Greetings to the forum...
I'm trying to understand the path that American beer culture has taken since I started homebrewing back in the mid 90s. At that time, Pale Ales and IPAs were popular beers but since then there has been a steady rise in the production of beers that pack more and more hops into the brew.
When I look at Beer Advocate's Top 250 Beers list, the top 10 are all high gravity high hop beers. Five of them are Pale Ale / IPA and the other five are American Double / Imperial Stouts. Similar top beer lists found on the web have similar listings for their top beers.
It appears that high hops and high gravity beers are the overall favorites. What has happened to the session beers and malt goodness that comes with a lot of those? What has happened to the beers that have a nice balance of malt and hop character? I don't dislike these beers but they are not on top of my favorites list. I have struggled to find beers that are considered HOPPY that have a good malt backbone but I have found a few that I really like. Maybe it's just my personal taste, but I'm not a fan of a beer that is all about the hop or the alcohol content. When I feel the desire for the soothing properties of alcohol, it's really tough to beat a glass of single malt scotch on ice.
Is anyone making a pure hop extract yet so we can just skip the beer?