I used to like IPAs. Then they got trendy, and breweries started pumping out more and more of them, and the plethora of IPAs all tasted more or less identical, and they were boring. And them you got gimmicks like black IPAs and white IPAs and red IPAs and everything else, and it was clear that these were being brewed out of utter lack of imagination and laziness - not “let’s make a good beer” but “let’s see if we can add a bunch of hops to this”. And the more of this nonsense I saw, the more annoyed I became at IPAs in general, and the more I came to view the style as everything wrong with craft beer.
Meanwhile, I was branching out, drinking different styles and realizing that beer has so much more to offer than just hops. And then I started brewing myself, and began to appreciate the skill that some beers require over others (and IPA is about the simplest style imaginable to brew, and by far the most forgiving). If a brewery wants to impress me, make something that I couldn’t. Or at least something that would take me a long time to do. Single infusion mashes and clean fermentation aren’t particularly impressive. Fermentation is the most important step in brewing, and I want to taste it - whether it be with mixed cultures or with a straight up Sacc C, I want some yeast notes.
When I first tried IPAs, they were new and interesting - but the novelty wore off, and the market got oversaturated, and I got bored.
Seems like weird beers like Grodskies are just the type to spark some random hype train. Let’s not forget that Gose basically didn’t exist 10 years ago and 15 years ago the same was true of Berliner weisses outside a few breweries in Berlin suburbs
I’ve had a couple that were enjoyable. I liked the one Surly did a lot. I’m going to have one by Anderson Valley in a bit. As unappealing as Brut IPAs generally are, they are better than Kveik IPA, which seems to have more presence currently.
I could go for more Grodziskie, but maybe we should call them Sour Wheat IPAs to give them that extra boost.
Insipid is: Lacking qualities that excite, stimulate, or interest; dull. Citric flavours are really not what I want from a beer, so I would agree with EvanFriend that Brut IPA is insipid.
For me beer is about the malt and the yeast. Hops are a flavouring, same as chocolate or cherries or arse wipe. I prefer beer without additional flavours. Enough hops to counterbalance the sweetness of the malt works for me. But when the hop ingredient starts to make itself felt to the point where it becomes a flavour, I start to lose interest in the beer. It is notable to me that those beers which use the most hops tend to be those which have less of a focus on the malt and the yeast. Those beers which have less of a beer flavour. Odd though it sounds, I think a lot of modern beer drinkers don’t like the taste of beer, though they like the idea of beer. So beers are made where the malt and yeast flavour is reduced, and other flavours are substituted.
Your beer preferences - as most everyones’, including me - tend to reflect beer of a particular time.
"While the composition of gruit was subject to local variations, it commonly contained bog myrtle, rosemary, yarrow, alecost, and many others. The herbs were not chosen only for their flavor, but for their reputed medicinal properties as well.
The hopped beer of the Middle Ages was extremely heavily hopped. 7 lb. to the hogshead, or 5 lb. to the barrel were not uncommon."
Not sure when plain ol’ yeast/malt beers reigned, but they did for awhile (upholding the good fight against hops). Still, I think that beer/ale with added flavors of one sort or another have existed for the majority of years. I think the current issue is that macro brewers ruined the reputation of beer, and as a result “young” beer aficionados view beers without flavor as “not good”. One of the beers I remember “well” was called Rosemary’s Porter - “stronger than dirt” - which I take as a variation on a gruit.
The brutest thing I ever brewed (over a decade ago, before Brut IPA was a thing) used a harvested yeast from a fairly neutral belgian tripel, it did get described as champagney by several people. It’s not just the yeast that decides the final taste (I get the feeling that it’s lazier brewers who take that view, and unsurprisingly, their beers end up depressingly cookie-cutter).
[Edit: @services why’s my username lost its capital letters?]