Annoying hop craze.

Alright. Something's been pissing me off.

To be honest, I have no problem with hops, or hoppy beers. There are some pales, IPAs, and some super hopped barleywines that I really enjoy. I also enjoy styles that are sometimes hybrids of say a belgian golden ale that's hopped up (Gouden Carolous Hopsijnoor), or even a hopped up hefeweizen like the Schneider/Brooklyn collaboration. Those two examples are ok because they exercise a nice word we like to call "balance".

What's beginning to piss me off, is all these nouveau beer snobs who think they are sophisticated because all they drink is retarded hopped IPAs. And of course micro breweries and craft brewers all over the country saw this and started to pump out ramped up IPAs like it was going out of style. I guess you sell what people want, but what people wanted sucked. It seems like every wannabe beer nerd equated the quality of his new found beer by the amount of hops jammed into the bottle and the IBU count. You ask them "what do you like about this or that beer" and they replied "man this is fucking HOPPY...it's awesome...I'm such a hop-head!1!!1!."

That's fine if you like hops, or malt, or wheat, or whatever. But for christ sakes, your supposed new found love of a single type of beer brought in some really shitty beers (Ranger IPA from New Belgium, Avery IPA to name a few). Beers that boast names that are akin to those d-bags playing beer league softball, who try way too hard to be funny and always have some fat douche playing first base with the name "big sexy" on his jersey and is invariably wearing number 69. Names like: hop slam, hop stoopid, hoptober, hoptacular, hoppopatumus, hop explosion, hop rock and roll extravaganza nuclear bomb face melting awesomeness of hops. (ok, the last few are made up). While you think you are some sort of revolutionary connoisseur, the only thing you know is hops, so brewers make these stupid named beers with a stupid amount of hops to get your stupid attention.

Once again, I'm not anti-hops, or anti-IPA. But good beer is about balance. How do the flavors, particularly the malt and the hops play off of each other? Anybody can throw a million buckets of hops into a brewing tank and charge you 12 bucks a six pack, but it takes an actual brewer to make it still taste good. I made fun of "hop slam" in the last paragraph, but that was just for the name. Bells "gets it". They make Hop Slam with a truckload of hops, but they make it unique, balanced, and fun to drink. Bell's figured that most guys try to load up their double-IPAs with malt so they can strike a balance of sweet and hop-bitter, but you often time get a beer that's extremely malty as well as hoppy, and is just hard to drink. Bell's put some honey in theirs and allowed it to mellow out the hops that were in there but kept it crisp on the tongue without making it a big-syrupy mess. End product: the best "double IPA" on the market.

A beer consists of water, malt, hops, and yeast. All four ingredients can have a drastic effect on the taste of your beer, and all are equally important. There's more to beer than hops, people!!!! There are other styles out there. Try something else. IPA is one of like, a hundred styles you can try. The best beers are the "best" because they offer a multitude of flavors. A good beer is more than just the hops that are in it, and just like an overly malty beer sucks, an overly hoppy beer sucks as well.

I'll still drink, and enjoy a number of beers with a big hop profile, but I will not fellate said beers simply because of the amount of hops that are involved in the brewery process. If it's a good, balanced, well thought out brew, I will enjoy it, regardless of the style or the absolutely inane name on the label.