The Bar Towel

So what is your guilty pleasure?

Are you a hop head? One in search of the puckering piney, cirtic bitterness? Do you seek beers with the highest IBU?

Or do you prefer the malty sweetness of a beer? Do you like the caramel, the bread or sweet fruitiness?


I am a confessed Hp Head, though I know that malt gives us the colour, the head retention, the structure and most of the flavour of a beer. I just love the hoppy beers though.


*edit note- my complete ignorance to the study of beer has left me comparing mats to heads when it should be teeth

for me it depends on style. i find some highly rated barley wines and imperial stouts are over hopped. i also really enjoy well made malt forward lagers.

but when i feel like hops all i want is hops.

id say i have malt teeth in a hop head

Malt, uh, Tooth. I've been wondering whether I am a hop head and just don't know it lately and that has led me to try alot of American hoppy beers lately. I find that the only ones I really enjoy are those with noticeable malt flavours. Favourite thus far, for that reason, is Green Flash IIPA. It has a real honey/caramel base and some wonderful bittering hops, with surprisingly little citrus flavours. So yeah, I think I'm firmly in the malt camp.

Malt-tooth. I have a difficult time with bitter foods and liquids. I can't understand how many people find many vegetables to be sweet.

As examples, beers like Deuchars IPA are okay as a single beer part of a four or five beer session of other beers. Rogue Brutal Bitter however is awful for me.

I would label myself a hop addict actually. I cannot get enough. I'm forever trying to find my next fix. Dogfish head 60 minute, ST IPA, Rogue Brutal Bitter, whatever I can get at the LCBO. When I had more disposable income I was making monthly trips to Premier just to load up on the good stuff.

I would even homebrew if the smell of anything remotely beer like didn't make my fiancee gag. Can you believe she refuses to even sample my homemade beer bred?! I keep warning her that when we move into our first house hops are being grown in the backyard and the garage is going to be converted into a brewery.

Damn this economy and my lack of employment.
If anyone has any pull I'd be willing to work "volunteer" in order to get some practical work experience.

Definitely a hop-head. Big, juicy, fresh resinous hops just can't be beat in my books. However, if a beer is simply a one-trick pony and is a totally unbalanced hop-bomb with no malty counter balance, I usually get saddened by what could have been.

The third category is Balance Beasts. Those who crave OUTRAGEOUS amounts of balance. It's like extreme moderatism.

Definitely a hop-head. Pretty much all I buy now are IPAs or the hoppy pale ales like Tankhouse and GRB Ploughmans.

Hophead.. but as JesseM stated, it's nothing without some semblance of balance. The more hops that are present the more malt that's required to balance it out. Add in some fruity yeasts and I'm in flavour country.

As an example I just had a Stone Ruination.. it's definitely on the hoppy side, but I think has a decent amount of malts to back it up. Dangerously good.

Really starting to be a hophead

I like hops, but like JesseM said, balance is important. That is why Grand River Plowmans is my favorite beer. Rich malty backbone, but a lot of hop bitterness in the finish. Excellent!

Definitely malt...not a hop head at all. Give me a nice dark ale, porter or impy stout anytime.

Hop junkie. Stone ruination is the tops for me right now. Beers just don't do it for me without a blast of hop aroma that singe my nose hairs.

BALANCE!

...but if not possible, give me more hop than sweet.

Looks like hop heads are in the lead................