IPA wall. Maybe its the season but a nice malty beer just taste better lately. IPA's are starting to taste real bitter to me. Even the same beer I was liking a year ago.
I went to the LHBS last week and loaded up on grain. At the register the owner asked if I needed hops. I said I have a freezer full of hops and I'm getting IPA burnout, She laughed and said they're seeing a shift to maltier beers and light beers like cream ales so I guess its not just me

I'll still make one here or there with all the hops I have to use up but with the endless overload of IPA's popping up everywhere I think I got burntout...will see if it lasts

 

I wish the trend would change in a maltier direction.

But I'm a realist. It won't.

 

I definitely do not chase, nor want IPAs as much as i wanted for 4-5 years ago.

I usually brew 5 x 6 gallons batches in the course of one week. One of those will be an IPA, but the rest will either be belgian, malty red/scottish ales, dark ales of sorts, doppelbockc and weizenbocks.

And the IPA usually has very low IBUs, even if up in the 7-8% ABV.

 

I hit the same point a while back. I've been dialing in lagers the last bit and I'm really enjoying it. The lager I have on tap right now is one of the best I've ever had, let alone brewed.

 

Nothing wrong with changing tastes.... Take a break from IPAs and try something else. COme back in a while and see what you think. Amazingly, there are many other styles of beer than IPA.

 

low end of the bitter scale IPA's with a good malt backbone? Yup! In fact I brew one(still working on the recipe, it could be better). The over the top 80 IBU so bitter my cheeks touch inside my mouth? BLECH!

My go to is my house ale, a Extra Special English strong bitter(3 different people have put it in 3 categories, brown, ESB, plain biter...). Simple recipe, everyone likes it, great malt backbone...

11 gallon batch

16 pounds Golden Promise
3.5 pounds Victory
.75 pounds UK extra dark crystal(160 L)

2 ounces Perle 60 minutes
2 ounces Hallertau 5 minutes

60 minute boil

Nottingham Ale yeast, this is often ready to keg in 4-5 days but letting it sit 2 weeks deepens the flavor some. On my system I average around 5.5% ABV so not super strong but not a "lite" beer either. Dark copper to brown in color, sweet malt backbone with just enough hop bitterness to be good and the extra dark crystal adds coffee/fruit flavors that are subtle. My go to beer, friends go to beer(I have 2 of them brewing on my system and taking it home to ferment and bottle). BMC drinkers even like it!

 

You brew 30 gallons a week!?

To keep OT - I’ve had the exact same experience. I spend my time at bars searching out the few beers which aren’t IPAs. Do you think it has anything to do with breweries becoming more and more extreme to outdo each other and has gone too far?

 

I meant, when I brew, I usually brew all the beers in the course of one week, in that way I can better keep track of all my " beer " projects and also be done with it in a relative short time span.

:fro:

 

Yeah I know what you mean. I had burnout after my first one.

 

I go through phases, in my 20+ years of drinking craft beer (10 of them Brewing), there have been about three IPA phases. Right now I’d just rather have a nicely balanced crisp Pale Ale in the 4% range.

Switch to Lagers for a while or whatever styles you think you will enjoy. Give some hops way.

 

I'm right there with you, sans that I think maltier styles, as well as styles utilizing more noble-like hops without citrus dominant tropical or grapefruit as their main characteristics will eventually make a comeback. In my opinion the Americanized IPA is primarily a generational fad. And given that a generation is 40 years, the beginnings of a turning should be just about visible upon the horizon any day now. Such turnings seem to begin to occur right around the time when everyone is finally pretty much all-in, and it seems that the vast majority of homebrewers are pretty much all-in for Americanized tropical and grapefruit IPA's right now.

 

I used to think that as well but the IPA continues to dominate. I remember back when dogfish 90 + 120 min was out in these 750’s and I was like “oh here we go again”. Now it’s millennials with the Juicy “neipas”, milkshakes, whatever you want to call them.

The thing with IPA is that it is such an aggressive style that more subtle beers just fall short next to them in alot of people’s perception.

Try this:

Go get your favorite IPA, taste it right next to say an English Bitter or Northern Brown. See what your reaction is or try with some other folks. The IPA (if done well) is going to be much more interesting to about 95% of people.

 

I was looking at the covers of BYO magazines from the past several years. It is clearly obvious that trends come and go as quickly as something new comes along. From NE IPA, we have now moved to a trendy milkshake IPA. Gose beers were the rage a couple of years ago, and while they certainly still have a following now, the trend has cooled off significantly.

I was in CLT last weekend and my buddy suggested we stop by a "Cidery" for a flight. The lines were out the door and the parking lot was overfilled. The cider was crisp, dry and clear as a bell. Some were dry hopped, some had blends of various apples. Point is this may show folks are looking for alternatives to IPAs and standard beer offerings. The trends continue to come and go.

 

Just this past week I finally got around to grabbing a 6-pack of a local buzz favorite IPA called Citramax, and while I was at it I decided on a whim to also pick up a 6-pack of Market Garden's far lesser known Progress Pilsner. I had a Progress Pilsner followed by a Citramax, fully convinced going in that after the Citramax I would decide that I had wasted my money on the Pilsner. But to my surprise, I came away with decidedly the exact opposite opinion. It was no contest.

And while still sipping the Citramax, I reflected upon how much it tasted like a Citra/Mosaic/Amarillo IPA I had brewed only a few months ago, wherein the Pilsner had characteristics that I have yet to fully master in several decades of attempts. I decided right then that there is far less challenge in reproducing an IPA than in reproducing a good Pilsner.

 

First off - styles don't really matter, a rose by any other name and all that. But if you need to put it in a style, it's way too strong for a bitter or even a best bitter, and it's not really bitter enough for any of the English styles (depending on alpha content I make it 26 IBU, so BU:GU of 0.5?). Sounds a little bit too sweet for an English beer, USians generally seem to think English beers are sweeter than they are. And cask beers are rarely over 4.5%, things like ESB seem to be far more common in the US than in the UK.

You could just about call it a Scottish Export (leaving aside what I think of BJCP guidelines for Scotland ) but that hop bill really points to something on the Continent. It would need a change of yeast really, but you're not far off things like patersbier and marzen.

 

This. So much this. I'm burned out too... I even mentioned it a few weeks ago on a thread here and I feel some people were personally offended, haha.
I'm amazed at all the people losing their minds over the NE IPA's when all they are is a ton of hops. Sure they throw in some flaked grain and adjust the water just so but that's it. People pay $20 for 4 beers and max out the case limit just to post it on untappd or whatever. The marketing is strong with the style and the whole "drink it as fresh as possible" really fuels the fire and sucks people in.
I really don't get it. So many other beers are much harder to make but are appreciated much less. I guess this is was truly separates homebrewer hobbyists from beer drinker "hobbyists."
I used to be all about the hops. I still dig a nice hoppy IPA but as I've gotten older I find myself wanting a good APA, Pils, Stout, or Amber.

 

Sam Adams' Winter Assortment this year has zero IPAs or related hop bombs. In fact, it has their Boston Lager (given), Winter Lager (given), and the rest is an English holiday ale, two bocks, and an oatmeal stout.

When I first saw it at Target and read the package, I had some small sense of what people who grew up in the 50s must have felt when they heard there were people dancing on the Berlin Wall.

On that note, I mean, it's blatant that those sections (and their about-face on, like, everything about the process as previously characterized) were derived entirely from one specific person's stupid hobby horse...does anyone know whose?

 

People need to stop using the term "IPA". Nobody brews a real IPA anymore. It's only a recognition gimmick meaning "this over-hopped crap tastes like turpentine"

Today I was looking at a tap list for a local place. They had a 78 IBU pilsner (duh hell did they do that to good grain for?) and 150 IBU [yes, one hundred and fifty] somethingeranother. That's not even beer, that's alien phlem.

The only purpose for those that I can think of, might be to degrease engines. At that IBU level, the EPA must consider it a solvent.

 

Can't make an IPA too hoppy IMHO... just too high ABV. I like to guzzle my beers, even my IPAs. Anything much over 6% starts to become work to drink.

OTOH I am a huge fan of a firmly bitter Pilsner lager. I've decided my winter brewing project is going to be brewing the same Pils grain bill over and over again, but trying different hop varieties and amounts. Aiming for 1.048 so it should extremely drinkable too, so i can brew it a lot. Only negative of this is i'm going to deplete my pipeline of everything except Pilsners come spring time....

 

Thank you

 

I am not on board with everyone else. Not even a little. I like ipas and the best can be inspiring.

 

I pray one of them is not their chocolate cherry bock. God forbid. I hated that beer.

 

And why I refuse to enter it in any contests! Everyone loves it as is! It is actually well balanced between sweet and bitter and an easy drinking beer.

 

After doing this for a few years, I am more interested in brewing good beer that I like to drink. It could be an IPA, Lager, Helles, Ale, etc... Not as much concerned that it be "technically" correct... I just want to brew and drink it

 

Being technically correct is merely an artificial constraint. And if you feel compelled to make your beer conform to the technical demands of others, and seek their blessing before you can come to fully enjoy it yourself, it is also a sickness.

 

Michael Jackson, mostly - but through a US filter, which has screwed them up even more.

Welcome to British beer! Although we'd quibble with the "easy drinking" bit, you need to be below 4.5% for that really....

 

The love of American IPA's (in their various iterations) over other styles is probably greatly influenced by age and social group acceptance related issues.

 

I haven't made an IPA in probably 10 years

 

Yesterday I had a landlord ale and I think I figured out what I do not like about British ales in general, at least about the ones I had here in the South of UK.

They are all painfully sweet to my German Pilsener influenced taste and I think I really really do not like the crystal malt character that they all show so highly accentuated. I heard you say that the ales from the north should be way dryer than the southern counterparts. What would you recommend as two or three (best would be easy to get here in the South) typical northern English ales?

I am still not hundred percent convinced that it is the crystal malt flavour, it might be the sweetness in combination with the crystal malt that I don't like.

However, in Stouts and porters it looks like I don't mind a fair amount of crystal. It goes well with the roast chocolate character. But somehow not on its own I think.

 

I don't like the estery taste of british yeasts. I don't mind the caramel notes, but the fruity aromas and flavors remind me of my homebrew before temp control.

 

I've brewed more IPA's this year than ever I think and enjoyed both of them.

 

I like ipas in which you actually can still taste that the main ingredient is malt.

 

I'm thinking there is more hops than malt in some of the IPAs I've had

 

IPA is short for hipster, I've heard

 

I always thought I liked IPAs best (and I still do like them!), but after a while realized that I really mostly just liked hops. High-aroma, hoppy, low-IBU APAs like Odell's Rupture or Lagunitas' Born Yesterday are my sweet spot: a ton of hop flavor without too much bitterness.

 

Hmm..... wouldn't it be fun to design an "IPA" that is actually made up almost entirely out of table sugar, maybe a bit molasses with 120 ibus and excessive dry hopping?

Just for the sake of not lying on the ingredients list, a tiny amount of barley flour ould be added. Looks cloudy and the hipsters will kill for it!

Let's call it... 5 o'clock Hop Tea.

 

Northern, from a British perspective, how would you call a best bitter's BU:GU at 88% and a strong bitter's at 82.7% (emphasizing a bit more malt, bit more dextrin, bit more residual sweetness in the strong bitter, as well)?

To the subject: Count me in. I cannot stand what I perceive to be imbalanced beers. Silver, on your pilsner/IPA comparison, totally agree with you. A cleaner, simpler (and low gravity) beer will expose the brewer's art, and any and every flaw in the selection of materials and making of the beer. Why I love Coniston's Bluebird Bitter. What a pint. My memory could be off but I recall a humble little beer, yet resonating with a total harmony of flavors.

 

It is funny how irked people get by the IPA craze. I love IPAs. The more hops, the better. The more "unbalanced", the better. Sure, I like other beers also - but I will take a good, high IBU IPA over others most of the time.

People that complain about how "strong" and "out of balance" and "turpentineish" IPA's are remind of friends from out east that come and visit me here in New Mexico and complain about how intense and spicy our food is here. It's not my fault that your delicate senses can't handle the intensity. Quitchyerbitchin.

 

Drinking only one style incessantly is like working out only one set of muscles in your body. It's always a good thing to change it up if only to find out what you really enjoy, you enjoy that much more. Afterall, who wants to be a skinny twerp with no chest or biceps but huge legs?

 

"Balance" is in the eyes of the beholder. In other words, for you, cool.

Oh, coming from Cali and cooking a ton of SW, bring it on.