There are times when I read other people’s blogs that I wish I had coined / turned a phrase as well. It happened again, twice! One of the usual suspects made me jealous. Beervana, in a post about Goose Island and their line of sour beers said this, “Harmony and balance, far more than intensity, is what I value.” Then one paragraph later, “Intensity is a marker of authenticity in the US.”
(You can read the full post HERE, and I suggest you do)
This is an issue that I think will become more important as craft beer reaches maturation and saturation points. How does a brewery differentiate itself from others when all beers are turned up to 11? How do beer drinkers value and judge beers after having their palate’s blown out by an extreme beer?
Recently, I have had a few pepper beers. I am not equipped with a tongue that can withstand much (if any) Scoville units so I could not judge the merit of the peppers sourced but I could easily tell that what I was drinking on two occasions was nothing but heat mixed into water with some malt. Balance was just not there. Like having a meal where the salad was dosed in Sriacha, followed by jalapeno poppers and a main course covered in ghost peppers. There was no counterpoint to the heat.
One was a hot pepper IPA but the hops were not to be found. The other was aged in Bourbon barrels. (Which usually is the culprit when a beer is unbalanced.) But here again was not to be found by me as I reached to pour the offensive brew down the drain. My first such drain pour in months.
The main trouble makers in my mind are hops and bourbon barrels, with strange ingredients a distant third. I know that I am not going to slow down the IPA, DIPA, BIPA, Imperial IPA train. I ain’t jumping in front of that. But I wish there were more purveyors of IPL’s or IPDopple or style mash-ups that would require a little more finesse.
The crazy thing is that well balanced hop bombs can be made. Smooth and silky barrel aged beers can contain a multitude of flavors. I have tasted those beers. Lagunitas Sucks is a perfect example of a light but hoppy IPA. I haven’t had the pleasure but Jack’s Abbey on the East Coast has a rep for making some great lagers with hops. New Belgium had a peach beer aged in Leopold spirits barrels that contained a cornucopia of flavors.
But more often than not. You get a big whiff of bourbon upon opening a bottle and then alcohol heat. Any other flavor is subsumed into the bourbon. Same with hops. It is just a bracing bolt of bitter. Hard to distinguish the different hop varietals when they are thrown with abandon into the kettle.
I hope 2014 and the years beyond will bring us more nuance and less intensity. A broader spectrum of flavors and not a sledgehammer.