> Large breweries ignored burgeoning niches, Watson said, particularly hoppy India Pale Ales, or IPAs, which constitute a large share of the craft-beer market.
He's reversing cause-and-effect.
IPAs are incredibly popular among microbrewers, because it is incredibly hard to brew consistently tasting batches of beer. Smothering all of a beer's other flavours, by dumping buckets after buckets of hops into it is much easier. It's why eight out of every ten craft beers are incredibly bitter IPAs.
I like craft beer as much as the next hipster, but I can't stand this trend.
As a very long time home-brewer (sadly, recently lapsed), I can't go without challenging this. I grew up thinking that I hated beer. It wasn't until I drank my first English ale (I think I was 20 in a place in the world where the drinking age is 18) that I discovered that I really liked beer.
Back in the 70's an early 80's there was only one style of beer in NA. That style was defined by marketing people and if you didn't like it then there was something wrong with you. It wasn't so much that the large brewers ignored burgeoning niches, they assumed that they could strong arm everyone into accepting the same product that they had been selling for generations.
To imply that micro brewers are unable to brew consistent beer is completely untrue. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale was a revelation mainly because it has only one flavour - hops. The yeast they use is ridiculously neutral. Any flaw in production would stand out a mile. In fact, one of the reasons it was originally bottle conditioned (is it still??? I haven't had it for a very long time) was so that they yeast could slurp up all the residual oxygen in the bottle. This lets nothing stand in the way of the fruity/floral aroma.
If anything, the American micro beer revolution has neglected other styles of beer because that idea is so iconic. It's not without precedent, however. If you look at good Bohemian pilsners, you get the same idea -- a very neutral palate with just enough sweetness to provide a platform for the hops. The main difference is that American pale ales go full on fruit. (Well, being a Morovian malt lover, I have to say that I really enjoy the grassiness of a fresh Bohemian pilsner if I can get it fresh -- very difficult from here, unfortunately).
US micros make hop forward beers because they sell. Not only that, but with recent advances in hop growing (lots of genetically modified varieties -- complete with patents :-P), modern hops are incredibly exciting. However, there are still lots great examples of other kinds of beer available that are not hop forward. If you wander up into French speaking areas of Canada you will find that they are even preferred!
What you won't find very often are good light lagers. This is not because the good breweries can't make them, it's because they can't sell them. You want to go up against the big boys in marketing a light lager? Good luck!
I like a good IPA now and again, but my bread an butter is an ordinary bitter with less than 30 IBUs. It's one of the reasons I brew my own -- I can't buy it outside of the UK. However, if you are just looking for variety, it's worth going a little bit out of your way to try to find it. There are lot's of amazing hefe weizens, wits, fruit beers, bocks, porters/stouts, spice beers, etc, etc, etc brewed in the US. Even in the area of pale ales, there are gobs of ESBs and nice balanced bottle conditioned pale ales. You just have to look for them.
> It's why eight out of every ten craft beers are incredibly bitter IPAs.
Is that really true anymore? If I roll by one of the local breweries, they'll have an IPA of course, but sours and saisons seem to be in a bit of renaissance right now. Hell, half the IPAs I see now are New England IPAs that barely budge the bitterness scale.
Maybe so, but sours/saisons are also much more forgiving to brew than lagers or even IPAs. Any hint of contamination in a lager is immediately noticeable. On the other hand, sour brewers have turned what would normally be flush-worthy batches into "limited releases" characterized by barnyard funk.
> It's why eight out of every ten craft beers are incredibly bitter IPAs.
I always saw this is a US West Coast phenomenon. Stone, in San Diego, sort of popularized the trend and then people started rolling with it to extremes.
I have a similar issue with barrel aging. I love Victory at Sea from Ballast Point (since bought out by Constellation Brands) and similarly dark "toxic sewage" as my friends so happily classify it. Barrel aging spread around very nicely through the craft brewers and always added a mellowness. That was true up until recently, where now I find "barrel aged" seems to be imparting a cloying sweetness (which I do NOT like) to everything.
I guess it is the fate of anything that gets popular to eventually go too far.
San Diegan reporting in! It's gotten absolutely ridiculous. They have tapped out the "like eating a cone of pure hops" quintuple imperial IPA market, and now the trend is additives. Ballast Point and Modern Times are the worst about this. We are at the "add some truffle oil it" stage.
The original Ballast Point was walking distance from my office. They had at most 6 taps. They started doing the additives much later, but it really got out of control when they got bought out.
>it is incredibly hard to brew consistently tasting batches of beer.
While I don't really like Bud, Coors, or any other macro brew, I have to give them respect for churning out a consistent product time after time. I buy a Bud in New Jersey, and I know it'll taste the same as the Bud I bought in New Mexico.
I agree with you point but have an interesting "but technically" exception: several states such as Colorado and Oklahoma regulate that beer sold in some places must be 4%.
Many brewers make 4% compliant beer, and while labelled the same, won't taste the same.
Before the IPA fad kicked off I used to go to a local beer megastore and specifically sample every American IPA because that was the smallest segment that was reasonable to take on in its entirety. It still took me two years to complete. Nowadays it would be impossible with the overwhelming glut of IPAs. Nor would it be very enjoyable since the fad breweries just take IPA as an excuse to overload on hops and destroy any other flavor nuance. Back then there were some true gems to be found that wouldn't even qualify as an IPA today because their hops content was well moderated.
> Nowadays it would be impossible with the overwhelming glut of IPAs
You would never finish. New batches and variants with new names are coming out faster than any one person can try them all, barring maybe a full-time job in expensive alcoholism.
That's nonsense. Craft breweries are businesses and they'll sell what makes money.
Also, IPAs are incredibly hard to brew, store, and distribute consistently. Hops are probably the most seasonal part of a mash bill, and high quality finishing hops are in heavy demand. And the hop acids are subject to spoilage by heat, light, or oxygen. If you want "smothering a beer's other flavors" then look no further than whiskey/rum/et al. barrel aging (and I'm not judging, whatever floats one's boat),
This isn't aimed necessarily at you, but some people taste things differently. Cilantro, infamously. But hops are another. Maybe you don't like hops (or maybe you haven't had very good ipas?)
> If you want "smothering a beer's other flavors" then look no further than whiskey/rum/et al. barrel aging (and I'm not judging, whatever floats one's boat),
That seems to be a current trend like the hyper-hops that everybody is complaining about.
I used to like barrel aged beers because they would take an actively good beer, drop it in a barrel for a bit, and that would add just an extra touch of something. About 5 years ago, I could order just about anything barrel-aged and I was going to like it.
Now, barrel-aged seems to be "massive amount of overpowering, cloying sweetness". <bleck> "Barrel-aged" is now a warning sign for me to request a taste first.
Sours are interesting. I've had some amazing ones, and some ... bad ones (to me at least). However I'm absolutely glad I've tried them out. Like drinking yogurt beer :)
Yup. But I also understand that some of them use hop oil extracts (could be wrong). Never tried it, but I have to think it loses some of the nuance of whole leaf or pellet in the process. Which is fine, they are optimizing for consistency and scaling. McDonalds vs Five Guys.
People aren't buying craft IPAs because they want to drink bitter water. They are buying craft IPAs, because they want to drink craft beer. Miller-Coors producing and marketing an IPA wouldn't be getting them all the sales that are going to microbrewers.
Our alcohol consumption is 60% ritual, 60% social signaling, and 30% personal preference.
He's reversing cause-and-effect.
IPAs are incredibly popular among microbrewers, because it is incredibly hard to brew consistently tasting batches of beer. Smothering all of a beer's other flavours, by dumping buckets after buckets of hops into it is much easier. It's why eight out of every ten craft beers are incredibly bitter IPAs.
I like craft beer as much as the next hipster, but I can't stand this trend.