Summer Blockbuster of Beers

    And now something from my series of blogs where I play the part of an old curmudgeon.  Oh, wait.  That's all of them.

 

     My palette and I have found ourselves in an odd place as of late, and I don't really know what started it.  I mean, some of my favorite beers are still pretty aggressive in terms of flavor.  Heady Topper isn't exactly a sipper, you know?  But maybe a beer like that is an exception to the rule.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  This isn't so much a complaint about hype, but more of a complaint about the correlation of hype and aggression.

     Despite my recent feelings, I can't help but think that I'm just as guilty as anyone else in supporting the craft beer trend of giant, blow-your-head-off hop flavors.  Did I get excited to buy Stone Brewing Company's RuinTen?  Absolutely.  And I enjoyed it.  Still, I'm noticing a remarkable number of beers hitting the shelves of this oeuvre.  I started noticing it when all of the beers on my internal watch-for list were very aggressive IPAs and Double IPAs, but I think it all came to a head for me when attending American Craft Beer Fest and noticing the infographic in their booklet.  Without consciously thinking to do so, my pen hit the page and I wrote "THAT'S THE PROBLEM" over the circle that showed what an inflated sample of the festival offerings were of this type.

     Biggest circle?  American IPA.  Second biggest?  American Double IPA.  Third?  Pale Ale, and I can personally assure you that those were largely represented by "extra hoppy" Pale Ales... and at this point you have to wonder where the demarcation of style actually is.  Kolsh and Gose are great summer styles, too... but they only show up on the "less common" bar graph.  The pie chart shows a rather small portion for another great summer beer, the Saison.

     And you know, it's funny how traitorous I feel having these sentiments... but I'm just getting hopped out.  My tongue needs to taste other flavors.  Hell, my tongue needs to TASTE FLAVORS, and the trend seems to be to put my tongue in the camel clutch so that it may never work right again.   What it comes down to, for me, is this:  It's easy to blow my head off with hops.  It's harder to make a beer that's just downright pleasant.

      So I've gone on a journey back to my roots and am re-discovering some beers I haven't had in years but are totally scratching my itch right now.  Berkshire Brewing Company was not only the makers of my first consumed craft beers, but they are downright excellent at making pleasant beers.  Their Czech Style Pilsner is the first beer that comes to mind for this.  Their Lost Sailor IPA is also wonderfully understated, proving that those three letters, IPA, don't have to be synonymous with destroying my palette.  Of course BBC has many beers like this, but I'm really digging on these two lately.

  
    Another savior for me this summer has been Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project, specifically their ¡Magnifico! (a low-ABV Belgian Pale Ale) and their American Darling "Good Time Lager" (which I'll admit, when I had it last year, I didn't think I liked it all that much).  One of the things I always respected about Pretty Things is not only their well-crafted beers, but their restraint.  It was only last year that they put out their first and only American IPA, Meadowlark, and left it as a seasonal offering rather than a year round beer.  And even if they did, I would hardly describe it as a hop bomb.

     A third brewery that's making things both subtle and wonderful is Jack's Abby.  More remarkable is that their recent beers that come to mind for me, The ABCS and their 2nd Anniversary Lager are both Double IPLs, and again prove that you don't have to go aggressive to get hop flavor across.  In fact, the very name "The ABCS" seems to suggest to me a notion akin to "the basics".  As in you have to master the basics of beer making before you can think about pulling out these go-big-or-go-home flavors that may entice many, but may chase away a comparable amount. 

     Of course I'm not going to name any names on the breweries (dare I add... young breweries) that are leaning a little too heavily on hop bombs.  I wouldn't even feel comfortable saying they're trying to cover up imperfections in their beer (or, if not actively trying, are still probably succeeding in that), because I assume the fault lies in me.  There are, after all, many people that adore these offerings.  I know because I see the breweries re-tweet every positive review, he said, snarkily.  All I am saying is that this summer, I'm seeking out pleasant.  And so can you!

     In addition to the breweries previously mentioned, check out beers from Blue Lobster Brewing Company, as they seem to specialize in beers without a lot of frills and, other than their delicious Hamptonweisse and its kiwi/apricot one-two punch, doesn't use anything to achieve complex flavors other than the hops, the malt and the yeast.  Though they do have some quite hoppy offerings, I've always found their beers to be very even.  Going one step beyond the hop, quite literally, I've also grown quite fond of Earth Eagle Brewings.  They specialize in gruits, or beers without hops.  We forget, but hops are really just the herb du jour for giving beer its flavor.  In the past, any number of other botanicals were used in its place.

     Craft is always talking about attracting consumers over from the macrobrew side of the beer world, but continue to pump out these varsity-level brews like hops are going out of style.  Not everything needs to be double or triple imperial giant whatevers, nor should they be.  From where I'm standing, it seems like market saturation.  There is, however, relief out there. And plenty of it, if you look past the hype.  Drink something pleasant!

    Tune in next time when I probably contradict myself completely.