what's with commercial IPAs?

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beersk said:
Is that what Sigourney Weaver would do? Seriously, is that something that represents you? Why would you have that as your avatar?
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Not sure about Sigourney but pretty sure Ripley would tell eveyrone to go to he** and drink what she wants. :)

I was trying to make a joke about the fact that this theme comes up about every 3rd or 4th day and then deteriorates into a war. OP I didn't see you as bashing either so sorry to stray off topic, but inevitably someone will sugest that those who drink unbalanced IPA's are only doing it because it's trendy, or to be "in with the craft brew scene". I'm a middle aged woman with grey hair, a beer belly, and a closet full of geek T-shirts, I don't think drinking an IPA is enough get me in with the it crowd (I don't have to give up my avatar, do I?!). Pure and simple, I love them and could drink them every day. Sure my tastes have evolved but if I had to torture myself to get there I never would have done it.
 
1. I am not huge beer drinker...I brew because I like the process and I'll drink a few. So what do I know.

But I sampled a BIG IPA here local, a real hop bomb everybody was in a swoon over. It was like chewing on pine needles. I seriously suggested they change it's now forgotten name to PineSol because that's what it tasted like to me....over powering nasty stuff.

They told me it was because my pallet had not yet developed and therefore I "could not discern the subtle textures". I think they have burnt out taste buds and I ordered up a nice porter! They said the same thing about Scotch Whiskey, you had to "develop a taste for it". Funny thing, I didn't have to develop a taste for Wild Turkey, it was great on the first sip...so I drink it.

I guess I won't ever get there....taste wise...but it is sometimes fun to try new things if for no other reason than to make you appreciate what you really do like.
 
Mismost said:
They told me it was because my pallet had not yet developed and therefore I "could not discern the subtle textures". I think they have burnt out taste buds and I ordered up a nice porter! They said the same thing about Scotch Whiskey, you had to "develop a taste for it". Funny thing, I didn't have to develop a taste for Wild Turkey, it was great on the first sip...so I drink it.
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Sorry nothing to add here but you wrote about Wild Turkey and I got all excited!!!
 
If you're in Norway, that explains it. Beer shipped across the Atlantic, even though some ship cold it then sits on warm shelves forever before you buy it. Danish brewery Amager is IMO the best IPA-brewer in scandinavia, I think you'd like Todd the axe man. I'm not too hip on norwegian beer, but swedish breweries All in, Omnipollo and Pang Pang occasionally turn out some good IPAs, look for those.
 
Despite what your wife may tell you, size does matter. and my opinion is much bigger than your opinion.

+1 for dry hop bomb though. I'm not a fan of sweet beer in general though.
 
JonM said:
Go to this place in Oklahoma City: Tapwerks. 200 taps will make for an expansive exploration. View attachment 274403
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I was there just last week. Cool place, though quite a bit overpriced by Oklahoma City standards. I had Roughtail IPA, F5 IPA, and Anthem IPA there - Roughtail was easily the best, but Anthem was good. I didn't care for F5. And given that I love Two Hearted, it's no surprise that my favorite was Roughtail since it has a good dose of Centennial in it.
 
bobbrews said:
Cherry picking one-off examples which you have found to be not too bitter does not make you an IPA fan; it makes you a Two Hearted fan.

It seems like some of you are making a case for enjoying IPAs "without actually enjoying most IPAs" because they are too bitter for you. Newsflash: Bitterness is one of the most important traits in most American IPAs. If you don't like that then: 1) Drink other styles, 2) Learn to appreciate them by trying more, or 3) Go kick rocks.

Lastly, pleasant and much needed bitterness in an IPA ≠ harsh, acrid, poorly made IPAs... They are not the same thing.
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You are forgetting where IPA comes from and we weren't talking about American IPAs, we were talking about commercial IPAs. Have you had a British style IPA recently? Not all that bitter. Bitterness is NOT a requisite. High hop rates are.
But this style has evolved so much since it's inception that this whole discussion is pointless anyway.

And, I LOVE kicking rocks.

And this is why the whole "black IPA" debate (when it was going on) is stupid. IPA these days is almost never pale nor has anything to do with India. But I neither care to debate that nor want to talk about it. People will call it Cross Dressing Amateur, others will call it Black IPA. No stopping that.

So...American IPA... American Indian Pale Ale? Do with that what you want...
 
joshesmusica said:
unfortunately i haven't tried much, as i didn't really get into this craft beer thing until i moved to norway. but i am making a trip to oklahoma in june. so i do want to find some fresh craft stuff while i'm there.
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Where in Oklahoma? There's some good places around Tulsa, OKC, and Norman (University of Oklahoma).

Not a big fan of Tapwerks - last time I visited a lot of the beers tasted old and not in a good way.
 
beersk said:
You are forgetting where IPA comes from and we weren't talking about American IPAs, we were talking about commercial IPAs. Have you had a British style IPA recently? Not all that bitter. Bitterness is NOT a requisite. High hop rates are.
But this style has evolved so much since it's inception that this whole discussion is pointless anyway.

And, I LOVE kicking rocks.

And this is why the whole "black IPA" debate (when it was going on) is stupid. IPA these days is almost never pale nor has anything to do with India. But I neither care to debate that nor want to talk about it. People will call it Cross Dressing Amateur, others will call it Black IPA. No stopping that.

So...American IPA... American Indian Pale Ale? Do with that what you want...
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This defense will not work for you, sorry. If that is what you were trying to do... not sure. I'm fairly certain our minds go directly to American IPAs when we say the word "IPA". If you didn't, then you're lucky I wrote American IPA in my reply to clear up the distinction. The English IPA is a withering style without many examples, especially good ones.

Also, re-read the first post of this thread.
 
bobbrews said:
This defense will not work for you, sorry. If that is what you were trying to do... not sure. I'm fairly certain our minds go directly to American IPAs when we say the word "IPA". If you didn't, then you're lucky I wrote American IPA in my reply to clear up the distinction. The English IPA is a withering style without many examples, especially good ones.

Also, re-read the first post of this thread.
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Oh fine, be that way :cross:

I guess I was being argumentative for argument's sake. Sorry to be a downer. Drink on! :mug:
 
Yeah I was honestly a little unimpressed with DFH 60 minute IPA, But I got it in California too, and it could have been a bit old. It is a good beer but super over-hyped IMO. I like PNW style IPAs ( very bitter, Piney/Citrusy hop flavor) but more isn't necessarily always better as far as hops. It's the type, amount and way it blends with the other flavors that makes it enjoyable or not, not just stuffing as many hops as possible in a batch. In the end a matter of opinion.
 
1.

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I live in Florida and the VAST majority of west coast IPA's suck here. Bitter and otherwise flavorless - little or no hop aroma, etc.

Sierra, Lagunitas... even the Stone IPA at the local craft/homebrew store is the same as Costco... sucks. Dogfish anything is no picnic either. Mission in the can... gross.

All bitter, no flavor or aroma.

Travel does NOT help IPA's.

We have a few (VERY few) excellent breweries in the local area, and their offerings are - to paraphrase - amazeballs!

My guess is because they are fresh and local.

Certainly my fresh, dry hopped homebrew is amazeballs (I think :)

So it must be a time/handling/packaging thing.
 
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I only buy IPAs at a store with a cicerone and the willingness to tell the distributor "take this crappy mishandled garbage beer back!". So if you can go to a hyvee(where I go), nothing but amazing tasting hoppy beer. A new store recently opened closer to me than the hyvee. It sells aged beef and IPAs. Threw 3 six packs in the trash from them. All beers I have had previously. If the labels says oranges or pine and you taste metal/pennies/ blood it was mishandled(got hot or is old). So don't hate on IPAs you are making what their beer should taste like
 
West Coast Double IPAs have to be even fresher IMO as they taste like hot alcohol after the hops are gone. You can't make an 8-10 % ABV beer with a 1.00 - 1.005 FG without packing some sort of flavor and aroma in the form of yeast or hops. Yeast profile lasts longer than hops in the bottle as well.

IPAs will always be better when fresh that's why the ones you make taste better. Recently was gifted some very good west coast Double ipas and thought that they tasted too much like alcohol and almost no hop flavor/aroma compared to my own but it's just the freshness not that pro brewers are making bad ipas.
 
This is for, Nicole Erny master cicerone,

"oxidized hop compounds get pretty confusing!
the paper/cardboard is from trans-2-nonenal, which comes from a precursor - an unsaturated fatty acid in malt.
hop compounds are a little trickier. The classic "old hop" aroma is isovaleric acid, which is an oxidized fatty acid from hops, and is the same compound found in foot sweat and in some "stinky" cheeses. So "cheesy" is a hop off flavor... the thing is this usually comes from beer MADE with old hops...
SO a really hop forward beer that is old/oxidized/exposed to heat will first of all, loose the intense and fresh complexity you might expect. The first aromas to go are those derived from dry hopping and very very late aroma additions - and happen to be the least water-solluble (makes sense, right?) monoterpnes such as myrcene, as well as compounds like linalool, limonene, and others don't want to stay in solution and will leave. They would rather stick to the cap, can liner, or glom onto something that isn't water and is precipitating out of solution.
After those other terpenes and terpenoids go... goodbye fresh pine needle, citrus, floral, and other aromas...
The bitterness derrived from isomerized alpha acids also start to subside.
Other flavor compounds start to oxidize and change. Beta acids and others have compounds that can become more bitter as they oxidize.
Oxidized flavor and aroma compounds in hops could be compared to those of any vegetable or fruit... think canned v. fresh. I often get notes of canned peach and stale tea... fruit and tea likely have some of the exact same compounds as hops that are causing the particular flavor (most "flavor active" compounds occur in multiple places, but it is the magical combination of compounds that make up for the "essence" of a particular fruit, veg, etc).
To sum it up, let's say you have an oxidized american IPA... it is just starting to show signs... You might have enhanced carmel flavors (malt derrived) notes of stone fruit like canned peaches (hops) and a less pleasant, flat bitterness (hops). There might be a popsickle stick aroma or no aroma at all where you're expecting a fresh burst of straight-up dryhop action. This is, unfortunately what most bottled IPAs taste like due to poor handling!
-N"

Explains everything you guys on the east coast experience. The cardboard descriptor is BS with hoppy beers. More bitter, no flavor, no aroma. Hoppy beers are like a ticking time bomb, they must be consumed within weeks and kept cold. I live in SF, and gave up on any bottled IPAs that don't have bottle dates. This is why local beer rules, fresh growlers consumed fresh. The same applies for homebrew, I always laugh at people on HBT that claim their hoppy beers are better at a month in the keg or bottles. I think those folk have never had an aromatic awesome hoppy beer. My hoppy homebrew tastes best the first day I tap my keg, and falls off after a few weeks. Most are brewed and gone within one month. Most people claim they don't oxidize their homebrew but I think most common flaw in homebrew is oxidation. It doesn't come off as cardboard ever to me, just loss of hoppy aroma and flavors, and weird bitter malty finish. I also don't trade commercial beers, see people reviewing month old Pliny Bottles. I can get bottles every week where I live and notice even kept cold it starts to change for the worst after a week. Russian River also has an insane c02 purge system using way more then most commercial operations. So applying this for our homebrew it's the biggest obstacle in my mind to make hoppy beer anywhere near Pliny/Heady/etc. due to oxidation. It's not your ingredients or recipe, it's your process!
 
The fresher the better for IPAs.

I generally only buy local IPAs in the bottle due to freshness. My favorite local-ish IPA is White Rajah and I have even had not so good sixers of that. It just depends on the store and how long it was sitting there.

I recently entered an IPA into a homebrew competition. Kegged it was awesome with tons of citrus aroma, however, when I tried a bottle 5 days after the competition I was disappointed with the aroma and flavor. It scored decently, but I defiantly see why it did not place in the top 3. Next time I will remember to dry hop right before I bottling.
 
Magnus314 said:
I live in Florida and the VAST majority of west coast IPA's suck here. Bitter and otherwise flavorless - little or no hop aroma, etc.

Sierra, Lagunitas... even the Stone IPA at the local craft/homebrew store is the same as Costco... sucks. Dogfish anything is no picnic either. Mission in the can... gross.

All bitter, no flavor or aroma.

Travel does NOT help IPA's.

We have a few (VERY few) excellent breweries in the local area, and their offerings are - to paraphrase - amazeballs!

My guess is because they are fresh and local.

Certainly my fresh, dry hopped homebrew is amazeballs (I think :)

So it must be a time/handling/packaging thing.
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The bolded portion exactly. The best IPA is a fresh IPA. If you can get it fresh from the tap at the brewery (including your own), all the better.
 

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