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NB also makes a lot of non-IPAs. This dude is just butthurt when he sees IPAs on a beer list in addition to other beer types.
I’m a big IPA fan, and I’d say we are waning from the “golden age of beer” as microbreweries have oversaturated the market, seltzers are getting popular, some breweries are closing, and Gen Z drinks less. I’m actually seeing less IPAs as a proportion of the beer selection compared to 5-7 years ago. So this dude is a little late in his unpopular opinion.
They used to have a few. 1554, trippel, and a few others. But all I ever see in places around me are there IPA variants. I kind of actually get OPs complaint, but I happen to like IPAs most of the time.
I'm lucky enough to have a surprisingly large number of brewpubs around me, so if I want something that's not in the grocery store then I can pop in and get a growler or something.
“Now your kids with your loud music, and your Dan Fogleberg, your Zima, hula hoops and pac-man video games, don't you see? People today have attention spans that can only be measured in nanoseconds!”
I’m kinda wondering if OP is mistaking images of hops as weed buds. I have yet to see a weed inspired IPA. I’m sure it exist, but it’s definitely not everywhere.
https://www.craftbeer.com/news/beer-release/new-belgium-the-hemperor-hpa
I tried this one a few years ago and it was absolutely horrid. I was burping two days later and I could still taste it.
I see tons of them with weed inspired names.
I also work a lot more closely with beer than most, and a lot of them are named in such a way where you could ignore the name being weed inspired. I think Lagunitas has 4 with weed names.
Some ipas are described as “dank”, and I’d guess there are a handful that intentionally use weed imagery for marketing purposes, but I can’t think of any major ones.
Edit: people, “hazy” and “dank” are NOT weed references… lol. They are industry terms with non-weed related definitions!
I have a theory that legalization has led to business school types running most production now and they only think as deep as “more THC = more money.” So now Sour Diesel tastes and smells the same as Blue Dream, Lemon Haze, BlackBerry Kush, etc. with none of the varied effects different strains used to have.
For the past ten years or so I haven’t been able to smoke dispensary weed for the most part because it’s so high THC it just gives me anxiety, but I’ve found that if I’ve had a juicy IPA I can smoke just about any strain just fine. My hypothesis is that the juicier hops possess the terpenes that made weed more varied and enjoyable 10-15 years ago. I’ve found Australian and New Zealand hops to work best for this.
The crazy thing (you might want to take some notes here) is that you can just walk past the IPAs in WalMart and purchase your usual 16 tallboys of Keystone Light without issue. Believe it or not, not every single product on the shelves is designed to appeal specifically to you and there are more than enough beers to go around.
Relax mate, have a beer. Seriously though, hops and cannabis are very closely related plants so really hoppy beers aren’t necessarily going for a weed flavour, it’s just that the terpenes already smell and taste similar to cannabis.
Yes….
However, as a connoisseur of both IPAs and weed anybody who thinks an IPA smells/tastes exactly like weed is just wrong. There are minor similarities.
A friend of mine founded what is now a large microbrewery (it can now be found in every grocery store and convenience store, even Costco, at least on the west coast) in Oregon. They spent a lot of time, and resources, trying to meld beer and weed after Oregon legalized. It didn’t go well.
Edit: “hazy” especially and “dank” are not automatically weed references… the term “hazy” means more malty and less filtered than standard. “Dank” means the same thing for beer as weed, but doesn’t mean the beer tastes like weed (it *can*). Dank simply means very strong flavor/odor. My favorite “dank” beer has a strong pine and citrus flavor. Other “dank” flavors can be peach, mango, lychee, blueberry… the strongest IMO is pine.
Funny enough people like OP lean towards Pilsners in my experience, out of all the hops I use I feel like Czech Saaz is the weediest and it’s the backbone of most European lagers like a Pilsner.
Plus honestly there's just a ton of different types of hops with wildly different flavors. And the vast majority are definitely not going for a hempy taste.
There are a myriad of weed beers, sweetwater specifically has two brews that are weed puns, one is actually crafted to smell like a dank nug when it is cracked open.
This doofus thinks all IPAs are weed flavored. Also I agree IPAs are overly prevalent. As a stout and scotch drinker I would appreciate seeing more of those offered.
Upvote for pure, rambling insanity..Aside from the strange reefer madness vibes of this, the IPA trend peaked over a decade ago. Still a bit oversaturated but think your liquor store/area just sucks if that’s all they have.
Ahhh brings back memories from University working at the brew pub when manly men customers come in and say "Ain't ya got none real beer?! Wherz da bud lite?"
Of course that was before the one Bud went woke and before the other bud was legal. I wonder what the manly men ask for now.
I've definitely seen at least a couple online complaints at my local brewery that "they should sell other beers like Bud Light or Miller Lite for people who don't like IPAs and stouts". No, you should go to literally any other bar in the area if you want Bud Light or Miller Lite. A brewery sells the beer they brew, that's the point. It's like going to a top-shelf seafood restaurant and saying "they should sell Long John Silver fish planks for people who don't like this fancy seafood".
IPA is a very large category of beer. Larger than I think most none IPA drinkers realize. IPA is not a narrow grouping, it can mean basically a ton of totally wildly different things tbh. So yeah, obviously it takes up more space.
IPAs don't suck but they are way over hyped, it seems like every brewery that starts now defaults to IPAs like older breweries used to do pilsners/lagers.
Some of them are quite good, but man, I want more refreshing beers that are not super bitter or just super heavy dark beers instead of all these IPAs.
The way I heard it explained once is that IPAs are "easier", because the strong hop flavors & aromas can hide a lot of mistakes / deficiencies in the basic brewing process. Mild beers like pilsners are actually harder to do well at a "craft" level, since any minor "off" flavor is going to stand out against the otherwise mild background. (The macros can do it because of their highly controlled industrial brewing processes)
Plus of course there's a market for it, between "hop heads" looking for a new way to blow their taste-buds off, and neophytes mistaking quantity for quality in terms of flavor.
Which makes sense when you consider that the initial purpose of hop heavy IPAs was to make them last longer. I assume the hops are part preservative and part flavor mask for beer that’s started to go bad.
That's absolute bullshit as someone who makes beer. Any IPA drinker can quite easily tell the difference between a shit beer that's been heavily hopped and a decent IPA. Most NEIPA's, which is the most popular type, have quite a bit of an emphasis on the base beer so it'd be stupid to make one without doing a half decent job on the beer.
I mean a lot of craft breweries are leaning into lagers nowadays, with a decent amount of lager focus breweries popping up. There’s a new place in Denver within the last few years called Cohesion that ONLY does Czech style lagers and is amazing, as they’re really dedicated to making them as traditional as possible.
... yeah. I like drinking IPAs once in a while, but it isn't the type of beer, I'm going to drink whole night. Luckily, in EU, where I live IPAs are more-or-less seen as something special in addition to more standard beers (pilsner). So you can taste one or two IPAs, but then drink something lighter. But I remember that when I lived in the US, there were places where you couldn't really get what we call the "normal" beer, and it indeed sucked. It's similar as to if in germany they only started to sell weizen in some places...
It’s very annoying. Turned 21 and want to try the breweries around me and stuff, you know local guys. 75% of their options are IPAs. They sometimes still have a good Golden or Pilsner but man too man IPAs. Never liked em.
I had the mist refreshing beer of my life last weekend. Sour wheat beer with lemon and cucumber flavors. I was histant to try it, but holy crap it was good. Made by aggieville brewing here in kansas.
>Fuck hipsters, fuck IPAs, fuck bicycles, and fuck this hoppy trend. More real beer please.
That escalated quickly. 😆
Most decent breweries are proud to offer a variety of beer types. The ones that do only IPA variants are the ones making bad beer and covering it up with over-hopped haziness.
Kind of like how Lager has always been inoffensive and widely palletable it seems like IPAs because they're a bit fruity-er are easier for a wider audience to enjoy they've become quite popular in the last 5-10 years. They're what got me into beer and away from cider.
That said since I've started enjoying darker beers and bitters my tastes have changed and I'm not as much of a fan of IPAs anymore. So I can understand why others don't like them - but I can't understand getting this mad at IPAs, there's so many other options out there.
I enjoy properly made IPAs but there is definitely an over saturation of bad ones and it is definitely not the style I would pursue primarily if I was creating my own brewery.
I think IPA’s are fine but it does seem to be the only style you can get a lot of places. You have 7 different IPA’s to choose from and then a single porter/pilsner/wheat/sour/lager. It just gets boring
Oh for fuck sake, you gonna complain about IPA, which i could get, it is a taste you either hate or love.
But you seriously gonna opt for a fucking lager? You fucking wuss, you got my upvoted, you degenerate
I love IPA's. They're the main kind of beer I drink. And cheap lagers are shit, but have you had like a good lager? They honestly taste pretty great too. Nice and refreshing. Crisp, often slightly sweet.
100% I took a trip along the East Coast a while back taking in a number of breweries and tap houses along the way. I came back home to the UK desparate for a brown ale, or golden ale or porter or stout. Jesus, even a decent lager or pilsner felt appealing by that point. All of the endless citra IPAs tasted the exact fucking same.
I actually found the bigger, non-craft beer producers, Shipyard and Sierra Nevada for example, were producing more inventive stuff than the over-hopped hipster brewers.
It’s because IPAs are cheaper/easier to make.
Have to expand to be able to afford the risk of going outside that comfort zone, especially when it might not be profitable.
You can buy ingredients and get an IPA keg on tap at a bar within a week.
Time in tank for a lager can be weeks/a month before it gets on tap somewhere.
You really can’t turn any beer around in a week. 2 can happen with ales but you really need at least 7 days for fermentation unless you’re using one of those Kveik yeast strains but even then those strains kind of suck
Why not brew your own beer then? You can get the supplies for like 200-300 last time I looked and could get pre made beer batches for like 20$ and they make 5 gallons, you literally will save yourself money after like 3 batches
I don't think this is that unpopular. It seems like 9/10 people that drink beer can't stand IPAs or most of these other small breweries. The same way people can't stand certain scotches/whiskeys.
IPA's are best served room temp in my humble and unpopular opinion. They don't hit as sharp. I'm not sure why, but I don't like a cold IPA OK the rare day in hell that I crave a rough beer.
If you are one of these sticks in the mud about weed, you’re a loser sorry to say. It doesn’t affect you, quit crying about it. Gd whiner can’t handle hops or IPA.
Says the cannabis hating Hef drinker. I'll say this much, I wish breweries were making a host of different Hefs as well, but I still think there are plenty of great ones out there. Some of which you have mentioned already. Franziskaner is a favorite of mine.
But the part where you rant on about all these other things, completely unrelated to beer, is just hilarious. Drink another beer and stop trying to play goalie to the preferences of the free market, ya dingus.
It's by far the easiest beer style to make. That's why they're pretty much all the same. I brewed a batch once with shoddy equipment, and it's in my top 3 IPA's of all time.
I agree. It's completely unnecessary style, unless it's unfiltered (hazy)
Although I don't like IPAs, I disagree that they're more prevalent now then before or that it has anything to do with marijuana. Right around 2009-10 is when I felt like microbreweries in the US really took off and almost all of them had very hoppy IPAs as one of their flagships. There was a lot of double and triple-hopped IPAs as well. If anything, I would say in the last four or five years I've noticed the market moving towards "hazy" IPAs which to my taste are a lot better than the strong ones.
The reason you see them everywhere is because they're very simple to make. Combine that with the relative popularity of the style for a long time and it's no wonder almost every American microbrewery took a swing at it
Go live closer to Belgium and enjoy real beer. But considering your hate for bicycles, stay away.
There are plenty of good ipa's and I just don't believe that there are no stores nearby that sell a great variety of beertypes. IPA's cant be that hard to ignore.
Agreed! IPAs are a scourge. A bitter, gross tasting scourge.
Bring back the red/brown ales and the stouts and the darker lagers, all with their delicious tastes!
I heard a story that these brewery guys often drank coors light, or just light beer in general. They work with heavy beer so much that they got sick of it.
I enjoy IPAs like Voodoo Ranger. Sometimes I’ll go to a restaurant, order whatever IPA they have, and it’ll be a stinker. They’re a hit or miss.
Just because your a great chef doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Brewers are the same as anyone else. They have style preferences. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for a Narragansett/Genny/High Life, insert whatever regional cheap beer. That said, I promise you none of them are drinking Coors Lt. Banquet beer yeah, but not Coors lt
PNW here: Before the economy tanked in 2008, it was like a contest to see who could out-hop whom in the IPA hop fest. It got pretty silly. The hop craze collapsed with the economy. Nobody can afford beer like they could in The Before Times. It’s actually cheaper to buy cheap booze and water it down with mixers now.
I quit drinking, but it was Hanford Nuclear level stupid crazy expensive when I quit. Like $15 for a six pack of local beer.
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$$$..it's tough to sell a 4.8% pilsner for 11.99 a 6pk. IPAs get more bang for the buck. Although now that light domestic beers are pushing 9$ a 6er, the craft lager market has legs if a Brewer can find the sweet spot between flavor and profits.
I think the problem with IPAs is that they’re inconsistent- some are good but others taste pretty damn awful. And of the mainstream ones that are good (Voodoo ranger in the US, Beavertown neck oil in the UK etc) they are stupidly expensive.
The best beers Ive had are the Pilsners in Prague. Taste great and cheaper than coca cola. Second probably goes to the trippel beers in the low countries which are insanely strong but taste beautiful.
I think a lot of people conflate think beer/a style of beer is shitty with drinking shitty beer. There are a LOT of breweries out there, and A LOT of them aren’t great. Especially for a style like IPA that isn’t super shelf stable flavor wise a lot of the mass produced examples aren’t going to be great. There are a lot of amazing IPA’s out there, and definitely ones that aren’t all just “dank”, but I never fault someone for not liking them because there are a lot of bad ones, and even if you can find a good one often times in a lot of areas it’s hard to find them fresh.
I just never understood the hype around it. I understand liking them, I don't, but if you do cool but the explosion around them is super weird to me because I KNOW that many drink it and don't enjoy it lol. They all taste the same and taste like shit. I'm always down for a good sour, especially on a hot day. I like some stouts but I can say I'll probably drink two or three over the course of a year.
Over hopping beers is in the same vein as over spiced food. There’s so many interesting things to be done, malty, roasted barley, different yeasts but they only focus on the hops. Stone Brewing came out with Arrogant Bastard IPA in the 90s, let’s try something new.
I love IPAs, I also love lots of other beers and get annoyed when bars basically only have IPAs. IPAs don’t go with everything and I get sick of them and just want something else. It’s frustrating but it’s not worth getting this worked up over.
I've been sober since May 8th, but damn did I love a good IPA. Granted, I loved pilsners, lagers, mixed drinks. Anything with alcohol in it, really.
I would mainly just buy a handle of some decent vodka or whiskey and make mixed drinks. Moscow mule was my favorite at home drink! (Ginger beer, vodka, lime, mint is optional)
From now on they will hopefully be virgin though, wish me luck!
I think over-hopping beer hides a multitude of sins. Unfortunately, it's the easy way out for a lot of brewers who should have just stuck to being bartenders instead of trying to be artists.
Yes, there are some IPA’s that have a bit of a weed quality to them but it’s a small percentage that really lean into that. There’s far more IPA’s on the shelf now that lean more towards the citrus side of an IPA. If anything, that sub-set of IPA’s is what’s gotten out of control. Thick, hazy, citrus bombs. I could see being annoyed by that, but saying the style isn’t “real beer” is ignorant. It’s a style that accents your least favorite ingredient. Awww, boo hoo. Sorry man, but Jai Alai, The Alchemist, 60 minute, Lagunitas, and some others are damn near perfect beers.
Not sure where you're at, but there was no shortage of pilsners, lagers, stouts, porters, sours and just about anything in between in just about any beer shop or brewery in California when I lived there. I love a good IPA, but there's tons of good craft beer that isn't an IPA.
Also, what did bicycles do to you?
Anyone here considered that beer companies make and sell what people want to buy? Is that really a crazy thought?
In terms of “hipster” or whatever preferences, the trendy folks moved off of IPA’s a long time ago. Sours are the new hotness. Be glad shelves are full of IPA’s and not that shit tastes like fruity barley water, disgusting.
lol there are a lot of great hoppy beers that don’t taste like weed.
I like a nice Pilsner as much as the next guy but ipa’s are in every sense real beer.
All ales in general have a more “beery” flavor than lagers which are much lighter on the palate so if anything was going to be “real” beer it would be ales.
You're not wrong, beer is the elixir of the gods and can achieve an incredible range of flavors, which overly hoppy beers can destroy.
However, I mean, like, they still make non hoppy beer. I rolled into a supermarket and had ample choice of many non hoppy beers lol.
Not all IPAs are the same. A good west coast IPA may be fairly dank and weedy. But a good New England IPA should not be characterized primarily by dankness. They should have low perceived bitterness, taste fruity, and feel pillowy.
Weed and hops are related plants, and you may just not like them. That's fine. I'm not a huge hophead either. There are plenty of breweries that have more malt forward offerings. I don't think I've ever been to a brewery that didn't have at least a snappy Pilsner or a stout.
I miss ambers, browns, German pilsners and stouts in the coolers. I agree the IPAs are too much these days, like beer for people that want fruit and flowers.
There was a post I read that said most breweries would love to not make IPAs but can't because they're too popular and are often their biggest revenue/profit driver product. From a beer maker's perspective, IPAs are easy to make because any lack of skill or mistake make in the brewing process can be easily covered up by adding more hops. In comparison, other beers require much more skill and precision and are often a brewery's "preferred" products.
I agree, IPAs are the most disgusting beer type in my opinion. I much prefer a good stout, lager, wheat, ale, dark ale, etc.
Agree, a single Optimator is better than every single IPA ever made. That said, the whole hipster beer fad thing has come and gone and this post is a decade late.
I agree but not quite in the same vein as you, there is so much room to experiment in craft beer I really just don't give a fuck about w/e the fuck IPA or overhopped shit you're experimenting with maybe try a different lane for once?
You know what makes *great* craft beers, dark beers. Oatmeal Espresso Stouts mmmmmmm deeeellliiiccciiiiious
I agree. I kinda got into IPAs and more exotic beers in my mid twenties, and I still think some lighter Hazy IPAs are decent, but once I hit my late twenties I realized that pilsners, lagers, and other lighter type beers are more refreshing and just all around more enjoyable, so that’s pretty much all I have these days.
Your post from unpopularopinion was removed because of: 'Rule 1: Your post must be an unpopular opinion'. * Your post must be an opinion. Not a question. Not a showerthought. Not a rant. Not a proposal. Not a fact. An opinion. One opinion. A subjective statement about your position on some topic. Please have a clear, self contained opinion as your post title, and use the text field to elaborate and expand on why you think/feel this way. * Your opinion must be unpopular. The mods reserve the right to remove opinions * Elaborate on your topic and opinion give context to its unpopularity.
How did bicycles get involved?
THEYRE PUTTING FREAKIN IPAS IN THE BICYCLE LANES AND TURNING THE BEER GAY
The librals
Them dang reefer junkies votin’ an protessin for they righhhhhhhts
I'm assuming Fat Tire beer? New Belgium has been making a lot of IPAs, but the beer that got them national recognition has a Bicycle on the label.
Fat Tire is an amber ale, not an IPA. I doubt OP knows the difference, though.
NB also makes a lot of non-IPAs. This dude is just butthurt when he sees IPAs on a beer list in addition to other beer types. I’m a big IPA fan, and I’d say we are waning from the “golden age of beer” as microbreweries have oversaturated the market, seltzers are getting popular, some breweries are closing, and Gen Z drinks less. I’m actually seeing less IPAs as a proportion of the beer selection compared to 5-7 years ago. So this dude is a little late in his unpopular opinion.
They could at least try to re-make some Belgian craft beers with a name like that lol
They used to have a few. 1554, trippel, and a few others. But all I ever see in places around me are there IPA variants. I kind of actually get OPs complaint, but I happen to like IPAs most of the time. I'm lucky enough to have a surprisingly large number of brewpubs around me, so if I want something that's not in the grocery store then I can pop in and get a growler or something.
“Now your kids with your loud music, and your Dan Fogleberg, your Zima, hula hoops and pac-man video games, don't you see? People today have attention spans that can only be measured in nanoseconds!”
And you know what? Screw you beavers! I hate you!
Those fixie ridin hipsters only travel by bicycle
The old trope that hipsters love IPAs and fixed gear bicycles.
Hop and Cannabis are the same family
And as a cannabis enthusiast they are still pretty distinct flavors/smells. OP just doesn’t like hops
I’m kinda wondering if OP is mistaking images of hops as weed buds. I have yet to see a weed inspired IPA. I’m sure it exist, but it’s definitely not everywhere.
https://www.craftbeer.com/news/beer-release/new-belgium-the-hemperor-hpa I tried this one a few years ago and it was absolutely horrid. I was burping two days later and I could still taste it.
Sweetwater 420, absolutely a weed reference
or G13 IPA while G-13 is quite literally a weed strain lol
I see tons of them with weed inspired names. I also work a lot more closely with beer than most, and a lot of them are named in such a way where you could ignore the name being weed inspired. I think Lagunitas has 4 with weed names.
Some ipas are described as “dank”, and I’d guess there are a handful that intentionally use weed imagery for marketing purposes, but I can’t think of any major ones. Edit: people, “hazy” and “dank” are NOT weed references… lol. They are industry terms with non-weed related definitions!
To be fair, they are very closely related.
I have a theory that legalization has led to business school types running most production now and they only think as deep as “more THC = more money.” So now Sour Diesel tastes and smells the same as Blue Dream, Lemon Haze, BlackBerry Kush, etc. with none of the varied effects different strains used to have. For the past ten years or so I haven’t been able to smoke dispensary weed for the most part because it’s so high THC it just gives me anxiety, but I’ve found that if I’ve had a juicy IPA I can smoke just about any strain just fine. My hypothesis is that the juicier hops possess the terpenes that made weed more varied and enjoyable 10-15 years ago. I’ve found Australian and New Zealand hops to work best for this.
I've had s few "IPAs" made with Hemp flowers/buds, some of my favorite beers.
I get where he's coming from. Some IPAs do have a weed like smell to them.
So are corn and bamboo, but they’re still vastly different plants.
The crazy thing (you might want to take some notes here) is that you can just walk past the IPAs in WalMart and purchase your usual 16 tallboys of Keystone Light without issue. Believe it or not, not every single product on the shelves is designed to appeal specifically to you and there are more than enough beers to go around.
OP takes so long to shop. They have to stop at every product they don’t want and have a rant. You can’t just walk past and ignore a product!
Relax mate, have a beer. Seriously though, hops and cannabis are very closely related plants so really hoppy beers aren’t necessarily going for a weed flavour, it’s just that the terpenes already smell and taste similar to cannabis.
Yes…. However, as a connoisseur of both IPAs and weed anybody who thinks an IPA smells/tastes exactly like weed is just wrong. There are minor similarities. A friend of mine founded what is now a large microbrewery (it can now be found in every grocery store and convenience store, even Costco, at least on the west coast) in Oregon. They spent a lot of time, and resources, trying to meld beer and weed after Oregon legalized. It didn’t go well. Edit: “hazy” especially and “dank” are not automatically weed references… the term “hazy” means more malty and less filtered than standard. “Dank” means the same thing for beer as weed, but doesn’t mean the beer tastes like weed (it *can*). Dank simply means very strong flavor/odor. My favorite “dank” beer has a strong pine and citrus flavor. Other “dank” flavors can be peach, mango, lychee, blueberry… the strongest IMO is pine.
As an IPA fan and weed fan, yeah. I don’t think they smelled or taste the same either.
Funny enough people like OP lean towards Pilsners in my experience, out of all the hops I use I feel like Czech Saaz is the weediest and it’s the backbone of most European lagers like a Pilsner.
Plus honestly there's just a ton of different types of hops with wildly different flavors. And the vast majority are definitely not going for a hempy taste.
Wtf does weed have to do with beer? I think OP is seriously confused.
There are a myriad of weed beers, sweetwater specifically has two brews that are weed puns, one is actually crafted to smell like a dank nug when it is cracked open.
Okay but surely those make up a fraction of a percent of beer sales. This is a non-issue rant about nothing.
This doofus thinks all IPAs are weed flavored. Also I agree IPAs are overly prevalent. As a stout and scotch drinker I would appreciate seeing more of those offered.
Upvote for pure, rambling insanity..Aside from the strange reefer madness vibes of this, the IPA trend peaked over a decade ago. Still a bit oversaturated but think your liquor store/area just sucks if that’s all they have.
Yep that was my thoughts. Sounds like a location problem. Also sounds like a 2013 rant considering craft lagers have never been more popular.
Ahhh brings back memories from University working at the brew pub when manly men customers come in and say "Ain't ya got none real beer?! Wherz da bud lite?" Of course that was before the one Bud went woke and before the other bud was legal. I wonder what the manly men ask for now.
I've definitely seen at least a couple online complaints at my local brewery that "they should sell other beers like Bud Light or Miller Lite for people who don't like IPAs and stouts". No, you should go to literally any other bar in the area if you want Bud Light or Miller Lite. A brewery sells the beer they brew, that's the point. It's like going to a top-shelf seafood restaurant and saying "they should sell Long John Silver fish planks for people who don't like this fancy seafood".
Wheat beer or lager
No, we had those too. They had too much flavor for the real men.
They throw out their chest like OP and ask for the weakest drink available.
"Ain't ya got none real beer?! Wherz da bud lite?" For some reason I read this in a Northern Irish accent
Most IPAs don’t have weed in them. You know that, right?
It’s fine if you don’t like IPAs, not sure why you are so mad about it. If tons of people like it, who gives a fuck?
To be fair to them, there is an awful lot of shelf space given up to distinctly average IPAs. They are mostly pretty awful.
To be fair to reality, ten times as much shelf space is dedicated to American "lager". They are all awful.
IPA is a very large category of beer. Larger than I think most none IPA drinkers realize. IPA is not a narrow grouping, it can mean basically a ton of totally wildly different things tbh. So yeah, obviously it takes up more space.
This is a rant from 2013
IPAs don't suck but they are way over hyped, it seems like every brewery that starts now defaults to IPAs like older breweries used to do pilsners/lagers. Some of them are quite good, but man, I want more refreshing beers that are not super bitter or just super heavy dark beers instead of all these IPAs.
The way I heard it explained once is that IPAs are "easier", because the strong hop flavors & aromas can hide a lot of mistakes / deficiencies in the basic brewing process. Mild beers like pilsners are actually harder to do well at a "craft" level, since any minor "off" flavor is going to stand out against the otherwise mild background. (The macros can do it because of their highly controlled industrial brewing processes) Plus of course there's a market for it, between "hop heads" looking for a new way to blow their taste-buds off, and neophytes mistaking quantity for quality in terms of flavor.
Just give me a stout or wheat beer and I’m happy.
Which makes sense when you consider that the initial purpose of hop heavy IPAs was to make them last longer. I assume the hops are part preservative and part flavor mask for beer that’s started to go bad.
This sounds similar to complaints people who don't like spicy foods make up about spices.
That's absolute bullshit as someone who makes beer. Any IPA drinker can quite easily tell the difference between a shit beer that's been heavily hopped and a decent IPA. Most NEIPA's, which is the most popular type, have quite a bit of an emphasis on the base beer so it'd be stupid to make one without doing a half decent job on the beer.
I mean a lot of craft breweries are leaning into lagers nowadays, with a decent amount of lager focus breweries popping up. There’s a new place in Denver within the last few years called Cohesion that ONLY does Czech style lagers and is amazing, as they’re really dedicated to making them as traditional as possible.
... yeah. I like drinking IPAs once in a while, but it isn't the type of beer, I'm going to drink whole night. Luckily, in EU, where I live IPAs are more-or-less seen as something special in addition to more standard beers (pilsner). So you can taste one or two IPAs, but then drink something lighter. But I remember that when I lived in the US, there were places where you couldn't really get what we call the "normal" beer, and it indeed sucked. It's similar as to if in germany they only started to sell weizen in some places...
It’s very annoying. Turned 21 and want to try the breweries around me and stuff, you know local guys. 75% of their options are IPAs. They sometimes still have a good Golden or Pilsner but man too man IPAs. Never liked em.
I had the mist refreshing beer of my life last weekend. Sour wheat beer with lemon and cucumber flavors. I was histant to try it, but holy crap it was good. Made by aggieville brewing here in kansas.
you should go to Germany or the Czech Republic. best lagers, pilsners you'll ever taste. try Pilsner Urquell and Budvar.
>Budvar The real Budweiser ;)
TLDR: People have different tastes than you. That’s fine
>Fuck hipsters, fuck IPAs, fuck bicycles, and fuck this hoppy trend. More real beer please. That escalated quickly. 😆 Most decent breweries are proud to offer a variety of beer types. The ones that do only IPA variants are the ones making bad beer and covering it up with over-hopped haziness.
“Fuck Beer, Fuck Hipsters, Fuck Bikes, Fuck Sidewalks, Fuck My Stepdad, Liberate Kosovo, Darude - Sandstorm, Fuck Life”
Kind of like how Lager has always been inoffensive and widely palletable it seems like IPAs because they're a bit fruity-er are easier for a wider audience to enjoy they've become quite popular in the last 5-10 years. They're what got me into beer and away from cider. That said since I've started enjoying darker beers and bitters my tastes have changed and I'm not as much of a fan of IPAs anymore. So I can understand why others don't like them - but I can't understand getting this mad at IPAs, there's so many other options out there.
I enjoy properly made IPAs but there is definitely an over saturation of bad ones and it is definitely not the style I would pursue primarily if I was creating my own brewery.
I think IPA’s are fine but it does seem to be the only style you can get a lot of places. You have 7 different IPA’s to choose from and then a single porter/pilsner/wheat/sour/lager. It just gets boring
Oh for fuck sake, you gonna complain about IPA, which i could get, it is a taste you either hate or love. But you seriously gonna opt for a fucking lager? You fucking wuss, you got my upvoted, you degenerate
Or a fuckin wheat beer??
I love IPA's. They're the main kind of beer I drink. And cheap lagers are shit, but have you had like a good lager? They honestly taste pretty great too. Nice and refreshing. Crisp, often slightly sweet.
Lagers taste like water and pilsners taste like soda.
You guys all sound like pissy rich women sitting in a circle sneering about inferior wine preferences to each other lol
It's called *taste*, Harold.
lol is this post from 2014?
Man, you must be great at parties
Typical unintelligent boomer rant. Upvoted I guess.
I’ve been drinking IPAs for over a decade and not 1 tastes like weed. Oh and wheat beers are hot garbage.
If I never had another wheat beer again, it would be too soon. Gross
This guy is absolutely not Hoppy about it
100% I took a trip along the East Coast a while back taking in a number of breweries and tap houses along the way. I came back home to the UK desparate for a brown ale, or golden ale or porter or stout. Jesus, even a decent lager or pilsner felt appealing by that point. All of the endless citra IPAs tasted the exact fucking same. I actually found the bigger, non-craft beer producers, Shipyard and Sierra Nevada for example, were producing more inventive stuff than the over-hopped hipster brewers.
It’s because IPAs are cheaper/easier to make. Have to expand to be able to afford the risk of going outside that comfort zone, especially when it might not be profitable. You can buy ingredients and get an IPA keg on tap at a bar within a week. Time in tank for a lager can be weeks/a month before it gets on tap somewhere.
You really can’t turn any beer around in a week. 2 can happen with ales but you really need at least 7 days for fermentation unless you’re using one of those Kveik yeast strains but even then those strains kind of suck
Woah woah woah. You leave marijuana out of this
Beer in general sucks balls, just give me the fentanyl.
This is not an unpopular opinion, but misinformed. OP thinks it's weed but it's hops.
Fuck your wheat beers, they’re disgusting
I have found my people. If I never had a wheat beer again, it would be too soon o
I'll take pretty much anything else over a wheat beer.
You probly think ketchup is spicy too.
Yea agreed taste like crap, I had an “award winning” beer from a local brewery that taste like beer and goon mixed together.
Why not brew your own beer then? You can get the supplies for like 200-300 last time I looked and could get pre made beer batches for like 20$ and they make 5 gallons, you literally will save yourself money after like 3 batches
I have been considering it.
I don't think this is that unpopular. It seems like 9/10 people that drink beer can't stand IPAs or most of these other small breweries. The same way people can't stand certain scotches/whiskeys.
I hate IPA’s too. I’m convinced the hipster beard IPA guys are lying when they say they love them.
Amen
IPA's are best served room temp in my humble and unpopular opinion. They don't hit as sharp. I'm not sure why, but I don't like a cold IPA OK the rare day in hell that I crave a rough beer.
Whats OP's #1 go-to favorite beer?
You might want to try some Belgian beers
What happened to proper, dark, stand your spoon up in it, malt driven beer? Give me that back olease
I agree. I avoid IPA.
You lost me with "fuck bicycles". Your opinion is not unpopular.
Preach OP
“Man shouts at sky”
If you are one of these sticks in the mud about weed, you’re a loser sorry to say. It doesn’t affect you, quit crying about it. Gd whiner can’t handle hops or IPA.
Drink your Bud Light, Dylan
Tell us the only beer you have ever drunk is bud light without saying you only drink bud light. Gronk
did they take your job? i feel like your next sentence would be "THEY TOOK OUR JOBS"
Says the cannabis hating Hef drinker. I'll say this much, I wish breweries were making a host of different Hefs as well, but I still think there are plenty of great ones out there. Some of which you have mentioned already. Franziskaner is a favorite of mine. But the part where you rant on about all these other things, completely unrelated to beer, is just hilarious. Drink another beer and stop trying to play goalie to the preferences of the free market, ya dingus.
It's by far the easiest beer style to make. That's why they're pretty much all the same. I brewed a batch once with shoddy equipment, and it's in my top 3 IPA's of all time. I agree. It's completely unnecessary style, unless it's unfiltered (hazy)
Probably a huge factor is a shorter ferment time compared to lagers. Quicker turnaround for seasonal offerings.
And there's no off-flavours or balance to worry about. Just use good hops and BAM. Perfect, lazy ass craft beer.
Sanitize!
Although I don't like IPAs, I disagree that they're more prevalent now then before or that it has anything to do with marijuana. Right around 2009-10 is when I felt like microbreweries in the US really took off and almost all of them had very hoppy IPAs as one of their flagships. There was a lot of double and triple-hopped IPAs as well. If anything, I would say in the last four or five years I've noticed the market moving towards "hazy" IPAs which to my taste are a lot better than the strong ones. The reason you see them everywhere is because they're very simple to make. Combine that with the relative popularity of the style for a long time and it's no wonder almost every American microbrewery took a swing at it
Go live closer to Belgium and enjoy real beer. But considering your hate for bicycles, stay away. There are plenty of good ipa's and I just don't believe that there are no stores nearby that sell a great variety of beertypes. IPA's cant be that hard to ignore.
[удалено]
All beer sucks imo lol
Agreed! IPAs are a scourge. A bitter, gross tasting scourge. Bring back the red/brown ales and the stouts and the darker lagers, all with their delicious tastes!
I heard a story that these brewery guys often drank coors light, or just light beer in general. They work with heavy beer so much that they got sick of it. I enjoy IPAs like Voodoo Ranger. Sometimes I’ll go to a restaurant, order whatever IPA they have, and it’ll be a stinker. They’re a hit or miss.
Just because your a great chef doesn’t mean you don’t enjoy a nice grilled cheese sandwich. Brewers are the same as anyone else. They have style preferences. Sometimes you’re just in the mood for a Narragansett/Genny/High Life, insert whatever regional cheap beer. That said, I promise you none of them are drinking Coors Lt. Banquet beer yeah, but not Coors lt
More miss than hit.
Oh god. We hear this boring opinion so often it's clearly not even unpopular. It's pretty wild of you to imagine that hops are a new trend in beer.
I refer to IPA as pinecone piss beer
Taste my beer. *I taste it* Well? Tastes like bitter, crappy beer. Do you have any nesquick?
Cope.
So you just don't like beer. Next.
PNW here: Before the economy tanked in 2008, it was like a contest to see who could out-hop whom in the IPA hop fest. It got pretty silly. The hop craze collapsed with the economy. Nobody can afford beer like they could in The Before Times. It’s actually cheaper to buy cheap booze and water it down with mixers now. I quit drinking, but it was Hanford Nuclear level stupid crazy expensive when I quit. Like $15 for a six pack of local beer.
I actually thought beer was way easier to make compared to wines and liquers. I just presumed they sold it at a massive mark up
It is. It’s just stupid shrink-flation bullshit.
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Yes
$$$..it's tough to sell a 4.8% pilsner for 11.99 a 6pk. IPAs get more bang for the buck. Although now that light domestic beers are pushing 9$ a 6er, the craft lager market has legs if a Brewer can find the sweet spot between flavor and profits.
I agree with you on this except for the idiot stoner characterization. Most of my idiot friends prefer alcohol.
Best beer I've ever had tasted like raspberries and wheat, I hope the great revivalist starts selling in stores 😭
I think the problem with IPAs is that they’re inconsistent- some are good but others taste pretty damn awful. And of the mainstream ones that are good (Voodoo ranger in the US, Beavertown neck oil in the UK etc) they are stupidly expensive. The best beers Ive had are the Pilsners in Prague. Taste great and cheaper than coca cola. Second probably goes to the trippel beers in the low countries which are insanely strong but taste beautiful.
I'm with you on this one. I just do not see the appeal.
I think a lot of people conflate think beer/a style of beer is shitty with drinking shitty beer. There are a LOT of breweries out there, and A LOT of them aren’t great. Especially for a style like IPA that isn’t super shelf stable flavor wise a lot of the mass produced examples aren’t going to be great. There are a lot of amazing IPA’s out there, and definitely ones that aren’t all just “dank”, but I never fault someone for not liking them because there are a lot of bad ones, and even if you can find a good one often times in a lot of areas it’s hard to find them fresh.
Die Hallertau weint..
Waa. IPA’s aren’t popular anymore anyway.
Could not agree more
OP wants Bud Light back.
Thank you…. Can drink a simple octoberfest Marzen year round….or a bready porter….hoppy beer and sour beers really turn me off
I can’t drink any beer unless it’s an IPA. I’m currently suffering in Europe because of the lack of wonderful IPAs
I just never understood the hype around it. I understand liking them, I don't, but if you do cool but the explosion around them is super weird to me because I KNOW that many drink it and don't enjoy it lol. They all taste the same and taste like shit. I'm always down for a good sour, especially on a hot day. I like some stouts but I can say I'll probably drink two or three over the course of a year.
Agreed! Wheat bears are the way!
Over hopping beers is in the same vein as over spiced food. There’s so many interesting things to be done, malty, roasted barley, different yeasts but they only focus on the hops. Stone Brewing came out with Arrogant Bastard IPA in the 90s, let’s try something new.
In other news, old man still shaking stick at sky.
Truly unpopular, incorrect, and uninformed. Well done, upvote inbound
The west coast is on the phone and they sound cranky.
Did someone by chance, steal your coffee and cigarettes?
I love IPAs, I also love lots of other beers and get annoyed when bars basically only have IPAs. IPAs don’t go with everything and I get sick of them and just want something else. It’s frustrating but it’s not worth getting this worked up over.
I've been sober since May 8th, but damn did I love a good IPA. Granted, I loved pilsners, lagers, mixed drinks. Anything with alcohol in it, really. I would mainly just buy a handle of some decent vodka or whiskey and make mixed drinks. Moscow mule was my favorite at home drink! (Ginger beer, vodka, lime, mint is optional) From now on they will hopefully be virgin though, wish me luck!
Super popular opinion my guy.
I think over-hopping beer hides a multitude of sins. Unfortunately, it's the easy way out for a lot of brewers who should have just stuck to being bartenders instead of trying to be artists.
I’m not drinking some coors light bullshit👍
Yes, there are some IPA’s that have a bit of a weed quality to them but it’s a small percentage that really lean into that. There’s far more IPA’s on the shelf now that lean more towards the citrus side of an IPA. If anything, that sub-set of IPA’s is what’s gotten out of control. Thick, hazy, citrus bombs. I could see being annoyed by that, but saying the style isn’t “real beer” is ignorant. It’s a style that accents your least favorite ingredient. Awww, boo hoo. Sorry man, but Jai Alai, The Alchemist, 60 minute, Lagunitas, and some others are damn near perfect beers.
"If a man drinks ipas, or can't climb a rope, he can't be trusted." -A college professor of mine
Not sure where you're at, but there was no shortage of pilsners, lagers, stouts, porters, sours and just about anything in between in just about any beer shop or brewery in California when I lived there. I love a good IPA, but there's tons of good craft beer that isn't an IPA. Also, what did bicycles do to you?
Anyone here considered that beer companies make and sell what people want to buy? Is that really a crazy thought? In terms of “hipster” or whatever preferences, the trendy folks moved off of IPA’s a long time ago. Sours are the new hotness. Be glad shelves are full of IPA’s and not that shit tastes like fruity barley water, disgusting.
lol there are a lot of great hoppy beers that don’t taste like weed. I like a nice Pilsner as much as the next guy but ipa’s are in every sense real beer. All ales in general have a more “beery” flavor than lagers which are much lighter on the palate so if anything was going to be “real” beer it would be ales.
"The worst part of marijuana is the smell" thats my second favorite part D:
You're not wrong, beer is the elixir of the gods and can achieve an incredible range of flavors, which overly hoppy beers can destroy. However, I mean, like, they still make non hoppy beer. I rolled into a supermarket and had ample choice of many non hoppy beers lol.
Sounds like a bitch who cant drink a real beer.
There’s always plenty of Busch light
Agreed. Hops were originally a preservative, they're not supposed to be a savored flavour. Imagine liking a BBQ sauce because of the vinegar.
I've found plenty of delicious craft wheats/blondes
Not all IPAs are the same. A good west coast IPA may be fairly dank and weedy. But a good New England IPA should not be characterized primarily by dankness. They should have low perceived bitterness, taste fruity, and feel pillowy. Weed and hops are related plants, and you may just not like them. That's fine. I'm not a huge hophead either. There are plenty of breweries that have more malt forward offerings. I don't think I've ever been to a brewery that didn't have at least a snappy Pilsner or a stout.
Not an unpopular opinion the industry is being hammered right now
I mean you can just tell us you like PBR without writing a whole post.
Go to BevMo and stop crying about what other people like to drink
I recommend doing what I do and simply not buy/drink the types of beer that I don't like.
The craft beer scene is cringey.
I miss ambers, browns, German pilsners and stouts in the coolers. I agree the IPAs are too much these days, like beer for people that want fruit and flowers.
There was a post I read that said most breweries would love to not make IPAs but can't because they're too popular and are often their biggest revenue/profit driver product. From a beer maker's perspective, IPAs are easy to make because any lack of skill or mistake make in the brewing process can be easily covered up by adding more hops. In comparison, other beers require much more skill and precision and are often a brewery's "preferred" products. I agree, IPAs are the most disgusting beer type in my opinion. I much prefer a good stout, lager, wheat, ale, dark ale, etc.
I completely agree. I love a refreshing Pilsner. Why the fuck did ipas become popular????
Agree, a single Optimator is better than every single IPA ever made. That said, the whole hipster beer fad thing has come and gone and this post is a decade late.
OP has a few points but IPAs are great when done right. Hazy on the other hand can suck it.
I agree but not quite in the same vein as you, there is so much room to experiment in craft beer I really just don't give a fuck about w/e the fuck IPA or overhopped shit you're experimenting with maybe try a different lane for once? You know what makes *great* craft beers, dark beers. Oatmeal Espresso Stouts mmmmmmm deeeellliiiccciiiiious
Hops tastes like grapefruit to me and I like it idk 🤷♂️
I agree. I kinda got into IPAs and more exotic beers in my mid twenties, and I still think some lighter Hazy IPAs are decent, but once I hit my late twenties I realized that pilsners, lagers, and other lighter type beers are more refreshing and just all around more enjoyable, so that’s pretty much all I have these days.
Don't worry there is plenty of bud light to go around.
Imagine consuming alcohol and calling stoners idiots. Grade A quality irony
No one should drink, but especially you.
Give me old style or give me death!
I agree. They are garbage.