Citrus isn’t the only fruit…
Today is #IPADay – a hash-tag friendly Twitter campaign to pull people into drinking decent beer, and away from macrolager, Pimms, battery acid, water etc etc. Educating the masses is one of the great goals of the American craft beer industry, fighting through a tide of Bud Light. Similarly, over here the real ale brewers and niche micros apiece are keen to get as many people sampling their wares as possible, obviously. And more power to them – we were all lager drinkers once, after all.
The Champion that the beer-people have chosen, striding forward to face these mass ranks of gassy pop, is the India Pale Ale. You can see why – tempt the ignorant, or curious but uncertain, with a characteristic flowery, hoppy fruit cocktail of a beer. There’s more taste in 5ml of a decent 6% IPA than 330ml of whichever ice-cold refreshing lager you can shake a spigot at. Whisper it, but this even holds for your base British-style IPA’s (i.e. session-strength bitters).
Many people’s gateway beers are these slightly more unusual – but still commonplace – beers, like your Deuchars IPA here, or your Sierra Nevada Pale Ale there. Not much in common between them, of course – and at least one isn’t even an IPA – but both are moving in the right direction for those in the know. So the idea of a day to promote a decent alternative is a great idea, and the use of social media even more so. India Pale Ale is the obvious candidate – so why does #IPADay sit uneasily with me?
I think it’s just that, to me, IPA’s now seem ubiquitous. Being a self-confessed hop head, the majority of my favourite beers of all time fit into that style bracket. The top beers of our BeerCast rankings are universally pale and hoppy. Searching out so many new brewers, from the UK and beyond, reveals many, many IPA’s. Don’t get me wrong – I love them – but maybe I’ve reached the other side of the bell-curve. Citrus. Check. Pine. Check. Flowery notes. Check. Bitter finish. Check.
Has IPA reached market saturation? Maybe I should switch to malty brown ales – after all, the seasons are about to change. I really hope #IPADay is a roaring success, and will be followed by other #insertstylehereDays. It’s just, there are so many of them, and so much other beer out there. Make it your gateway, please, just come through to the other side and realise that there is more on this side than beer geeks and acronyms…
*Disclamier I’ll still be drinking everything the Kernel Brewery makes, however…
4 Comments
Phil
August 4, 2011I know exactly where you are coming from, I love IPA but I have to confess to hitting them a little too often in recent months.
Personally I think there are still lots of ways that IPA’s can continue on, black for example as there are some cracking beers that still have the hops but a different flavour backbone so to speak.
That said I have found myself reaching for some good old Belgian Quads, Trappist etc of late as a welcome change.
Cheers #IPADAY
Richard
August 5, 2011Full disclosure – I’ve just returned from York where I stopped off at a bottle shop on the way to the station, and picked up…a couple of IPA’s. It’s a hard habit to break, but I’ll just call myself a hypocrite and be done with it!
Maybe next time out should be #BelgianDay?
Stephen
August 15, 2011Hear! hear! Why do so many beers (not just IPAs) have citrus flavours nowadays? It’s beginning to seem as if half the output of all micro breweries have citrus notes.
When I was learning to love beer (rather a long time ago), no beer tasted of citrus fruits. IPAs and pale ales certainly didn’t. They tasted of malt and hops.
I’ve always been a fan of pale, hoppy beers (Marston’s BBB of long ago was a favourite). But I’m actually rather fed up with drinking grapefruit juice passed off as beer.
Fuller’s Bengal Lancer has been enjoying much favourable comment, but one and all seem to agree that it tastes like marmalade.
Not that the blind obedience to CAMRA’s bottle-conditioning dogma helps, producing as it does a very effervescent mouth-feel not remotely like draught beer, as CAMRA seems to think.
Please, can someone recommend a canned or bottled beer (I don’t mind if it’s pasteurised and artificially carbonated, as long as only lightly) that tastes and feels anything like a decent draught bitter in a pub. An ABV of about 3.8% would be a bonus.
If anyone mentions Greene King IPA, I shall seek them out and it will not be pretty.
Richard
August 16, 2011Great comment Stephen – I would recommend our Best New Bottled Beer of 2010 – abv 3.8% – but it happens to be the grapefruity wonder that is Fyne Ales Jarl. Bottles from up here that taste like draught pub bitter – I’d go with Arran Ale, Fyne Maverick or Orkney Raven Ale…