Monday Rant: It Gives You Focus

Hops. More Hops. Hop oil. Resin. Grapefruit. Sometime maybe even some orange. All are key characteristics of American IPA's that I've noticed over the three to four years that I've been indulging in the craft beer scene. Characteristics that many of you out there find appetizing and inviting. I've grown to find them overly intense, drab and boring. The race to see which brewer puts the most hops into its IPA's has not entertained me much and you're not wrong for being excited about it. It's just not my thing. It's kind of reminiscent of the multiple times the Major League Baseball home run records have been shattered since my adolescence.

Twitter has always been ablaze with the popularity of session IPA's. I've taken special notice to it with the addition of Founders All Day IPA to the craft beer spectrum (was it some time last year?). I decided to have an All Day IPA as my dinner cap on Saturday and someone almost had to mop up the puddle of drool that I left on the bar.

It was fruity and had layers of flavor other than the ones I mentioned above. It didn't appear as if it was saturated with hop oil. It was somewhere within the spectrum of being both transparent and opaque. A lovely color, too. Why don't we brew more of these session IPA's? They go down easy. The flavors seem to be more focused. You probably won't taste remnants of these brews in the ones you decide to try afterwards. The beers have a mild and bitter bite on the back, but the point is that 85 percent of the drinking experience with one of these isn't entirely on the hops. I don't think that any beer should have the main focus of the hops that are in it, but all of the ingredients that go into the brewing process. Remember that beer is quite subjective!

Then again, this is probably why I'm not a brewer somewhere in the middle portions of Pennsylvania. Still, I think it's a good thing that we are experimenting with the session brews here in the states. So many beers have hit the market that have too high ABV's and are just too complicated in the least. Whatever happened to the simple beers?

Speaking of simple, yet stunning brews...