Anyone else overwelmed by the amount of hops in IPAs and NEIPAs?

[Broothru]

As its already been said, NEIPA's typically aren't bitter at all. Thats why more people like them over real IPA. I personally despise most NEIPA; more for their turbidity but also for the lack of bitterness.

I personally love lots of hop character across the spectrum; aroma, flavor and bitterness. This "Lupulin Shift" theory seems to make sense as it takes more to wow me now than it use too. And to date, not a single NEIPA has wow'ed me. Quite the opposite actually!

What is overwhelming to me is the shear number of NEIPA's on tap lists and on the shelves. Its harder to find examples of IPA that I actually like these days. Not impossible but certainly harder.

I'm guessing some of you on this thread probably expected comments from me along this line.

Preach it, Brother! I had to double check to make sure I didn't write your post.

 

[Broothru]

i don't really see a point in using hops more then it's enough to act as a preservative.....at least i think that's why i add them?

Anti-inflammatory, IIRC. Medicinal properties, tastes better than Advil. For those of us who abused our bodies in our youth, but now will settle for abusing our livers. At least that what I tell my wife. Holistic healing. Yeah, that's the ticket!

 

[skidmark]

Might I suggest Bell's Two Hearted Ale as a calibration beer for this discussion?

 

[Barbarossa]

Getting an ipa or NEIPA and saying all you can taste is hops, is pretty much like eating a Hershey’s Bar and saying all you taste is chocolate...

That's a good exemple. Hershey's are all milk and sugar, and a tiny bit, as little as they can fit, of cocoa butter.

 

[Ogilthorpe2]

Might I suggest Bell's Two Hearted Ale as a calibration beer for this discussion?

I think you just did

 

[Broothru]

Might I suggest Bell's Two Hearted Ale as a calibration beer for this discussion?

Excellent beer, and equally excellent suggestion of having a "calibration beer." My only concern would be that 2H is a single Centennial hop, and while I love me some Centennial, something (or some things) less prominent and specific in taste/aroma might provide a better palate to measure Lupulin Shift. The 'original' Ranger or the 'original' Stone IPA, both of which utilized several different bittering and aroma hops, would IMHO provide a better back drop.

 

[eric19312]

I'm new in this game and appreciated this informative thread. Only liked one (NE)IPA out of the 10, or so, that I've tried. Went to a local brewery (after making my first brew, and embracing this new hobby, and loving this forum) and had a Flight which was fun. However, I got one 'grassy', 'rough' taste in my mouth after the very first sip and it remained for days! The order in which they presented the brews, in terms of IBU, was 24, 39, 22, and 28. It should've been 22, 24, 28, and 39?
Didn't matter, like I said the first taste overwhelmed everything.

These are surely all calculated IBUs. The issue with calculated IBUs is they are wrong. They calculated IBUs were just an estimate back when the calculators were developed and hopping rates were modest, alpha acid (and other acid) content was lower, hops were used in the boil, and most hopping was whole leaf. None of that really applies to today's IPA styles. Dry hops and whirlpool hops contribute lots of bitterness, much from hop acids other than alpha or iso alpha acids.

I think measured IBU may also be wrong depending on the test method used. Reading Scott Janish's blog it seems most testing again focuses on alpha acids. Better testing may be viable but not a lot of demand for it. I doubt your local brewery or mine cares that much about the true measurement, Tinseth calculation from Beersmith is about as far as they will go. Hopefully the actual testing is what the beer tastes like to the brewers. But the consumers want to know the IBU so they go ahead and put the calculated number on the menu wall. Better than rely on the posted IBU would be to talk to the tasting room staff or brewers if they are available and let them know what you like.

 

[Saunassa]

I tend to drink pale ale versus an IPA often at breweries due to the high hop rates of many IPAs. I like to taste the malts and the yeast character of a beer. Might be why I choose stouts, kolsch and pilsners too.

Does anyone feel like it is an 80s band where the worse they were the louder they played? If grain selection and yeast is meh then just dump in more hops and call it good?

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I tend to drink pale ale versus an IPA often at breweries due to the high hop rates of many IPAs.

I suspect I am not the only one that gets excited when I see a Pale Ale on the menu...only to realize it is actually just a 5.8% NEIPA.

 

[NSMikeD]

If your Hazy/NEIPA is bitter, it wasn't done right. You should detect almost no bitterness. That's the whole point of a Hazy/NEIPA and what I love about them. 85 out of 100 beers I drink are Hazy/NEIPA's, the other 15 are beers aged in bourbon barrels (usually stouts)! Mmmmm...! OK, maybe I drink other styles too...I love Barleywine, an occasional sour, stouts and porters are good, belgian's.......

This is why I don’t like the use of IPA in west coast, NE and other newer styles of IPA. And the confusion (as we saw in the post that prompted your reply) as to what is an IPA in the market is abundant.

hop bombs , west coast ales and hazy juicy beers, IMO, are completely different beers than British IPAs (more malt, more hops and some oak in balance).

 

[Brian66]

I don't get bitterness from NEIPA, but what I got tired of is buying a local 4 pack of NEIPA, spending $18-$24 and it's OK or I didn't care for it - especially when I like what I brew better. I buy bulk hops and have recently bought 10 packs of the Lallemande East coast yeast. I can make something I like better and cheaper.

 

[Dgallo]

I don't get bitterness from NEIPA, but what I got tired of is buying a local 4 pack of NEIPA, spending $18-$24 and it's OK or I didn't care for it - especially when I like what I brew better. I buy bulk hops and have recently bought 10 packs of the Lallemande East coast yeast. I can make something I like better and cheaper.

That happens to me quite a bit. There is maybe 3 breweries that I feel make better NEIPAS than my self and I can brew it for about $50 a case lol

 

[bkboiler]

Had a double brew day yesterday.

A heavily hopped pale ale (cascade!) and a porter.

While I like porters, the pale ale will last longer since my wife and mother in law don't like hops.

So thats a distinct advantage to hoppy beers. They "last longer"

 

[Broothru]

Does anyone feel like it is an 80s band where the worse they were the louder they played? If grain selection and yeast is meh then just dump in more hops and call it good?

^^^^Nailed it!^^^^^

And then if it turns out to be as cloudy and murky as a jar full of trub, then you've transcended from the realm of merely "good" to nirvana. 👁

 

[eric19312]

Had a double brew day yesterday.

A heavily hopped pale ale (cascade!) and a porter.

While I like porters, the pale ale will last longer since my wife and mother in law don't like hops.

So thats a distinct advantage to hoppy beers. They "last longer"

Not at my house IPA goes fast, anything else I brew tends to stick around. Good thing the non IPA beers tend to have longer shelf lives.

 

[AugustWest]

There are a lot of sub-par NEIPA's out there IMHO which is not helping matters. I personally enjoy the fact the a well made NEIPA has a nice hoppy quality without being overly bitter. I live near Treehouse, Trillium & Vitamin Sea and Bissel Brother is a couple hours away so that's my baseline. I still enjoy a nice firm bitter IPA though. Lawson's Sip of Sunshine is plenty bitter and it isn't even hazy. When it comes to home brewing, I might go back to the classic IPA's though as they are much easy to produce with limited equipment.

 

[Nagorg]

I might go back to the classic IPA's though as they are much easy to produce with limited equipment.

I think its funny that before the haze craze, poor clarity was a defect! Now folks dont thnk they are drinking "craft beer" unless it looks like a glass of OJ.

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

So many people seem to want to dictate what others should like. They don't like hazies, so they bitch about them and say they're defective and shouldn't be on the taps/shelves.

Fruit in beer (pastry sours for example)? Blasphemy! A lot of cane-waving "get off my lawn" types around here.

The reality is that beer, like everything else, is supply/demand driven. In the early 00's, the hop wars were about making IPA's more and more bitter. I liked IPAs then, but they got virtually undrinkable for my palate.

I like the flavor of many hops, love the aroma. NEIPAs that are well done are incredible...poorly done ones suck. That's pretty much like every other style of beer out there.

I drink the styles I like (IPAs, pale ales, belgians, imperial stouts, most classic European styles, etc. I like some sours. But regardless, I have the option to drink what I like and not drink the ones I don't. People act like they walk into a bar and it's 21 taps of hazies....maybe somewhere it's that way, but not here. It might be 5 of them, but there's always variety on tap around here.

I started brewing in the early 90's because imports were expensive and craft was nothing like today. I got back into it in 2014 because I wanted more access to NEIPAs and they were hard to come by around here. They were brewed (Toppling Goliath was good at the time), but you had to know someone to get any. I had had Treehouse and Trillium et al at that point and wanted to just brew my own.

If they come out with some new style that doesn't float my boat, I'm not going to complain, I'm just not going to buy/drink/brew it. Not sure why that's so hard....

 

[Barbarossa]

Some people seems to forget that this is a homebrewing forum.

I'd like to see someone ask in the cheese forum what people whink about cheezwhiz, or in a classical music forum what people think about Russian hard bass, just to get offended at the answers. To each their own, yes, but we also have the right to discuss about what we dont like.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

People act like they walk into a bar and it's 21 taps of hazies

There are definitely places like that around me...Aslin, Solace...I am looking at you! There are also plenty of options for other breweries and pubs with a solid mix of beer styles.

That is the beauty of brewing. You can always have the beers you enjoy on tap! I don't often brew a hazy, because they are so easy to find (plus $20-$30 worth of hops!!). If I do brew a Hazy I am shooting for haze vs murk in the 5.5% to 6.5% ABV range. The hoppy beers I brew tend to lean toward American IPAs and Pale Ales...medium bitterness, maybe a little light crystal, and different combos of classic American Hops and newer varieties. I have been on a Saison kick lately. It is amazing how much flavor you pack into a Belgian with maybe $20 or $25 worth of ingredients.

 

[wepeeler]

Some people seems to forget that this is a homebrewing forum.

I'd like to see someone ask in the cheese forum what people whink about cheezwhiz, or in a classical music forum what people think about Russian hard bass, just to get offended at the answers. To each their own, yes, but we also have the right to discuss about what we dont like.

This isn't a case of cheesewhiz vs gourmet cheese though. NEIPAs have a legit place. It's the fact that some people hate on them to hate on them vs understanding that they can be very well made. I completely understand that the market is over-saturated with them at the moment, but when done correctly, NEIPAs are fantastic. Someone not liking them because it's not their go to beer isn't a valid reason to dismiss the style. I'm not a barleywine fan, but I can appreciate the style.

 

[Barbarossa]

This isn't a case of cheesewhiz vs gourmet cheese though. NEIPAs have a legit place. It's the fact that some people hate on them to hate on them vs understanding that they can be very well made. I completely understand that the market is over-saturated with them at the moment, but when done correctly, NEIPAs are fantastic. Someone not liking them because it's not their go to beer isn't a valid reason to dismiss the style. I'm not a barleywine fan, but I can appreciate the style.

You missed the point. Read the question again. Keyword: overwhelmed. As in overdoing it. As in every craft brewery trying to jump on the hype train and do it even more than the last one. Untill it's too much. How much is too much? That's the discussion here. We've reach that point.

 

[InspectorJon]

Untill it's too much. How much is too much? That's the discussion here. We've reach that point.

We have reached the point of too much hops or too much discussion? I think this thread demonstrates that there are people in both camps that believe there cannot be to much of either.

 

[firerat]

You missed the point. Read the question again. Keyword: overwhelmed. As in overdoing it. As in every craft brewery trying to jump on the hype train and do it even more than the last one. Untill it's too much. How much is too much? That's the discussion here. We've reach that point.

Jumping on the hype train and selling what is popular is how you stay in business. If you don't sell what people want, your business will go back to your hobby.

A craft brewery is a business.

 

[wepeeler]

You missed the point. Read the question again. Keyword: overwhelmed. As in overdoing it. As in every craft brewery trying to jump on the hype train and do it even more than the last one. Untill it's too much. How much is too much? That's the discussion here. We've reach that point.

No, I understand. But overwhelming to some is not to all. The OP made a blanket statement about NEPIAs and IPAs. I'm thinking he's just had bad examples.

If anyone is comparing NEIPAs and IPAs to the "traditional" IPA of course there is an overwhelming amount of hops. Just on the homebrew scale you can easily use 5x the amount of hops in a NEIPA vs a West Coast. But if done well, it's not overwhelming.

People claim that Heady Topper is too much. I've seen it chime in at over 100 IBU, but The Alchemist built an entire brewery on that single beer.

I'm not attacking you. I'm simply referencing the abundance of posts I see on here and other forums that generalize NEIPAs. Trust me, I've have my fair share of bad ones.

 

[Barbarossa]

Jumping on the hype train and selling what is popular is how you stay in business. If you don't sell what people want, your business will go back to your hobby.

A craft brewery is a business.

And there's businesses selling parts for this kind of car also. People are buying it. Paying actual money for it. Sure. Now go ask in a muscle car forum what we think about that.

 

[Barbarossa]

We have reached the point of too much hops or too much discussion? I think this thread demonstrates that there are people in both camps that believe there cannot be to much of either.

The question was not about what do you think about other people. But some people are offended way too easily. The question was simple, but people made it hard. Am I overwhelmed? Yes. So what?

 

[InspectorJon]

My comment was intended mostly in jest. I am amused at how passionate folks can get over differing opinions and how stubborn some can be about not conceding another point of view might be legitimate. I certainly did not intend to call anyone out specifically.

 

[Broothru]

And there's businesses selling parts for this kind of car also. People are buying it. Paying actual money for it. Sure. Now go ask in a muscle car forum what we think about that.View attachment 725035

Ooh. It's a NEIPA*

Not
Even
Is _it
Particularly
Appealing

 

[firerat]

And there's businesses selling parts for this kind of car also. People are buying it. Paying actual money for it. Sure. Now go ask in a muscle car forum what we think about that.

Well if it parallels what this forum think about NEIPAs and IPAs, some like it and some don't.