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HermeticHealer

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Hello Forum:

This is an invitation to opposing view points.

First off, let me state that I love hops in moderation. Contrary to popular belief, any criticism towards hops and hop usage does NOT therefore deem the critic as a "hop wimp" or someone who doesn't truly appreciate the flavor of hops. This just simply isn't true.

That being said, has anyone else witnessed the increasing trend in poorly crafted beers that have been disguised with massive amounts of hops? It almost seems like a cop-out. Instead of crafting a well-balanced beer, breweries just pack a brew with tons of hops and expect people to clamor over it. And people do! There is a sense of machismo that seems to exist towards how many IBU a beer-drinker can stomach. As if a large tolerance for hops makes a person a true aficionado.

I was once fortunate enough to experience a craft brew at the Schlafly Brewery in St. Louis. Its IBU was roughly 70. To say the least, it was an extremely hopped brew BUT, it was delicious because it was well-balanced. The hops weren't used to disguise crappy malt, corn sugar additives, or other poor brewing practices.

Does anyone else feel that there are too many self-proclaimed enthusiasts that worship any beer that is packed with hops, regardless of how well the beer actually tastes?

In my opinion, bitter does not necessarily equal better!
 
I like beers with outrageous hop flavor. So do many people. Hence, many breweries are making them.

Would you care to give a couple examples of these "so out of balance they're bad" beers?
 
I agree to some extent. There is a local brewery that I taste the same flaws in most of their beers. The only way they can brew something decent is if it's "Imperial", heavily hopped, or both. Unfortunately people love it because of the IPA craze. Their IPA's are just okay, not great.

However, there can be very hoppy beers that are well crafted. Balance isn't the only way to craft a beer well either. There are plenty of American IPAs that I consider well crafted although the hops are way more forward than the malt. That's kind of what makes the style. Basically yeah, some mediocre brewers/breweries hide behind lots of hops, but there are plenty who don't use hops as a crutch.
 
I was once fortunate enough to experience a craft brew at the Schlafly Brewery in St. Louis. Its IBU was roughly 70. To say the least, it was an extremely hopped brew BUT, it was delicious because it was well-balanced. The hops weren't used to disguise crappy malt, corn sugar additives, or other poor brewing practices.
Corn sugar is a very useful adjunct in multiple beer styles, including the highly hopped IIPA.
 
There are so many styles, so many breweries that do not hold to those styles, so many people with different tastes, etc.

Buy what YOU like, don't look for someone to tell you what is good or that you are right or wrong in your beer tastes. Good is what you like.

For example, I despise New Belgium beers. Does that mean they suck and no one should drink beer from that brewery? No! I don't like their beers.
 
50% of all Hinterland Brewery beers come to mind. This is a very regional beer, so perhaps not recognizable. Another that comes to mind is Hop Devil by Victory. I know this is probably sacrilege for most of you, but I just don't think it rounds out a full flavor profile.
 
I would agree with you. There are many tasty beers with a predominant hop flavor which are out-of-this-world incredible (like the Schlafly APA I mentioned). I just think too many beers are adored because of their IBU, not for how they actually taste.
 
I would agree with you. There are many tasty beers with a predominant hop flavor which are out-of-this-world incredible (like the Schlafly APA I mentioned). I just think too many beers are adored because of their IBU, not for how they actually taste.
If this was at all true, a lot of breweries would be putting out beers using only a single bittering addition, but that's not the case.
 
I like to throw tons of hops at my IPAs... does that mean my brewing techniques suck and I'm just doing so to compensate for an otherwise bad beer?
 
You've now named a couple examples, but to make such a grandiose claim about the entire industry, many more examples are needed.

Also, if the hops are masking the flaws, how do you know the flaws are there? If you're saying you can still taste the flaws, then how do you know the hops are there to hide them if they are unable to do so for you? Are they hiding them from other people, just not you?

Like was said, seems to be that it is simply supply following demand.
 
I originally hated this post..but upon some more thinking there maybe a grain of truth here. I think at this point i brew some pretty good beer. I'm a hophead and while most of my beers are good, it tends to be the ones that people and myself seem to think are the best are my ipas. It begs the question....Are my IPAs the best because of I've spent the most time tinkering with the recipes and understand hop profiles better now or just because the hops may mask an off flavor. My guess is the truth lies somewhere in between.
 
Three Floyds' "Arctic Panzer Wolf" disagrees with this thread.

3-floyds-arctic-panzer-wolf-label.jpg
 
I don't know if I should comment here, I'm not the biggest fan of IPA's, especially not IIPA's, but last spring/summer I decided to give IPA's a try again, grabbed a bunch of offerings from many producers, Magic hats offerings last year were my least favorite of everything I grabbed, I'm just not an IPA guy and I drank a lot of IPA's last summer.
I think the turning point for me was when I volunteered on the bottling line at Thomas Hooker beer, that day there were bottling an IPA and I was told I could drink any tallies or shorties because they couldn't sell them. At first I was happy, sweet free beer and plenty of it, but then we pretty much had ot chug them to keep up with the beginning mistakes (older bottling line so getting the fill right took some time) not to mention any that came out without labels, or multiple labels or other issues with the bottling line.. I drank so much IPA that day I haven't really had a taste for it since... back on topic, I think it's just a market trend right now in the micro/brew pub area - half of the beers at the brewpubs I go to are IPA's and these brewpubs have between 4 and eight of their own beers on tap. talk about lack of variety, but apparently its selling; you will get good IPA's and bad IPA's and everything in between. Now wehn BMC puts out an IPA, thats when I'll agree with your statement
 
50% of all Hinterland Brewery beers come to mind. This is a very regional beer, so perhaps not recognizable. Another that comes to mind is Hop Devil by Victory. I know this is probably sacrilege for most of you, but I just don't think it rounds out a full flavor profile.

??????? Hinterland is a gastropub. Their beers are meant to be paired with the spectacular food they serve there. Have you tried the recommended pairings?

EDIT: For the non-Wisconsin folks, Hinterland is a restaurant with two locations - one in Green Bay and one in Milwaukee. They specialize in fresh, local ingredients and lots of game. The menu changes frequently based on what is in season. Everything is expertly prepared and presented. Last time I was there, elk tenderloin and quinoa happened to be available and it was incredible. This ain't some corner bar.
 
I think freshness is everything with IPAs. I've had a lot of bad experiences with commercial beers. IPAs sit on the shelf for a while here in Ohio and I would say 60% of the beers I buy are skunked or oxidized or just old. I used to hate Stone IPA because every time I bought a 6 pack it was old. I had it fresh on tap a few times and my mind was blown. Similar thing with Founders Centennial IPA. I thought that beer was just...ok. Then I had a few pints at the brewery and holy crap was that good. Apparently I have a thing for centennial hops!

Anyways, there are lots of different styles of beer to suit the tastes of different people. No one's forcing anyone to love IPAs, but there are a ton of us who do. See you all at next month's "Am I the only one who hates hops?" thread.
 
The hops weren't used to disguise crappy malt, corn sugar additives, or other poor brewing practices.

I know someone has already commented on this, but I also have to chime in, because this comment just jumped out at me:

Speaking of corn sugar additives as a "poor brewing practice" shows that you might not have the best grasp of brewing practices. There are many styles where sugar additives, corn or otherwise, have a long history and are in fact very much vital part of brewing. Things like the aforementioned IIPA style, Barleywine, and just about anything Belgian - they all call for pretty hefty grain bills PLUS sugars like corn sugar to help dry them a little and keep them from becoming too syrupy or cloying, and to help other flavor components in the beer - whether those are the yeast, the hops, or other malt components - to come to the forefront.

Make sure, before you start attacking "poor brewing practices," that you really understand what do and do not comprise said practices.
 
Hello Forum: There is a sense of machismo that seems to exist towards how many IBU a beer-drinker can stomach. As if a large tolerance for hops makes a person a true aficionado.

This is true in a sense. But it is no different than hot sauces. In the beginning I couldn't stand much more heat than a jalapeño based sauce. These days I am growing scorpion and ghost chiles in my garden in the summer because I have learned to appreciate and enjoy their flavor and painfully intense heat.
For me hops followed a very similar path, and a Lupin shift occurred whereby whimpy hopped beers didn't taste the same. Doesn't mean I don't enjoy a good lager or Belgian. I really enjoy all beer except sours (haven't found a taste for those yet).

Most of the craft brew IPA's and DIPA's I drink these days are very good. So I disagree with your assertion. I would say 9 in 10 are good to very good for my taste, and I am a discerning hop head (or should I say "aficionado") :rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
I like to throw tons of hops at my IPAs... does that mean my brewing techniques suck and I'm just doing so to compensate for an otherwise bad beer?

I don't know, you tell me.

Like I said, I have nothing against a well-hopped beer. I'm just saying that just because a beer is packed with hops, doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. See: Sacred Cow

sa·cred cow
Noun
An idea, custom, or institution held, esp. unreasonably, to be above criticism.
 
I don't know, you tell me.

Like I said, I have nothing against a well-hopped beer. I'm just saying that just because a beer is packed with hops, doesn't necessarily mean that it's good. See: Sacred Cow

sa·cred cow
Noun
An idea, custom, or institution held, esp. unreasonably, to be above criticism.

A bad beer is a bad beer, regardless of any ability hops have to "hide" flaws. Have all of my IPAs been great? Of course not. My failures in that particular style have been just as glaring as any other. Maybe I'm just more critical of my own beer than others are of theirs, but successfully displaying hops at the forefront of a beer really isn't as brainless as some let it on to be. I rarely buy IPAs for this reason alone, because part of the trouble of making an IPA is delivering it fresh.

And while I agree that an IPA doesn't need 15 lbs of hops per barrel to be good, such is the mentality of a majority (or at least very vocal segment) of the craft beer crowd "bigger is better," regardless of style. Who can really blame craft brewers for satisfying that share of the market?
 
Is anyone saying that all hoppy beers are inherently good?

Yeah, I seemed to have missed this as well. And any time I have seen comments like "hop wimp" it's normally just good-natured ribbing. There are many people that don't like IPAs or any other hoppy beer. Who cares? Drink what you like. I also don't get upset if people put ice in their white wine or drink white zinfandel.
 
Pliny-the-Elder-nih[1].png


Pliny dislikes this thread.



I think there is some truth here.

It can't be argued that hops would hide some poor malt quality, brewing practices and off-flavors. BUT...I do not believe that breweries intentionally make a low quality beer and highly hop it and call it an IPA. This is still a well through out craft style that has infinite possibilities due to the sheer variety of hops available. This style has a huge following because a lot of craft beer drinkers simply enjoy the bitterness, aroma and flavor of hops.

I think that bitterness has an addicting propery. Just like hot sauce and hot, spicy foods are addicting, even if they sometimes cause us physical pain as we enjoy them...we STILL EAT THEM! IPA's are addictive to me in the same way...can't get enough of that hop hit!
 
There is a definate bragging rights quality to heavily hopped beer. How many times do you read and hear, "my IIPA has 10 billion IBU's".
Do brewers feel like they are warning you or bragging about the hoppiness of their beer.
You definately build up a tolerance with different tastes.
 
I would also like to add that bitterness ≠ hoppiness. I know too many people who think that because you throw 5 oz of bittering hops into something it is a super hoppy beer while it only has two or three oz in the late kettle and dry hop. That's not hoppiness, that's bitterness.
 
There are so many styles, so many breweries that do not hold to those styles, so many people with different tastes, etc.

Buy what YOU like, don't look for someone to tell you what is good or that you are right or wrong in your beer tastes. Good is what you like.

For example, I despise New Belgium beers. Does that mean they suck and no one should drink beer from that brewery? No! I don't like their beers.

I would agree with you. There are many tasty beers with a predominant hop flavor which are out-of-this-world incredible (like the Schlafly APA I mentioned). I just think too many beers are adored because of their IBU, not for how they actually taste.

Well, why would I drink a beer "because of their IBU, not for how they actually taste"? That doesn't make any sense. I'll drink bad beers, if they're hoppy? That's silly.

I've had bad beers of ALL types at breweries and at brewpubs. I've had terrible wheats- fermented too hot so it tasted like a band-aid. That doesn't mean that all wheat beers are bad, though.

I've had poorly crafted lagers, too. But I've also had some excellent ones.

Bad beer is bad beer, no matter what.

Saying that people who love IBUs are easily pacified by just throwing more hops into a bad beer is rather insulting, as you're insinuating that my palate is so bad that I can't taste the beer anyway.
 
Saying that people who love IBUs are easily pacified by just throwing more hops into a bad beer is rather insulting, as you're insinuating that my palate is so bad that I can't taste the beer anyway.

+1 to this!
 
I have never consumed an IPA, APA, IIPA, IBA, or other hoppy beer variant and said that is to much hop flavor. I have frequently consumed one and said it needed more hop flavor, hop aroma, or hop "character". As someone else said Hop Character does not equal bitterness, there are simply to many compounds and flavors that can come from hops to shoehorn them in to the small box of bitterness.

I disagree with your entire premise. Sure there is a tend for higher hop loads and bigger IBU beers. People are demanding them and that is what sells. That does not mean those increases are in effort to cover a poorly crafted beer. I have experienced the opposite actually, many breweries are creating more balanced beers as the hop levels/IBU increase because the style and the consumers demand it. In my experience hop flavor and IBU does little to mask a poorly crafted beer at least it does far less than crazy amounts of roasted or dark grains, flavor additives, and fruit additives. An IPA with big IBU levels but no mouth feel or body is far easier to spot than a poorly brewed Chocolate Hazelnut Imperial Porter or some other such nonsense.
 
IPA's aren't suppose to be balanced. And how is "balanced" equal to good? Malt forward beers aren't balanced either.
 
IMHO, IPAs have become the "it" beer for the drinking public. As strange as it is, many people in my social circles who didn't drink craft beer 3-4 years ago have jumped into the IPA world despite the fact that they don't know that much about beer, and they look at beers like a nice helles bock as if it's the same thing as BMC.

What happens when a huge market appears with customers that aren't nearly as experienced enough with beer to really discern a "good" IPA from a "bad" IPA? Every brewery brews an IPA, and a bunch of them aren't very good.

Brewing an outstanding IPA is not as simple as just throwing more hops at it. But in a market full of people who haven't built the palate to tell the difference, "more" hops tends to sell better whether the beer is actually great or not. But adding a lot more hops requires a lot of work to make the beer drinkable. I've tasted way too many IPA's that lack body and lack the level of malt needed to balance the hops, and this is coming from someone that prefers almost all of my beers (IPAs especially) on the dry side. Pliny the Elder would be a good example of one that avoids this problem -- it's extremely hoppy, but it has enough malt to stand up to all those hops, and all without seeming malty at all to the palate.


Then you add into this the previous poster who brought up freshness, which is *critical* in an IPA, and you have a situation where the same beer will taste vastly different in week 1 vs. week 12. I know I have a homebrew IIPA on tap right now that I brewed originally for my Oktoberfest party. I went 3 weeks grain-to-glass on a 9.5% IIPA that is hopped at rates between that of Ruination and 10th Anniversary Ruination. To stand up to all those hops, it *HAD* to have a lot of malt. And the first month, it was actually a really "balanced" beer. The huge hopping rate wasn't overdone, and even with the amount of malt in the recipe, it wasn't overly malty. I still have that beer on tap (which happens when you brew 10 gallons of 9.5% IIPA!). Now the hops have faded and while it's still bitter, the hop aroma has waned to the point where the beer is too malty of an IIPA for my tastes. Again, Pliny the Elder is a critical commercial example -- it's extremely hoppy but with a perfect level of malt backbone. But everyone says you need to drink it *fresh*, or the hops will fade and it will be *too* malty.

So I understand your premise, that more hops doesn't necessarily equal better beer. And I think your concern is that more hops, even if the beer isn't better, often translates into more commercial success for a beer. I think that's true. But much like a beer with too much hops and no sense of balance, I think you stated your argument with too much bitterness at what you see and not enough reasoned argument to back it up.
 
have you ever had a beer without hops? I have and the ones I've had are not good IMO.

So by that logic hops = good beer.

Now you can argue highly hopped doesn't equal good beer. But I would still argue that :fro:
 
I do think there is a tendency to throw more hops at a beer regardless of its quality because it sells better, but I blame uneducated consumers not brewers. It has become trendy to drink highly hopped beers and many people drinking them don't understand much about beer or balance, they simply want to be seen with a bottle of SuperHop Hoppy McHop Beer to look cool. I think the OP made the mistake of posting this commentary here at HBT, where there aren't many of those people. I think just about all of us here can recognize a bad beer when we drink one regardless of the amount of hops, but this isn't true of the whole population (particularly here in Miami where everyone just wants to be flashy). As a result it comes off as quite insulting in this setting.
 
I do think there is a tendency to throw more hops at a beer regardless of its quality because it sells better, but I blame uneducated consumers not brewers. It has become trendy to drink highly hopped beers and many people drinking them don't understand much about beer or balance, they simply want to be seen with a bottle of SuperHop Hoppy McHop Beer to look cool. I think the OP made the mistake of posting this commentary here at HBT, where there aren't many of those people. I think just about all of us here can recognize a bad beer when we drink one regardless of the amount of hops, but this isn't true of the whole population (particularly here in Miami where everyone just wants to be flashy). As a result it comes off as quite insulting in this setting.

**** looking cool, SuperHop Hoppy McHop is delicious.
 
A brewery in my home town definitely uses hops to hide off flavors. They also have a couple of big, chocolatey stouts that do the same. I'm pretty sure they use some amount of city water, because you can taste the result of chlorine in the water. And I'm guessing they also ferment too hot, because it tastes like a vague estery mess. Same flaws with all of their beers. But when about 6 out of 12 beers they brew are some form of IPA all with IBU's 98-100 (mostly 100) and use a ton of late hops, it's much more difficult to detect. It's the only style they can do moderately well. There are some people in town that agree with me but they end up doing pretty good business.

I'm not agreeing with everything the OP says, but you really can sell a lot of sub-par beer by front loading it with hops. And sure, that is playing the market, giving people what they want I guess, but it's still a shame. I love me some good IPA's, IIPA's, whatever. Of course there are bad beers of any style, but in some cases (brewery in question above) people throw back beers that taste like they were brewed in an unsanitized bathtub because hops are the "in" taste at the moment. And I'm definitely not saying all IPA's are this by -any- means.
 
**** looking cool, SuperHop Hoppy McHop is delicious.

I don't disagree, but there is a large chunk of people that would buy a bottle of beer that was awful if you told them it was hoppy because it equates to being fashionable. Perhaps this isn't true everywhere, but the last two places I've lived (NYC and Miami) it certainly is.
 
I would also like to add that bitterness ≠ hoppiness. I know too many people who think that because you throw 5 oz of bittering hops into something it is a super hoppy beer while it only has two or three oz in the late kettle and dry hop. That's not hoppiness, that's bitterness.

One has to be careful. When I hear someone say they are a hop head, my immediate assumption is they like hop flavor and aroma. I really though have no idea if they like bitter beers or not. I know folks who love hop aroma and flavor, but not so much bitterness.

I agree with others that I don't think brewers say to themselves, ew, this beer is a bit off, let's throw a bunch of hops at it. They may enjoy a beer that others (even perhaps most folks) find out of balance. Yet another possibility is that they don't even notice anything is being covered up.

I taste way more wine than beer (drink more beer though) and have developed my palate for wine flavors pretty well and can pick out subtle little details. I'm not there yet with beer. It really helps to refine your tasting skills when you can sit down and compare a dozen beers of similar style. This way you can really notice the differences. Having a beer this night, and then a different one the next helps a person learn, but not like evaluating a bunch in one setting (within reason of course)
 
Hops do not always = bitter. You can add tons of hop flavor into a beer without boosting the IBUs. I used to HATE hops now I find them to be the most interesting thing about the beer I drink. I love experimenting with the many different combinations.

opps: horseballs already made this point :)
 
??????? Hinterland is a gastropub. Their beers are meant to be paired with the spectacular food they serve there. Have you tried the recommended pairings?

EDIT: For the non-Wisconsin folks, Hinterland is a restaurant with two locations - one in Green Bay and one in Milwaukee. They specialize in fresh, local ingredients and lots of game. The menu changes frequently based on what is in season. Everything is expertly prepared and presented. Last time I was there, elk tenderloin and quinoa happened to be available and it was incredible. This ain't some corner bar.

Funny, I didn't find any elk tenderloin in the beer cooler when I purchased a 4-pack of their abominable Amber Ale, so to answer your question: No, I didn't pair my liquor store purchase with their expertly prepared food. If you're going to distribute bottled beer to a liquor store, shouldn't its quality stand alone without food?

RE-EDIT: For the non-Wisconsin folks, Hinterland is a brewery in Green Bay, with a gastro-pub location in Milwaukee.
 
IPA's aren't suppose to be balanced. And how is "balanced" equal to good? Malt forward beers aren't balanced either.

Horse hockey. You can balance IPAs and malt forward beers alike. Just because your BU:GU is over/under .5 doesn't mean you can't strike a balance between hop and malt flavors. Never think about "balance" as ratio between numbers in your favorite brewing calculator. Balance is different to different people and is best measured by the drinker.
 
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