THE must-read for 2016, from Lew Bryson: "IPA is a playground; it’s not a prison."

Pete's Landscape of Beers (circa 1990).

Lew's remarkable rumination comes along at just the right time, when my mind is filled with plans and schemes to recapture some of the lost joy by simplifying my approach and maybe ... MAYBE ... getting back to my roots.

The counter-revolution.

At last, maybe it's here.

Enlist me in the Michael "Beer Hunter" Jackson Brigade, please.

WE CHANGED THE WORLD … FOR THIS?, by Lew Bryson (All About Beer Magazine)


... It took 30 years, but we’ve almost come full circle. Back in the ’80s, almost everywhere you went offered you a choice of light lagers, and maybe a Guinness or a Bass, and if you were lucky, a cream ale. Now most of the places I visit offer me a broad choice of IPAs, and maybe a couple of sours or saisons, and a couple of big dark ales. There may be a pilsner, if I’m lucky; it’s probably hopped to the gills.

It’s so boring! We’ve reached the point where brewers are stuffing things into IPAs to make them more interesting: grapefruit, peppers, ginger, lemons, blood oranges, flowers. One brewer had the tongue-in-cheek puckishness to describe his IPA as “beer-flavored.” I can’t decide whether I should salute or punch him in the nose ...

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"Brewers are sourcing their signature bitterness in sterile labs, not muddy hop fields."

Approximately one million years ago, while visiting a brewpub in the United Kingdom, bar-side chat led to my being given an impromptu brewery tour.

The kit was primitive, enabling little more than glorified homebrewing, and in fact homebrewers I know personally have snazzier setups. The capacity was very small, just a few barrels at a time. The mash tun resembled one of those coffee services on a European train, where they pour hot water through the pre-calibrated basket into the cup.

Both the Bitter and Porter served me were excellent. If I had it all to do over, this is about as big as my brewery would ever get. Two, maybe three ales, and an occasional seasonal.

By the way, here's a story about hop extracts.

Craft Brewers Go High-Tech, by William Bostwick (Wall Street Journal)

Once relegated to industrial brewing, hop extracts are the secret behind some of today’s briskest craft beers

Nature scenes rule on craft beer labels—mountains, streams, even a yeti or two. But you won’t see a pressurized supercritical carbon-dioxide hop extraction chamber on a label anytime soon.

The dirty secret behind today’s IPAs: There’s little dirty about them. Brewers are sourcing their signature bitterness in sterile labs, not muddy hop fields.

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Blurring the lines between IPA and marmalade. Add smoked fish, and I'm there.

I'm a tremendous fan of marmalade, and while I tend not to shill for consumer products other than beer, I'll make an exception of Mackays Three Fruit Marmalade, with orange, grapefruit and lemon.

Louisville's Lotsa Pasta carries Mackays, which is delicious.

At least two days a week, here is a curmudgeon's breakfast: Pumpernickel bread, butter, pickled herring, marmalade and espresso.

When I saw the link to "spreadable beer," my first thought was that BrewDog was up to something crazy  again. However, upon closer examination, this combination makes sense in both directions, whether IPA-influenced marmalade or marmalade-flavored IPA.

Fruitiness and bitterness. Duh!

Scottish craft brewer launches 'world's first spreadable beer', by Jill Castle (Herald Scotland)

A Scottish craft brewer has created the world's first spreadable beer to mark the opening of its new Beer Kitchen.

Innis & Gunn opened its second Scottish Beer Kitchen in South Tay Street, Dundee today.

The celebrate the launch, the craft brewer has launched Marm & Ale, the world's first beer marmalade.

The marmalade combines Innes & Gunn's oak-aged IPA with Dundee's finest preserve.

The brewer has also unveiled a new marmalade flavoured IPA.

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There actually was an IPA shipwreck, after all.

From Cornell's article. If click bait interested me, I'd have flashed a photo of a hard-to-find hoarder's IPA, but then you'd just be disappointed at having to read. 

Martyn Cornell surely has done more to de-mythologize Indian Pale Ale (IPA) than any other writer, although I concede to knowingly deploying selected bits of these myths periodically while storytelling at tastings.

However, I always try to return to the point, because at the risk of oversimplification, Cornell's longstanding mission is to illustrate the advent of more aggressively hopped ales in the UK as an evolutionary process over decades, rather than the result of one or the other light bulbs suddenly flaring.

Even he seems mildly surprised that the "IPA shipwreck" is true, strictly speaking, though the details remain highly contextualized. In short, it now can be proved that there was such an event, but it cannot be proved that certain trends started as a result. These already were developing, over a long period of time, and a lone shipwreck did not serve as flash point, although the stormy origins of casks salvaged from the ship probably made for wonderful, albeit temporary, marketing at a handful of pubs.

It's a great story. At the end, there are links to other pieces written by Cornell on the topic of IPA.

The IPA shipwreck and the Night of the Big Wind, by Martyn Cornell (Zythophile)

The “IPA shipwreck” is one of many long-lasting myths in the history of India Pale Ale. The story says that IPA became popular in Britain after a ship on its way to India in the 1820s was wrecked in the Irish Sea, and some hogsheads of beer it was carrying out east were salvaged and sold to publicans in Liverpool, after which the city’s drinkers demanded lots more of the same. Colin Owen, author of a history of Bass’s brewery, called the tale “unsubstantiated” more than 20 years ago, and others, including me, being unable to find any reports of any such wreck, nor of any indication that IPA was a big seller in the UK until the 1840s, have dismissed it as completely untrue. Except that it turns out casks of IPA did go on sale in Liverpool after a wreck off the Lancashire coast involving a ship carrying hogsheads of beer to India that, literally, became a landmark – though not in the 1820s – and the true story is a cracker, involving one of the worst storms to hit the British Isles in centuries, which brought huge destruction and hundreds of deaths from one side of the UK to the other.

Love is blind: Finally, an IPA tasting that makes sense.

(Last year I wrote about this same general topic here, as pertaining to a blind taste test of Indiana beers)

Dibbs Harting may have taught me to be a beer judge, BJCP-style, but in all honesty, it's something I don't do very often. Once or twice a year is enough for me.

Effective judging in itself hardly is simple, and yet certain elements can be grasped by anyone. Axiomatic among these is the anonymity of the process. I pour a sample of a particular style, not knowing who brewed it, and I judge accordingly against the stylistic yardstick.

Just like this fellow at Paste. Kudos to the "blind judging" process, which involved objectively (gasp) considering IPAs, and not incessantly snapping selfies. It appears this group has followed this route before. Good for them. More should.

Blind-Tasting 116 of the Best American IPAs: We Have a Winner, by Jim Vorel (Paste)

The top American India pale ale has been chosen

... Yes, there were surprises on all fronts, both in the beers we loved and the beers that didn’t speak to us as we expected. That’s why we committed so fully to the blind-tasting method.

The PC: Merlot? Sorry, it isn't IPA, either.

The PC: Merlot? Sorry, it isn't IPA, either.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

The German Café has moved from Paoli to French Lick, and a few weeks ago, we traversed the pastoral Southern Indiana countryside and visited the new location, situated opposite the casino in a much larger, altogether nicer space than before.

As I’ve noted previously, there’s a restaurant just like the German Café in the middle of most German towns and hamlets. Whether in French Lick or Memmelsdorf, the food is hearty, the price mid-range, and the vibe community-oriented. Naturally, there’ll be beer, though not necessarily an enthusiast’s dream lineup; just good beers to accompany the pork and dumplings.

The revamped German Café has three draft handles in addition to the smallish bottle list from its Paoli times. On the day of my visit there was Beck’s on tap (who knew it still exists?) along with two wheat ales: Weihenstephaner and Franziskaner Dunkel. Given that I hadn’t had hefeweizen for the longest time, Weihenstephaner was my choice. It was tasty, indeed.

On the one hand, the consultant in me would love to swap the Beck’s at German Café for Hofbrau, and to substitute a schwarzbier (black lager) for the Franziskaner; still, letting loose of my hoary prejudices and going with the prevailing flow by drinking Weihenstephaner proved to be unexpectedly pleasurable, and it tasted great with my zigeuner schnitzel and sauerkraut.

It had been a while between hefeweizens. Why so long?

Probably I’d permitted myself to be scarred by those timid Public House customers of old who refused to try anything different, and invariably insisted on hefeweizen. At the time, my disgust with their fear became manifested by my own rejection of hefeweizen, but in the present age there is no reason for me to take it out on myself, and anyway, times have changed since then. These days, it’s the hopheads, not the wheat-kneed, who are supremely annoying by virtue of their monocultural fixations.

One must change with the times. First, is the following a dream sequence, or real life?

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I couldn’t help noticing that you’re making funny faces. Is there a problem with your beer?

You bet there’s a problem. This beer is absolutely terrible. Worst ever. Your lines are dirty. Yuck. I’ll be giving it to you good on RateAdvocate.

(The bartender pours a bit from the tap, smells it, and takes a taste.)

Sorry, but it tastes fine. I’m not getting any “off” flavors or aromas.

Oh, it’s “off” all right. Where are the hops? I can’t taste any hops at all!

Possibly, that’s because it’s a hefeweizen.

That’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you! This beer you just sold me isn’t an IPA! Didn’t think I could tell, did ya?

Of course it isn’t an IPA. It’s the one you chose from the beer list. It’s a German wheat ale.

So what? I wasn’t born yesterday.

You see, that’s a particular style of beer. Knowing the style gives you information about the beer’s flavor. It’s like when you have children, and you give each of them a different name so you can tell them apart.

Whatever. Who has time for that? You guys have really slipped. I remember when this place used to care about beer, now this beer with no hops. I’ve been coming here for five years, dude. So, tell me this: If it isn’t an IPA, then why isn’t it sour, huh?

It isn’t supposed to be. In classical terms, Berliner Weisse is sour, not German-style wheat ale.

It just proves that those other breweries are way better than yours. I’m going to say so on Untappd.

Feel free, and if you like, I can give you directions to those other breweries. That’ll be $6.75, sir. Have a nice evening.

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Although I’ve ground my teeth to the nub through variants of the preceding dialogue during the course of “discussing” beer at on-line geek sandboxes, the episode is entirely fictitious.

Once upon a time, I was grappling with well-meaning folks who knew nothing about beer, but at least didn’t pretend to, while nowadays, everyone’s an expert – except the knowledge level hasn’t really changed, and all too often, this inability to grasp objectivity – this failure to know the difference between personal preference and value judgments based on shared criteria – irreparably taints the various ratings measurements, thus corrupting an already tottering system of snobbery promotion.

Surely it’s better than all that, isn’t it?

Sorry, but I’m not sure. If you’ll accept only one face of beer, whether light lager, German wheat or IPA, you’re missing a universal point about the brewing revolution. What's more, solipsism is a poor substitute for style consciousness.

Meanwhile, if you’re like me and perpetually inclined to contrarianism, merely kick back and revel in the shifting perspectives. I never thought I’d be divulging it, but the summer forecast for 2014 is for me to drink more hefeweizens than previously predicted.

In fact, it may be time for a grand hefeweizen tasting … maybe even at the German Café?

So, who's in?

Chef Josh's blind IPA tasting tonight during the Patio Party.

There's a Patio Party tonight at Bank Street Brewhouse: Patio Party with PA Project at Bank Street Brewhouse (Wed., March 30).

Chef Josh has been itching to have some fun with IPAs, so tonight beginning around 6:30 p.m., he'll be holding a comparative blind IPA tasting (while supplies last).

You'll pay a nominal fee to get samples of four IPA's, all of them "Imperial" or close to it: Bell's HopSlam, Founders Double Trouble, NABC Yakima and Three Floyds Dreadnaught. Identify them correctly, and Josh will reward you with a prize.

The Publican (me) is ineligible to enter. I know way too much already.

IPA into view for Office Hours, tonight.

Thanks to everyone who made last Monday's Imperial Stout tasting happen. I'm planning on being back in the saddle tonight, as Office Hours rams headlong into the BJCP's Category 14 ... and this means hops, hops and more hops.

We'll be going very light on English IPA owing to the abundance of straight American IPA available for sampling.

Imperial IPA will have to wait until January 3, as the 27th of December is our annual Pants Down Potluck Port Drinkers Circle (this year with guided tasting).

Sampling and commentary at Office Hours costs $5 and runs from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at the Public House.

***Category 14 — India Pale Ale (IPA)

14A. English IPA

Overall Impression: A hoppy, moderately strong pale ale that features characteristics consistent with the use of English malt, hops and yeast. Has less hop character and a more pronounced malt flavor than American versions.

14B. American IPA

Overall Impression: A decidedly hoppy and bitter, moderately strong American pale ale.

14C. Imperial IPA

Overall Impression: An intensely hoppy, very strong pale ale without the big maltiness and/or deeper malt flavors of an American barleywine. Strongly hopped, but clean, lacking harshness, and a tribute to historical IPAs. Drinkability is an important characteristic; this should not be a heavy, sipping beer. It should also not have much residual sweetness or a heavy character grain profile.

Battle of the Schlafly IPAs begins this Thursday.

At the Public House, 3312 Plaza Drive in New Albany. There'll be 20-oz pints of each, or you can get a half-pint of each for the 20-oz price -- while it lasts.

Office Hours for Monday, February 15: IPA from all over the place.

I'll come equipped with style definitions, samples and anecdotes. I hope to have single hop IPA, Double IPA and Belgian IPA at the very least. The aim is to taste, listen and learn from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. RSVPs are not necessary. In case of threatening weather, stay tuned to the blog and NABC's other news outlets on Twitter and Facebook.

Hops. What's not to love?