Monday, September 18, 2017
The Fruited IPA: Can We Just Kill This Trend?
Debate continues to rage after some two years on whether the New England IPA, a hazier take on the style with more citrus and tropical fruit overtones and less bitter bite, is inspired flavor or just laziness. But whether you like this slight variation on America's favorite craft-beer style or not, this discussion serves only to distract from a far more virulent strain of experimentation infecting the IPA.
For two summers, craft beerdom has been inundated with India pale ales inexplicably brewed with additives of fruit that sometimes are subtle and sometimes are really not. And it's time for the drinking public to stand up and say they want their hoppy beers to taste like pine and flowers and occasionally grapefruit but certainly not like a watered-down tangerine or pie-baking experiment gone awry.
These fruited IPAs may be considered gateways to the more acerbic, classically American version of the bitter beer, but in almost every instance they bastardize the heart of the beers that they are riffing on, and not to positive effect. And what you get, in many instances, is a strange knock-off of far better beers that should be left alone to define a brewery.
Example A of this is Weldwerks' Fruity Bits Strawberry Shortcake (right), a New England-style IPA made with strawberry. The brewery's Juicy Bits is Colorado's standard bearer for the hazy IPA, bursting to life with both the sweet and bitter sides of citrus fruit; when it's double-dry-hopped, it becomes simply one of the best beers in the state. But when ingredients as clashing with bitterness as strawberry and vanilla beans are introduced to the beer, it becomes an out-of-place, training-wheels IPA in which the hops become such an afterthought that is seems stylistically misplaced.
Avery's Real Peel IPA, made with tangerine peel, strikes a similar discordant note. Here is one of the chief hop purveyors in the state mixing in one of the most subtle citrus fruits on the planet to the effect that both the hops and the fruit get lost in the blend. Coming from the same brewery that will blow your taste buds out and make you smile with its Maharaja Imperial IPA, there is a disconnect.
New Belgium's range of fruit-accented beers tell a similar story. Its Citradelic tangerine IPA is aloof in both its fruit and hop tastes, and the medium-bodied beer seems unsure of what it wants to be. It sets the stage for its Juicy Mandarina IPA - a wheat IPA that isn't actually infused with fruit additives but leans so much toward fruit tastes in is hop profile that it too loses the flavor of said hops.
I mention these three breweries in particular because they literally are three of the best in Colorado that are taking these strange side roads when they have hit so many times over with full-flavored hop bombs and barrel-aged sours, and even with subtle delights like an Avery Joe's Pils or the sadly discontinued New Belgium Mothership Wit. They clearly know what they're doing.
Not all fruited IPAs miss the mark. Numerous breweries, for example, have used grapefruit to increase the bitterness of the style, appropriate as some hops can taste naturally like the fruit. Sam Adams livened up its Rebel IPA by adding in mango juice, giving it heightened tropical feel even as it did not tone down the natural grassiness of the hops. And Denver Beer scored a surprising victory this summer with its Maui Express Coconut IPA, using the coconut not to add a particular island taste but to calm the hops just enough that you can feel a different element in what may be the closest thing to a summer IPA that the industry has developed.
But the fruited IPAs in general seem so hell-bent on yelling "Look at my creativity!" and trying to lure non-hop heads to the style that they become needless diversions in a genre of bitter beers that still has lots of room to grow without tossing in everything in a grocer's produce aisle. Let's recommit to the idea that IPAs are bitter, piny, earthy, flowery and sometimes naturally citrus-y without the need to introduce flavors that veer these offerings away from what has made the style great.
Debate continues to rage after some two years on whether the New England IPA, a hazier take on the style with more citrus and tropical fruit overtones and less bitter bite, is inspired flavor or just laziness. But whether you like this slight variation on America's favorite craft-beer style or not, this discussion serves only to distract from a far more virulent strain of experimentation infecting the IPA.For two summers, craft beerdom has been inundated with India pale ales inexplicably brewed with additives of fruit that sometimes are subtle and sometimes are really not. And it's time for the drinking public to stand up and say they want their hoppy beers to taste like pine and flowers and occasionally grapefruit but certainly not like a watered-down tangerine or pie-baking experiment gone awry.
These fruited IPAs may be considered gateways to the more acerbic, classically American version of the bitter beer, but in almost every instance they bastardize the heart of the beers that they are riffing on, and not to positive effect. And what you get, in many instances, is a strange knock-off of far better beers that should be left alone to define a brewery.
Example A of this is Weldwerks' Fruity Bits Strawberry Shortcake (right), a New England-style IPA made with strawberry. The brewery's Juicy Bits is Colorado's standard bearer for the hazy IPA, bursting to life with both the sweet and bitter sides of citrus fruit; when it's double-dry-hopped, it becomes simply one of the best beers in the state. But when ingredients as clashing with bitterness as strawberry and vanilla beans are introduced to the beer, it becomes an out-of-place, training-wheels IPA in which the hops become such an afterthought that is seems stylistically misplaced.
Avery's Real Peel IPA, made with tangerine peel, strikes a similar discordant note. Here is one of the chief hop purveyors in the state mixing in one of the most subtle citrus fruits on the planet to the effect that both the hops and the fruit get lost in the blend. Coming from the same brewery that will blow your taste buds out and make you smile with its Maharaja Imperial IPA, there is a disconnect.
New Belgium's range of fruit-accented beers tell a similar story. Its Citradelic tangerine IPA is aloof in both its fruit and hop tastes, and the medium-bodied beer seems unsure of what it wants to be. It sets the stage for its Juicy Mandarina IPA - a wheat IPA that isn't actually infused with fruit additives but leans so much toward fruit tastes in is hop profile that it too loses the flavor of said hops.
I mention these three breweries in particular because they literally are three of the best in Colorado that are taking these strange side roads when they have hit so many times over with full-flavored hop bombs and barrel-aged sours, and even with subtle delights like an Avery Joe's Pils or the sadly discontinued New Belgium Mothership Wit. They clearly know what they're doing.Not all fruited IPAs miss the mark. Numerous breweries, for example, have used grapefruit to increase the bitterness of the style, appropriate as some hops can taste naturally like the fruit. Sam Adams livened up its Rebel IPA by adding in mango juice, giving it heightened tropical feel even as it did not tone down the natural grassiness of the hops. And Denver Beer scored a surprising victory this summer with its Maui Express Coconut IPA, using the coconut not to add a particular island taste but to calm the hops just enough that you can feel a different element in what may be the closest thing to a summer IPA that the industry has developed.
But the fruited IPAs in general seem so hell-bent on yelling "Look at my creativity!" and trying to lure non-hop heads to the style that they become needless diversions in a genre of bitter beers that still has lots of room to grow without tossing in everything in a grocer's produce aisle. Let's recommit to the idea that IPAs are bitter, piny, earthy, flowery and sometimes naturally citrus-y without the need to introduce flavors that veer these offerings away from what has made the style great.Labels: Avery Brewing, Denver Beer Co, Fruit beers, grapefruit IPA, hazy IPAs, IPA, New Belgium Brewing, Sam Adams, Weldwerks Brewing
