[majorvices]

There's a lot of great IPA's out there, and the best ones are fresh out of the tap. 

There are so many milkshake IPA's in the Mid-Atlantic.  Some of these breweries are all of the rave.  I won't mention any brewery names, but there is an amazing amount of attraction to these haze bombs.  Just look on Untappd and you're head will spin.  I've had a few that were decent, but I'm thinking that this will all just pass, and they'll all come back around. Dunno...

I love a good fruit smoothie, but a beer smoothie....well I'm still on the fence with that. 

As Denny said, drink what you like...when you like, and as often as you like.  I certainly won't hold anything against you. 

Who is this guy???

[bluesman]

There's a lot of great IPA's out there, and the best ones are fresh out of the tap. 

There are so many milkshake IPA's in the Mid-Atlantic.  Some of these breweries are all of the rave.  I won't mention any brewery names, but there is an amazing amount of attraction to these haze bombs.  Just look on Untappd and you're head will spin.  I've had a few that were decent, but I'm thinking that this will all just pass, and they'll all come back around. Dunno...

I love a good fruit smoothie, but a beer smoothie....well I'm still on the fence with that. 

As Denny said, drink what you like...when you like, and as often as you like.  I certainly won't hold anything against you. 

Who is this guy???

Yours truly baby!!! 

[mabrungard]

Ron, you crack me up. By the way, your comment on freshness is very salient in IPA. I was introducing a pair of brewers at HomebrewCon last year that were speaking on oxidation and I also judged IPAs in the final round of the NHC. They asked me to look for signs of oxidation in the beers I judged (I saw them the night before the NHC judging).

Since they alerted me to this oxidation issue, I paid special attention to it and asked all the judges at the tables to look for it too. It was not a surprise when the winning IPAs displayed virtually no oxidation and their hop character and intensity was prominent. Plenty of the other IPAs were dull and lifeless and I'm sure that they hadn't made it to the second round by tasting like that. It seemed pretty apparent to me that the IPAs that won had been recently rebrewed and the other beers had not.

This was just a sign post to me that said that IPAs HAVE to be very fresh to be truly magnificent.

[majorvices]

This was just a sign post to me that said that IPAs HAVE to be very fresh to be truly magnificent.

Absolutely! And those hazy IPAs have the worst shelf life.

[hopfenundmalz]

I'll also say that I had a two hearted recently and thought "Wow, this is malty."  So it a) either wasn't very fresh, or b) my tastes have moved towards less (or no) crystal malt in an IPA.  Either way, I don't see how a typical NEIPA would taste sweet, except for the ones that go for the extreme "no bitterness" end of the spectrum due to the balance.  But still, I'd think they finish at a lower gravity than the old school American IPAs like Two Hearted.

A friend sent me a Two Heated maybe 15+ years ago.  At that time, I thought "what's all the hype about?".  Just didn't seem all that hoppy.  I had the same reaction to Hop Devil (as did my wife) and Hop Slam.

Agreed there are hoppier IPAs than Two Hearted. Hopslam always seems to have a lot of variation, sometimes it is not hoppy, other times it has hops in abundance.

[majorvices]

At one point in time 2-hearted came in to our market so cheap we could have bought kegs of it, transferred it to our kegs and sold it, and it would have been cheaper than making our IPA. Maybe there's a little hyperbole going on in this sentiment .... but not much.

[klickitat jim]

At one point in time 2-hearted came in to our market so cheap we could have bought kegs of it, transferred it to our kegs and sold it, and it would have been cheaper than making our IPA. Maybe there's a little hyperbole going on in this sentiment .... but not much.

Could have? Come on... you did it, come on...

[Thirsty_Monk]

At one point in time 2-hearted came in to our market so cheap we could have bought kegs of it, transferred it to our kegs and sold it, and it would have been cheaper than making our IPA. Maybe there's a little hyperbole going on in this sentiment .... but not much.

Now that is a good idea how to make more beer

[klickitat jim]

At one point in time 2-hearted came in to our market so cheap we could have bought kegs of it, transferred it to our kegs and sold it, and it would have been cheaper than making our IPA. Maybe there's a little hyperbole going on in this sentiment .... but not much.

Now that is a good idea how to make more beer

I'll pay $5 for a photo of Leos dumping 2 hearted kegs into a boil kettle

[Visor]

   I still love IPA's, not quite as much as a few years ago.
   I have, unfortunately stopped brewing them  until I can get the flavor loss issue figured out. The last IPA I brewed was undoubtedly the best I'd ever made, that is, it was the tastiest ever when I bottled it, and even 4 days after bottling before it really a bottle conditioned. A week later when it finally was more or less ready to drink, it already had lost 80% - 90% of it's hop flavor and aroma. Massive bummer, $15 or $20 of late/dry hops totally wasted, and worse yet 2 1/2 cases of nectar of the gods turned into justanotheripa. To add insult to injury, 2 months later, it all succumbed to the virus I've been fighting and in a matter of 1 or 2 days went from normally carbonated ale to mega-gushers. I guess I have a couple problems to figure out.

[Ale Farmer]

It's not just IPAs that are turning cloudy: I had a cloudy APA yesterday from a new brewery here in Western Massachusetts that offered 3 or 4 kinds of NEIPAs. It was my first time trying an NEIPA--didn't like how citrusy and sweet it was, but the cloudy APA was much better: not sweet, with a Chinook-like bite. Makes me think it isn't so much the appearance as the particular hop choices that are key. 

[BananaSlug]

I know I'm just a FNG around here, and not even a brewer yet, so take it for what it's worth. Some of the early microbrew IPA's were, and still are, quite good, even great, beers and they became very popular and rightfully so. But the damn bandwagon effect has had everyone and their brother making IPA's, some breweries even have multiple offerings. To my palate, many of them are just mediocre to average beers that are bittered down and hopped up in an attempt to disguise the lack of quality. And don't get me started on the specialty IPA's. I really have no desire to sample your seasonal Mango Kelp Dog Doo Triple double "IPA", LOL.

[Phil_M]

I know I'm just a FNG around here, and not even a brewer yet, so take it for what it's worth. Some of the early microbrew IPA's were, and still are, quite good, even great, beers and they became very popular and rightfully so. But the damn bandwagon effect has had everyone and their brother making IPA's, some breweries even have multiple offerings. To my palate, many of them are just mediocre to average beers that are bittered down and hopped up in an attempt to disguise the lack of quality. And don't get me started on the specialty IPA's. I really have no desire to sample your seasonal Mango Kelp Dog Doo Triple double "IPA", LOL.

^^^ Well said.

The local brewpub's "default" IPA is excellent, still a go-to even though it's not my favorite style. It's always available, and sometimes they'll brew other IPAs and serve them alongside. However, when 4 out of the 8 beers they offer are IPAs that are (to me) less good than their default...and the rest are rather poorly made lagers...well I don't go there that often anymore.

[chumley]

I like IPAs a lot, and order them frequently, but I really dislike the ones with the dank flavor.  That said...

In 1987 I had my first Pilsner Urquell, and it instantly became my favorite beer.  31 years later, it still is.

[Wort-H.O.G.]

Welcome to the world. Today’s fad is yesterday’s old news.....today’s old news is yesterday’s fad.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk