Styles that are fading out

Just thinking about styles I used to see a lot more but rarely now. Like 10 years ago IPAs used to be bitter and have malt…

No but really, just having a biere de Garde and that’s def one that has faded. Also I’d say peripheral styles are fading general. Stuff that was already less common like milds, and the bocks are much less common. Also in first five years of rate beer I think I had two krystalweizens. Only one in second five years…

I feel most breweries used to put out a Hefeweizen as standard offering not so standard anymore

2 Likes

Seems American Brown Ales is on the uptick. I can dig that.

4 Likes

ESB?
English style barleywine reminiscent of Young’s Old Nick’s?
:cry:

2 Likes

Cool that some of my locals are brewing some delicious Browns.

1 Like

American Strong Ales ten years ago were huge I feel like, but now no one really seems to make them in NYC.

Belgian Ales (of all sorts) amongst Northeastern microbrewers seemed to have totally fallen out. Nobody is making those mediocre BSAs that used to be really prevalent years ago as far as I can tell.

While in NYC Belgian Wits still pop up fairly frequently, hefeweizens have all but died.

I feel some styles like Mild Ales, Schwarzbiers, Helles are making a comeback though.

CDAs, Black IPAs and so on. I have seen one on tap in the last six months.

2 Likes

ESB, Porter, Stout, Hefeweizen, Dunkelweizen, Dubbel, Tripel, Brown, Black IPA, Gratzer…pretty much every style is on the ropes other than IPA, Pastry Stouts, Pastry Sours.

Ya that’s a pity. Other than sours - everyone is doing more sours, though perhaps not really to Belgian specs. That’s a pity for me, I actually like belgian ales, dubbels, tripels etc.

Definitely. And even IPAs if you like bitterness - a bitter IPA is hard to come by these days. I see it as a double edged sword - NEIPAs and fruit goses, berliners definitely draw in more beer drinkers since people who don’t like beer will still drink a glorified fruit juice with some malted barley. Ditto chocolate lovers will like the pastry stouts. But then on the other hand, since brewers sell more of those, the higher sales there drag them away from doing stuff for people who actually like beer and don’t mind bitterness in an IPA or stout.

I still see a fair amount of saisons, but not like about 5-6 years ago when saisons were the trendiest style.

Let’s also spill a 40 for our deceased homie the Brut IPA… The decline in saisons, to my mind, is not actually that bad, as all the breweries that are good at making them (Tired Hands, Hill Farmstead, Suarez Family) are still cranking out tons of them, as are some new saison-focused breweries like Weaver Hollow. The ones that stopped trying are the breweries that made one or two variants or places like Other Half that tried briefly when it was trendy. That said Stillwater definitely pulled back from the saison front much to the detriment of their overall quality.

3 Likes

Also the “regular ole” session IPA. (that most beer knurdes commonly dismiss anyway).
Not to be confused with the more recent 99 calorie/3 gram carb “Light” IPA.
I love those and find many old ones now gone and far fewer new ones to choose from.

Is the Brut IPA dead already? I thought it was just starting to show up. This would be a great style to end up stillborn though…

2 Likes

I agree. While I don’t claim to have tried a great number or the best examples, I never did find one that warranted a repeat purchase. So I left it alone. Many were simply stronger than I prefer. Good riddance.

Can we get overly sweet hazy IPAs to fade away please?

I find myself rarely drinking local anymore. As mentioned above, everything local seems to be hazy IPAs, pastry stouts, and pastry sours. Classic styles are hard to find, especially good ones.

6 Likes

Yes yes and yes please. I’m at the point where I avoid hazies if I have a choice, even if it’s a tick. No body, green onion mash finish. Too boozy sweet. I’ll still give the few people I know do them well the benefit of the doubt, but shit do I appreciate a rare Stone IPA these days.

3 Likes

Maybe not as many as when they first came out, but not dead yet and still finding a fair few of them here in Europe :slight_smile:

edit# I can see there is around 6000 Brut IPA’s listed on untappd (a chunk of which will be home/nano brews) - but 4000 of which are from the US. Sure there is plenty out there

1 Like

Ya I still see them show up. I’m still buying them until I hit my magical 50 ticks number. Then it can sit there on my 50 ticks list with Radlers, cream ales and bitters until eternity :rofl:

1 Like

Pretty much this!

It’s really nice to find a brewery with a few different styles on tap, not just IPAs made with the same base beer with a different, but often terribly similar, hop varietal. “Oh, you have 8 beers and 5 are different hazy IPAs, okay.”

It’s a bit hot right now, but man, a good, nutty brown ale is delicious when there is a chill in the air. Same with even a decent Schwarzbier.

I actually don’t mind that a few styles are on their way out or at least have hit a lull in production.

I used to drink a lot of American Strong Ales, but they often felt like they were just gimmicks to provide a strong ABV. Now breweries just lie about their ABVs and say they’re stronger than they are to get some of that :money_with_wings:“it’s so smooth for the ABV”:money_with_wings:.

Belgian Style Ales (aside from Saisons) can be good when done right, but often felt a bit too unbalanced or felt too much like they were just trying to clone a superior version I could just go and buy myself so not seeing them a lot (outside the standards from Belgium) isn’t a bad thing in my mind. I still see a fair number of breweries doing Saisons, just a lot fewer Dubbels, Tripels and Quads. Not a lot, but most of the breweries I go to usually seem to have at least one on tap. Of course, this may not fit the general trend in the rest of the industry.

1 Like

Really? You think a lot of that happens?