Some Minor Crotchets about Beer [View all]

[Wolf Frankula]

Oneth, this is NOT about how beer was better in the 'Good Old Days', it wasn't. It's better now. But I have a few minor complaints.

A: Every IPA does not have to be a hop bomb. It seems brewers are trying to make the hoppiest beers possible. Somebody brews a 100 IBU beer, and somebody else HAS to top that. The original IPAs were hoppy, but not the bombs we see now.

B: There are other brewing traditions beside the Belgian. Again, it seems almost every brewer is making sours, abbeys, dubbels, tripels, quadrupels, fruit beers, saisons and so on. Actually a reaction seems to have begun against this. One local brewery is brewing Scottish ales, another specializes in German beers and so on.

C: Stop just showing off. You make bad beers. One brewer, New Belgium I think it was, had a cooperative beer where it seemed one brewer wanted to make a saison, one wanted to make a fruit beer and one wanted to make a sour. They ended up making a mess.

D: Respect the style. Pilsener does not have rice in it. You don't barrel age Helles. Dark rye fruit kolsch (the brewer stopped making it) was an abomination.

Wolf