The Bar Towel

seangm wrote:
I'm not so sure about that, at least lately. I try to keep up with new releases daily and I find the lagers and easy drinking stuff is getting snapped up pretty quickly. For instance it wasn't until the second round of Left Field's Ice Cold Beer that I managed to get any, same goes for releases like Blood Light from Blood Brothers, or Beyond the Pale's Clean Cut.

Fascinating. I didn’t know that was a thing, at all.. neat

there are still a bunch who drink stuff like Carling and just don't care to try anything aside from what they've always drank.

Ah yes, my own brother is one of them (Sleemans Clear and Coors Banquet )

They usually have lots of “dude how do you drink that stuff!” Comments too

Belgian wrote:

duckdown wrote:Pastry stouts are disgusting, and I don’t know anyone who drinks them

I think they’re interesting to people like me because we’ve been drinking lagers and Pilsner for decades now, and are chasing loud flavours and noses

That's an interesting description. A lot of the"New World" wines are also very loud, giving you all this berry and spice box upfront at the expense of complexity and development over several minutes... its all about 'size' and immediacy of impact even at the expense of identity of the wine grapes. Boring too.

I couldn't resist the comparison, because obviously there's a market for that. But it's far from a completely dominant market, and as in the case of wine you will always have beer people looking for the authentic and characterful.

You neglected to post this in ALL CAPS!!!!

The one thing that attracts me to the NE or hazy IPA category is the increased emphasis on hop aroma. I love a good bouquet of new world or surprising hops. The push towards big hop budgets late in hopping (whirlpool or dry), is an attraction to me. I still love bitterness, but the added dimension of the hops without coaxing out their vegetal notes appeals to me. Of course, late hopping can be used with all sorts of styles, so this does not need to be exclusive to NE IPAs.

I'll accept that all of this late hopping can contribute to haze and I'm ok with it. I'm even ok with using oats in the malt to add some interesting mouthfeel, but the rest of this deliberate effort to make something other than what I consider beer (old man yells at clouds), I'm definitely disappointed in.

Lactose in a milk stout. well, yeah, ok it's a thing, but nah, not for me. Lactose in an IPA. Just stop. Deliberately adding unfermentable sugar is.. WTF is that?

At the risk of pissing everyone off (remember: old man yells at clouds), here are my pet trendy peeves.

-The aforementioned abuse of lactose additions
-Spoiled beer, sorry I mean "sour" beer.
-Vanilla, bacon, coconut, herrings, marzipan, cheese, etc Shit that should not be ruining beer.

Tapsucker wrote:At the risk of pissing everyone off (remember: old man yells at clouds), here are my pet trendy peeves.
-The aforementioned abuse of lactose additions
-Spoiled beer, sorry I mean "sour" beer.
-Vanilla, bacon, coconut, herrings, marzipan, cheese, etc Shit that should not be ruining beer.

I must also be old ... and yelling at clouds most of the time ... but I agree, especially about the spoiled beer, LOL
(I don't mind the coconut, used sparingly)

Craig wrote:Oh, on the sweetness note. I think it's a good point that this does make for relatively accessible beer, that might appeal to many who are used to mixers, wine, coolers, ciders, etc.

This can't be understated, and consequently the stuff flies off shelves. Anecdotally, I remember trying to introduce people to craft with fresh batches of Karma Citra or Witchshark (in the pre-haze era) and getting a lot of, "How can you drink this stuff!" These days I'm seeing people who normally hate beer gulp down these sweet hazy and fruity/sour brews.

I keep waiting for GLB or Bellwoods to dust off some of their original West Coast recipes, but my guess is they wouldn't be nearly as popular or profitable. I like both styles, but I will usually just grab a single of haze vs. multiples for fresh West Coast IPA.

I think I've come full circle. Here's me comparing Headstock to hazy Monogamy Mosaic in 2018:

beerstodiscover wrote: I think the hazy IPAs just hold/display hops better, hands down. This Headstock is fresh and I like the hop profile, but it doesn't scratch my hop itch like it used to. I find with the older West Coast IPAs, the first few sips are underwhelming, but they build up flavour intensity as you get to the bottom of a pint (or two) and can still satisfy. Conversely, the NE style, when done right, delivers the hop fix straight away.

GLB are still making most of their West coast IPAs. Well, I guess octopus isn't really West coast in hops profile maybe, but it's not a haze bomb. Canuck straddles the line between pale ale and IPA, both are available year round. Karma Citra was on the shelves in the fall, I think they're all still being done in rotation.

I think the "trends" part of all this is where the issue is. Hazy IPAs, pastry stouts etc. all have examples where there is an early beer in that style that was amazing. Then everyone started doing them including a lot of brewers that are less skilled or don't have that style down.

I actively avoid anything with lactose in it now because less than 10% of them make me happy I got them. (This is especially true now that I have to order them as 4+ cans from a brewery vs a small taster at a bar.) The vast majority are "Well that would have been better without the lactose / vanilla etc." The pastry stouts are similar in that some of them are great, but the ones that miss the balance are usually pretty awful.

I love hazy IPAs but I have had a lot of them that taste like sucking on hop pellets. So many times I love the first couple sips of fruity intensity and then can barely finish the glass of green veg. I find this with a lot of "hop series" beers where sometimes it seems like breweries are just using up hops that aren't suited for the beer.

With fruit sours I find Bellwoods is a good example - Jelly King is consistently great but with the other fruit beers its 50-50 whether the addition of lactose or vanilla will add to it or ruin it, at least for me. For a lot of other breweries their "quick sours" are not very consistent unfortunately.

Craig wrote:GLB are still making most of their West coast IPA.

Good point, I guess I was thinking specifically of Thrust! which I recall very fondly. I do also like the recent hazy iteration.

Jelly King in particular is a great beer, but I've never had one where I thought the fruit addition improved it. Every variant I've tried has been too sweet to my tastes, compared to the base beer.

Craig wrote:Jelly King in particular is a great beer, but I've never had one where I thought the fruit addition improved it. Every variant I've tried has been too sweet to my tastes, compared to the base beer.

I sort of differ, especially if the fruit is somewhat tart eg. apricot and peach. Pale tropical fruit variants. At least they were far from offputtng.

As far as coconut and vanilla, the funny thing is I get caramelly popcorn, coconut and vanilla from some bourbon barrel aged beers. Vanillin is a compound extracted from oak wood. But Skeleton Key is fine enough with no toasted coconut,

Really, Jelly Kings being too sweet?! Damn. Literally don't think I've ever said that

I tip my hat to you gents

beerstodiscover wrote:I think I've come full circle. Here's me comparing Headstock to hazy Monogamy Mosaic in 2018:

beerstodiscover wrote: I think the hazy IPAs just hold/display hops better, hands down. This Headstock is fresh and I like the hop profile, but it doesn't scratch my hop itch like it used to. I find with the older West Coast IPAs, the first few sips are underwhelming, but they build up flavour intensity as you get to the bottom of a pint (or two) and can still satisfy. Conversely, the NE style, when done right, delivers the hop fix straight away.

Exactly why I still love WC IPAs, and why I even like *gasp* English IPAs and Pales: “they build up flavour intensity as you get to the bottom of your pint”. I think Lone Pine is still the best WC option at the LCBO nowadays.

And like others I like Hazy IPAs as well, but prefer them with a hint of bitterness over sweetness. I find double hazy IPAs too much for me though.

MatttthewGeorge wrote:Lone Pine

This has always been one of my favourites.

Rorschach makes excellent, and generally very dry fruited sours, although they're a bit on the 'spensive side. Personally, I like a bit of sweetness in my sours, as long as it's balanced, and I think Bellwoods generally does a good job of it.

duckdown wrote:Really, Jelly Kings being too sweet?! Damn. Literally don't think I've ever said that

I tip my hat to you gents

The next time you're going to have a black currant or whatever jelly King, have a regular one with it and compare. I think you'll see what I mean.