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I live in Seattle where the IPA thing is just out of hand. My uncharitable pet theory is this: A certain class of men (sometimes women, but it's almost always

I live in Seattle where the IPA thing is just out of hand. My uncharitable pet theory is this: A certain class of men (sometimes women, but it's almost always men) get interested in something and then desire to make it part of their identity. That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. Most people that aren't really into beer don't like hops and bitterness. It is very much an acquired taste. So liking hoppy beers is a good signal that "look how much more into beer I am than you!" Even better — and this is always a good signal that bros have shown up to suck the fun out of your hobby — there is a number you can use to measure it. Menus show IBUs so a table full of dudes can pick their poison and show how hardcore they are. I like some amount of hops, but I've had beers that literally just taste like hop tea. The flavor just dominates everything else and leaves little room to enjoy all of the fun nuances you can get from the actual brew. Before IPAs it was porters with the darker the better. Or Belgian beers with competitions to see who can handle the highest ABV. It's always about getting the best score and not just, you know, enjoying some beer. My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. See also: Riding bicycles, listening to music (ugh audiophiles), metal guitarists playing 64th note scales, etc. I can't wait for the day that bros discover knitting and it becomes nothing but a race to see who can make the longest scarves.

walrus01 7y ago
As an enthusiastic road cyclist I don't think there has ever been a time in modern history when the cohort of people who ride 10,000km+ a year for general conditioning/cardio/training, and spend $2,000+ on road bikes, wasn't gender ratio skewed by at least 85:15 towards men. It is kind of unfortunate because there should really be nothing gender specific about cycling.
- justinator 7y ago
  I think it's more about conventional gender roles, the gender pay gap, the fact that many women are scared to do things outside alone, than anything specifically manly about it.
  - ehnto 7y ago
    Funnily enough I see lots of women on mountain bikes. I think mountain biking has a really clear delineation between fun and competition. Most mountain bikers have pretty relaxed attitudes, and very few compete. The goal is usually fun foremost. Compared to road cycling where it is more common to lean toward competition, personal performance and comparing to peers. That said, I see it happening there too. Once bike prices started skyrocketing and it became quite a bit more popular, you can occasionally come across a bad personality on the trails. Still fairly rare though.
    - ehnto 7y ago
      Reading this back it might seem like I don't think women compete, on the contrary, women's MTB series seem to be just as popular and competitive as the men's series and they seem to get just as much television time. I remember being impressed by the coverage the first time I watched the Enduro World Series coverage online. My main point was just that MTB as a whole is much less competitive and more welcoming overall than other cycling disciplines.
      - justinator 7y ago
        I think it may be more that road cycling has a rep on exclusion for anything different than the status quo - they made a book about it, poking fun of it: https://www.velominati.com/ https://www.velominati.com/ Plenty of women around here bike commute, mtb, etc. Women are very vocal in these part on cycling rights and livable cities in general. There's a women-owned bike shop that caters specifically to people who want to find car replacements in their lives. I'm very proud of them, so I have to share: https://bikeshopgirl.com/ https://bikeshopgirl.com/
- davidw 7y ago
  Something I saw road biking in Italy vs in the US is that there is a vastly bigger 'casual' set of people doing it in Italy. It seems like that's less prevalent in the US; you're either really into it or not much at all. It seems like this happens, sometimes in the US... for years beer in the US wasn't that great, and then there was this craft beer explosion, whereas in, say, Austria where I lived for a while, they are still drinking their local beers which are pretty good but don't have so much variety and experimentation.
  - hencq 7y ago
    That's one of the first things I noticed when I moved to the US. Not sure if it's specific to the US or maybe just the Bay Area or even just a sign of the times, but it seems like it's impossible for people to "kind of like" something. They immediately have to be really into something, be it beer, cycling, photography, to the point where it becomes their entire identity. It doesn't bother me too much. I'm still happy just enjoying craft beers without memorizing different hop strains, but it's definitely a little odd.
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The body-saddle interface is gender specific. That is a problem for a lot of potential riders.
  - walrus01 7y ago
    The last time I looked into this, specific to road bike saddles, Specialized and a few others had developed whole product lines and various widths of saddle sit-bone positions specific for female hips and anatomy. But no matter how good a saddle is, for a person just starting with a "real" road bike, who has not been on a bike for many months or years, there's going to be a couple of weeks of discomfort before your posterior anatomy toughens up and you stop feeling some discomfort. A couple of weeks of riding 20km a day at a very leisurely pace should do it. Once you get past that wall, a properly fit saddle should cause no discomfort at all.
    - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
      No amount of marketing will change human physiology.
  - rhinoceraptor 7y ago
    If you're going to spend that much on a bike, then the saddle is really only there for test rides. You'll replace it with your preferred one as soon as you buy it.
- jiofih 7y ago
  That’s gonna be the top 20% of commute distances, but plenty of men and women doing 10k+/year in Europe.
  - jiofih 7y ago
    Why downvoted? That’s a 12km daily commute.
giggles_giggles 7y ago
Wow this is all incredibly sexist.
- seiferteric 7y ago
  How?
  - tasogare 7y ago
    > My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. You seemed to have missed that part.
    - seiferteric 7y ago
      I don't think it is inherently sexist to suggest that men or woman may exhibit certain behaviors more than the other. I am not sure when we crossed the line that making any such suggestion is inherently sexist.
      - giggles_giggles 7y ago
        It's pretty sexist to imply that only men exhibit this particular form of gatekeeping or making men in the minority of some hobby group feel out of place, and then coining a term for it with "men" right in the name, as though women never do what is described. Complain about some subset of the population who has made a lifestyle choice you don't like (bros) all you want. But "mentrification"? Give me a break. That's just a prejudicial slur.
        taco_emoji 7y ago
        "Prejudicial slur"? Give ME a break.
      - uxp100 7y ago
        "Mentrification" suggests that men enter women's hobbies and ruin them. It also suggests that there is a right and wrong way to engage with things (See conversations about how men and women engage with fiction differently, analysis vs elaboration, power rankings vs fan-fiction, etc). Rather than saying the word "mentrification" is sexist, which is a complex question (like nobody is being hurt because someone on twitter comes up with a funny phrase), I'd rather say, if someone used mentrification in earnest, they're probably a shitty person and I don't want to hang out with them.
enra 7y ago
As a personal preference, I do prefer IPAs just for the taste. I do drink other beers too but anything short of Pale Ale, feels weak and doesn't give similar weight. There are lot of variance between different IPAs and Pale Ales, I prefer more citrus and mosaic ones. My favorite is Sculpin IPA and Wolfback Ridge IPA and my least favorite is probably Racer 5 even thought its generally highly rated.
- devchix 7y ago
  Amen! But don't say it so loud lest they call us poseurs. :) My favorite is one is called Resin, made by SixPoint Brewery out of Brooklyn. Just like the name, the nose is floral like pine sap, it's lovely. My other favorite is made by The Maine Beer Company, MO is a terrific, well-balanced Pale Ale, Another One (that's its name) is a 5% ABV IPA, also lovely. It's not just a west coast thing, good IPA brewers and drinkers are everywhere, and we don't just do it to out-men the men.
cowpig 7y ago
I feel like I see all those same things and feel happy for the people involved, that they are finding something that they feel a passion for. I also sometimes feel disdain and judgment towards other peoples' interests, (pop music, for example) but I feel more and more as I get older that that those feelings do not serve me (or anyone else) in any positive way.
Enginerrrd 7y ago
I feel like this is reading into it a bit much. I'm not that into beer, but I really like hoppy IPA's and always have. Even in high school / college, if the only option was cheap beer, I just wouldn't drink it because I didn't enjoy it. I preferred microbrew beers, and found that I didn't really like belgians/red ales/porters/etc. But I loved my first sip of a fresh Lagunitas IPA. I noticed that not all batches were the same with them. Sometimes it would have a lovely crispness and fruitiness, and sometimes that wasn't there. Isn't it possible that people just like hoppy beers? They seem to have quite a range of flavors and aromas they can offer in and of themselves. I mean, I like coffee too and picked up that habit right quick in high school. I didn't do it because I was trying to be "manly", I did it because it was the only way I could pay attention to classes, and I rapidly came to like it. Coffee is bitter. So are grapefruits, and brussel sprouts and a lot of things that some people just enjoy. Not everyone has to agree, and it doesn't need to get labeled as some kind of weird virtue signaling. I do like the "mentrification" word though! Although it sounds like we differ in what I consider the "fun" in a hobby.
- munificent 7y ago
  Sure, I didn't mean to imply that all people who like hoppy beers do this. (I like IPAs too sometimes.) Just that some do, and they are loud and vocal enough that they influence the entire scene in ways that are a negative for others.
- spike021 7y ago
  I don't think the person you're replying to is making a blanket statement that anyone who drinks IPA's don't drink them because they like them but because of the image. I think they're just trying to convey that there is a decent sized subset of beer drinkers who seem to drink IPA's for a reason much different from yours.
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Yeah, I still remember the first time a had a Bells Two-Hearted. It was bliss. I think some people just like bitter and some don’t. That said, I can’t eat a straight grapefruit, even covered in sugar. Love a grapefruit soda though.
victor9000 7y ago
The abundance of hops in beer is a west coast thing, as east coast beers tend to be more mild. So that's something to look into if west coast beers don't appeal to your palate. However, assigning a regional flavor to some sort of bravado seems odd. Do people say the same thing about a dry wine, a strong flavored cheese, or an Islay scotch? Of course not, so this seems more like a personal issue than anything else.
- amyjess 7y ago
  Honestly, discovering east coast beers actually made me like hops. My experience with west coast beers convinced me that hops were awful and that my ideal bear would have _just_ enough hops to prevent spoilage and that's it. Which is why I drank nothing but Scotch ales, Belgian beers, and milk stouts for a long time. Eventually, I even started moving away from beer as I finally decided to give wine a chance. And then I tried a New England-style hazy IPA, and I fell in love. It's hoppy, but it's not bitter. Most have 40 IBUs at the absolute most, and 30 is pretty common (and when it's 40, it's balanced out by enough malt that the bitterness isn't detectable). They taste like alcoholic orange juice (less harsh than a screwdriver, though). So nowadays I will drink every hazy, juicy, and milkshake IPA I can get my hands on. (Edit:) So it turns out I actually do like hops after all; I just hated what west coast beers did with them. And milkshake IPAs really make a mockery of the original concept of an IPA: not only are they not bitter, but they're actively sweet because they have added lactose (which is an unfermentable sugar and thus directly contributes to sweetness). They're great if you really want an IPA for people who hate IPAs.
  - Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
    I've toured a lot of eastern breweries tried countless east coast ipas. There certainly are plenty of ~40ibu ipas around. However, from my experience, you're most likely to find those at restaurants that are following the beer trends, slowly, and supermarkets. It's only been over the past couple years that most of my local shops started carrying mass produced double ipas besides arrogant bastard. By and large the best places to get a good dipa is at the brewery. Most of favorites see very limited distribution and very small runs. Finding a triple ipa is a task on its own. Quality, and consistency is all over the place between breweries and batches. I've bought cans that've spoiled on the shelf. Some breweries have purchase limits because enterprising folk have filled vans with cases of beer to resell in other states. Sours, like hill farmsteads ales, but more tart, have seen a resurgence. Stouts are still waning in popularity. Pilsners have a place in most long running breweries list as a fallback for those with less experienced or more traditional palates. I've grown fond of strong kombuchas >3% abv, goses, dry ciders, and randalled brews that have been cropping up lately. I've also had quite a few beers made with teas that have been great. Don't write off meads or gruits either.
ljm 7y ago
It feels a little cynical. You can enjoy beer and music and stuff without getting into a dick measuring contest. If all they want to do is one-up you then they’re not your friend. Find someone who listens to you. If that’s their way of enjoying things, then what’s so bad about it? They presumably dislike a lot of the hobbies you enjoy, they’re not out there to ‘mentrify’ them. (Why this gendered insulting is okay when it’s aimed against men, I don’t know.)
- paggle 7y ago
  Turning things into competitions often has extremely negative externalities. The desire to be the richest, or have the biggest house, or the fastest car, or drink the most alcohol, etc... destroys lives. And this kind of status scrambling is not exclusive to men.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. People seeking to do things better, faster and cheaper in order to make a buck (or even just for the bragging rights) in order to improve their own personal standard of living gives us electric lighting, oranges in February, the massive amount of infrastructure it takes to get this comment from my fingertips to your eyeballs and every other part of modern life you don't notice but would notice if it were missing. Yes there's externalities but at a societal scale we do a pretty decent job of playing whack-a-mole as they become critical.
    - shkkmo 7y ago
      > Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. Yet you can say the exact same thing about cooperation. I would argue that cooperation is atleast as critical an ingredient here as competition. Indeed, the infrastructure that allows me to view the comment you posted depends on open standards, open source software and generally could not have existed without groups of people working together to accomplish goals. I would personally say that cooperation, freedom and passion are more important than competition, greed and ego in terms of enabling the accomplishments of our society. That is not to say that competition has no role to play, but it is part of a melange of human dynamics that are necessary. Specifically, competition works best between between groups of freely cooperating individuals, especially when those groups can periodically set aside that competition to cooperatively further the goals of their mutual passions and dreams.
oh_sigh 7y ago
Women don't listen to music because men shows up and liked music too much?
- ssully 7y ago
  I think the poster is more saying men come in and make liking the music a competition, which from my experience is a very real thing. I have absolutely run into people the poster is describing, and unfortunately was friends with people like that for awhile. It wasn't "liking music too much"; they would act superior about music and tried to lay down what was "good" music to play/listen to. It is an incredibly narrow minded view and it is even worse when they are competitive about it.
  - oh_sigh 7y ago
    How does one subset of an audience viewing something as a competition affect other subsets of the audience? Has any woman ever said "Boy, I wish I could like show tunes more, but there are just too many men who view Norwegian speed metal as the only real music"
    - dnhz 7y ago
      The original example was not listening to music but audiophilia. The segment of music listeners that buy super-oxygen-free cables, tube amps, and expensive speakers seems to be heavily male-skewed.
      - oh_sigh 7y ago
        Is there any evidence that women are being turned away from music in general or even audiophilia because of this?
rc-1140 7y ago
I agree with the content of your message, as I have seen it happen many times myself first-hand, but I disagree with the way you're framing the phenomenon. > My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. I believe that this is a loaded word that does nothing but churn the online gender conflict machine propagated by places like (surprise) Twitter. It doesn't highlight a type of person as the cause, it highlights a gender. The Meaningness article concerning "mops", the "mop invasion", and the "sociopaths" that follow[0] is overall a more accurate representation of what happens when a hobby, craft, or culture is co-opted like this. [0] https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
- munificent 7y ago
  Yes, that's all entirely fair. But the word nerd part of me can't help but be delighted by the absolutely perfect pun of "mentrification". It just... it's like the second you read the word its meaning leaps into your mind. It perfectly extends the metaphor of "gatekeeping".
- tonyarkles 7y ago
  Thanks for posting that! I was immediately reminded of that article but couldn't remember any of names of the groups or find the article.
uxp100 7y ago
> My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. So you think that less women ride bicycles and drink beer than 20 years ago?
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Definitely the opposite. Just as OP complains about bros getting to into things like beer as their identity, maybe the fail to realize that other people make their identities about real or perceived social injustices and how awesome they are to bring them up a every chance maybe not realizing that's more annoying.
  - optimuspaul 7y ago
    This. I definitely see a certain culture of men that glom onto things like beer or bicycles or coding and making that their identity. It is because of this that they are seen as "Mentrifying" those hobbies. I do think that there is some risk in those groups alienating those without the same passion from becoming involved in those hobbies. In fact one of the reasons I don't golf anymore is exactly this. Golf culture is intensly insular and full of arrogant people (not to say that all are this way or maybe it has changed since I last golfed).
    - meddlepal 7y ago
      I think the key to enjoying golf is to learn to play by yourself or play with people that aren't interested in competition. I agree "golf people" are insufferable that's why I avoid them as much as possible.
      - optimuspaul 7y ago
        totally, but hard to get a course to yourself. To be clear it isn't the people I am playing with but the others on the course at the same time.
ratww 7y ago
Oh, this applies to anything. At my last job the competition for a few months was who had the largest vimfile. And if you used other editor you weren't manly enough, of course. People will complain, but dudebros are able to suck the fun out of anything. And the professionalism.
microtherion 7y ago
> A certain class of men (sometimes women, but it's almost always men) get interested in something and then desire to make it part of their identity. That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. Absolutely! I'm seeing the same thing in chocolate, where people chase cocoa %ages, and spicy food, where people brag about how many Scoville Units they can handle.
- munificent 7y ago
  Oh, those are great examples too. And, again, you see it happening clearly because they managed to conjure up some weird-ass numeric score for it.
  - scrumper 7y ago
    It's a fun and clever little label for a trend that's quite obvious when it's pointed out! Someone upthread mentioned stinky cheese, dry wine, and peaty Islay Scotch. Those things don't yet have absolute metrics - it'd be amusing to see what happens if they ever do.
    - munificent 7y ago
      The future is now. For wine, there's the "Total Polyphenol Index": https://www.decanter.com/learn/advice/tannin-scale-ask-decanter-366976/ https://www.decanter.com/learn/advice/tannin-scale-ask-decan... For peat in Scotch, the "phenol parts per million": https://www.theyorkshiregent.com/whisky/the-scotch-whisky-peat-scale-explained/ https://www.theyorkshiregent.com/whisky/the-scotch-whisky-pe... Not sure if someone's found a way to game cheese yet.
      - scrumper 7y ago
        Wonderful. Wikipedia sorely needs a page listing quantitative metrics of comestible qualia. Inspired by those two, I went on a hunt for a cheese metric but the search results got rapidly unpleasant ("Why does it smell like Swiss cheese behind my ears?" was what made me finally close the tab.)
justincredible 7y ago
> My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. Versus when chicks show up, deconstruct every aspect of a hobby, and drive away anyone who was actually interested in it. At least with competition someone wins.
bagacrap 7y ago
When exactly did dudes "show up" to "riding bicycles" and "drive all the fun out"?
- kalleboo 7y ago
  I don't know about "driving all the fun out", but whenever riding a bike comes up in conversations with Americans, they seem to assume that you need to go full-spandex, $1000 racing bike with all the accessories just for your commute. I always assumed this was because in the US, riding a bike is a weird, dangerous activity, so the only people who did it was complete weirdos, but I could also see it being a dudebro cultural thing ("making [your method of commute] your identity" as the other poster put it)
starpilot 7y ago
https://brokeassstuart.com/2018/01/29/stop-pretending-like-ipas/ https://brokeassstuart.com/2018/01/29/stop-pretending-like-i... Taste is a weird thing. People hate bitter coffee, but seem to worship bitter beers.
- apr 7y ago
  That's a broad and unsubstantiated statement about coffee. Personally I love bitter coffee.
lordgrenville 7y ago
I have a theory that every subculture attracts two types of adherents: people who are genuinely enthusiastic about it and love introducing their passion to new people, and those looking for a way to set themselves apart, who primarily want to gatekeep and condescend to those not "in the know". It's easy to tell the two groups apart by their reaction when meeting a curious outsider. It sounds like your description would firmly fit the second group. (It doesn't need to be gendered, although it does usually seem to be men who act this way.)
- munificent 7y ago
  > I have a theory that every subculture attracts two types of adherents: people who are genuinely enthusiastic about it and love introducing their passion to new people, and those looking for a way to set themselves apart, who primarily want to gatekeep and condescend to those not "in the know". Yes, definitely. There are some who feel that their membership in the group is all they have and thus the more people in the group, the relatively less they are. Insecurity is the root of gatekeeping.
streb-lo 7y ago
>My uncharitable pet theory is this: A certain class of men (sometimes women, but it's almost always men) get interested in something and then desire to make it part of their identity. That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. So hacker news and technophiles? Good grief you sound worse than the people you are criticizing. Heaven forbid people like something.
- zrobotics 7y ago
  Liking a hobby/activity isn't a problem. The problem is when people start gatekeeping (such as "no real programmer uses Javascript", etc). For instance, I like whisky, but I actively hate most whisky aficionados because it often just turns into a competition of "who bought the rarest/most expensive bottle" rather than "I like this brand/year". This behavior definitely occurs in the tech sphere (I've been judged for using Windows, since no real programmer would possibly be able to use anything besides mac/linux), but this behavior is always obnoxious and drives people away from activities.
- abathur 7y ago
  I guess the inverse is: heaven forbid people like something without letting their passion curdle into possessive competition with other people who try to like it?
AareyBaba 7y ago
ABV = Alcohol by Volume IBU = International Bitterness Units
tomatotomato37 7y ago
A very similar theory to geek/mop evolution of subcultures: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
whatshisface 7y ago
Is competition and quantitative thinking exclusive to one gender?
anm89 7y ago
My uncharitable pet theory is this: a certain class of people who are deeply unhappy with themselves don't like to see other people enjoying things they don't like or understand because they themselves have not filled this void in their own lives. Because these people need to seek out confirmation from a larger group on everything they do to compensate for their own lack of of self perceived self worth, and because gender or race are the largest groups available, they need to frame everything in term of a group struggle regarding race or gender to guarantee there is a built in audience to cheer them on at every step and reaffirm their worth and place in the social hierarchy. It's gross. Also I hate IPAs.
mc3 7y ago
Yes this is definitely a thing. I haven't seen it in beer personally, but I have seen it in other walks of like. Programming for instance "I worked on a 1M LoC system" "Mine was 10M LoC", or "I worked on a 1000 requests per second" "Aah that's nothing, we got 1M requests per second" etc. Fitness is an obvious one. Especially now your can track your average minutes per mile and all that shit on your phone. It is much more enjoyable just going out for a jog and fuck the metrics.
- mersenne 7y ago
  Reminds me of that Monty Python skit about the Yorkshiremen competing on who grew up the poorest.
hirsin 7y ago
Sample size a couple dozen only, but IBU on the menu has also been helpful to non-IPA drinkers I know, so they can avoid things they don't enjoy. It's also trended locally (Ballard) towards golf - see Reuben's releasing a zero-ibu IPA.
- munificent 7y ago
  Yeah, I agree listing the IBU is useful even for people who want low IBU. But the reason that's even an issue in the first-place is because of grandstanding hop-heads pushing the upper limit so high that a casual drinker selecting a brew at random has an increased chance of getting something they'd find completely unpalatable. It's like hot sauce. You didn't need to put the Scoville units on the menu until people started making hot sauces that would peel the lining off your digestive tract. But they didn't start making those hot sauces until people started measuring and talking about Scoville units as the only metric worth caring about.
asdf21 7y ago
Let me frame that in a way that might make you feel less... disgusted apparently. Men used to primarily compete at killing one another and general conquest -- these all seem like fairly harmless alternatives comparatively.
reitzensteinm 7y ago
If we're going to draw arbitrary circles around groups of people, I think this is just as much of an American phenomenon as it is a male one.
anewguy9000 7y ago
daddy issues?
elhudy 7y ago
damn you guys are really overthinking it. I just like drinking bitter, floral, piney beer.
afarrell 7y ago
Note that its also possible to approach things as a competition without driving all the fun out of it. You just have to: 1) Admit that you're taking it farther than necessary because you get joy/fulfillment from the competition. 2) Appreciate and welcome the non-competitive hobbyists.
regulation_d 7y ago
I think an interesting counterpoint here is that people are doing different things with hops now than they were a decade ago. Most of the really hoppy stuff I've had lately has been heavily dry hopped with little bittering hops during the boil. The result is juicy rather than over-the-top bitter. I would wager that average IPA these days has much lower IBUs than the average IPA did 10 years ago.
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  Is "juicy" different from Citrus-y? Most of the IPAs I happen to taste lately taste something like bitter grapefruit soda but I'd be interested in trying something actually new.
taneq 7y ago
> That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. You see the same with coffee. "I love coffee!" "Well I love it MORE so I don't put sugar in it." "Well I love it EVEN MORE so I drink it black." "Well I love it EVEN MORE THAN YOU so I only drink black espresso with six shots a cup!"
golergka 7y ago
I don't know much about beer, but this reminds me so much of whisky peat and record-breaking Octomore releases.
tomcooks 7y ago
I wonder where women are allowed to compete, according to this world view of yours. Hair care and nail polish? Or cooking maybe? Ah no wait, knitting is THE TRADE for women in your opinion. Maybe this thing you complain about isn't something that people do, not just (American)(young)(white)(rich) males.
hnick 7y ago
I think spicy food (as in, more Scovilles) is an obvious analogue there too. I don't judge since taste is subjective, but I made the decision to cut back on chilies a few years ago when I realised it was getting in the way of enjoying the food. Up until then it was almost a personal challenge just to see where I could push it, for no real reason.
Smithalicious 7y ago
I don't think "hipsters exist" is a particularly novel theory and I especially don't see how any of this is a gendered issue that requires some kind of anti-men rant. I also think it's not very nice to accuse people of not actually enjoying their hobbies.

walrus01 7y ago

As an enthusiastic road cyclist I don't think there has ever been a time in modern history when the cohort of people who ride 10,000km+ a year for general conditioning/cardio/training, and spend $2,000+ on road bikes, wasn't gender ratio skewed by at least 85:15 towards men. It is kind of unfortunate because there should really be nothing gender specific about cycling.

justinator 7y ago
I think it's more about conventional gender roles, the gender pay gap, the fact that many women are scared to do things outside alone, than anything specifically manly about it.
- ehnto 7y ago
  Funnily enough I see lots of women on mountain bikes. I think mountain biking has a really clear delineation between fun and competition. Most mountain bikers have pretty relaxed attitudes, and very few compete. The goal is usually fun foremost. Compared to road cycling where it is more common to lean toward competition, personal performance and comparing to peers. That said, I see it happening there too. Once bike prices started skyrocketing and it became quite a bit more popular, you can occasionally come across a bad personality on the trails. Still fairly rare though.
  - ehnto 7y ago
    Reading this back it might seem like I don't think women compete, on the contrary, women's MTB series seem to be just as popular and competitive as the men's series and they seem to get just as much television time. I remember being impressed by the coverage the first time I watched the Enduro World Series coverage online. My main point was just that MTB as a whole is much less competitive and more welcoming overall than other cycling disciplines.
    - justinator 7y ago
      I think it may be more that road cycling has a rep on exclusion for anything different than the status quo - they made a book about it, poking fun of it: https://www.velominati.com/ https://www.velominati.com/ Plenty of women around here bike commute, mtb, etc. Women are very vocal in these part on cycling rights and livable cities in general. There's a women-owned bike shop that caters specifically to people who want to find car replacements in their lives. I'm very proud of them, so I have to share: https://bikeshopgirl.com/ https://bikeshopgirl.com/
davidw 7y ago
Something I saw road biking in Italy vs in the US is that there is a vastly bigger 'casual' set of people doing it in Italy. It seems like that's less prevalent in the US; you're either really into it or not much at all. It seems like this happens, sometimes in the US... for years beer in the US wasn't that great, and then there was this craft beer explosion, whereas in, say, Austria where I lived for a while, they are still drinking their local beers which are pretty good but don't have so much variety and experimentation.
- hencq 7y ago
  That's one of the first things I noticed when I moved to the US. Not sure if it's specific to the US or maybe just the Bay Area or even just a sign of the times, but it seems like it's impossible for people to "kind of like" something. They immediately have to be really into something, be it beer, cycling, photography, to the point where it becomes their entire identity. It doesn't bother me too much. I'm still happy just enjoying craft beers without memorizing different hop strains, but it's definitely a little odd.
kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
The body-saddle interface is gender specific. That is a problem for a lot of potential riders.
- walrus01 7y ago
  The last time I looked into this, specific to road bike saddles, Specialized and a few others had developed whole product lines and various widths of saddle sit-bone positions specific for female hips and anatomy. But no matter how good a saddle is, for a person just starting with a "real" road bike, who has not been on a bike for many months or years, there's going to be a couple of weeks of discomfort before your posterior anatomy toughens up and you stop feeling some discomfort. A couple of weeks of riding 20km a day at a very leisurely pace should do it. Once you get past that wall, a properly fit saddle should cause no discomfort at all.
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    No amount of marketing will change human physiology.
- rhinoceraptor 7y ago
  If you're going to spend that much on a bike, then the saddle is really only there for test rides. You'll replace it with your preferred one as soon as you buy it.
jiofih 7y ago
That’s gonna be the top 20% of commute distances, but plenty of men and women doing 10k+/year in Europe.
- jiofih 7y ago
  Why downvoted? That’s a 12km daily commute.

giggles_giggles 7y ago

Wow this is all incredibly sexist.

seiferteric 7y ago
How?
- tasogare 7y ago
  > My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. You seemed to have missed that part.
  - seiferteric 7y ago
    I don't think it is inherently sexist to suggest that men or woman may exhibit certain behaviors more than the other. I am not sure when we crossed the line that making any such suggestion is inherently sexist.
    - giggles_giggles 7y ago
      It's pretty sexist to imply that only men exhibit this particular form of gatekeeping or making men in the minority of some hobby group feel out of place, and then coining a term for it with "men" right in the name, as though women never do what is described. Complain about some subset of the population who has made a lifestyle choice you don't like (bros) all you want. But "mentrification"? Give me a break. That's just a prejudicial slur.
      - taco_emoji 7y ago
        "Prejudicial slur"? Give ME a break.
    - uxp100 7y ago
      "Mentrification" suggests that men enter women's hobbies and ruin them. It also suggests that there is a right and wrong way to engage with things (See conversations about how men and women engage with fiction differently, analysis vs elaboration, power rankings vs fan-fiction, etc). Rather than saying the word "mentrification" is sexist, which is a complex question (like nobody is being hurt because someone on twitter comes up with a funny phrase), I'd rather say, if someone used mentrification in earnest, they're probably a shitty person and I don't want to hang out with them.

enra 7y ago

As a personal preference, I do prefer IPAs just for the taste. I do drink other beers too but anything short of Pale Ale, feels weak and doesn't give similar weight. There are lot of variance between different IPAs and Pale Ales, I prefer more citrus and mosaic ones. My favorite is Sculpin IPA and Wolfback Ridge IPA and my least favorite is probably Racer 5 even thought its generally highly rated.

devchix 7y ago
Amen! But don't say it so loud lest they call us poseurs. :) My favorite is one is called Resin, made by SixPoint Brewery out of Brooklyn. Just like the name, the nose is floral like pine sap, it's lovely. My other favorite is made by The Maine Beer Company, MO is a terrific, well-balanced Pale Ale, Another One (that's its name) is a 5% ABV IPA, also lovely. It's not just a west coast thing, good IPA brewers and drinkers are everywhere, and we don't just do it to out-men the men.

cowpig 7y ago

I feel like I see all those same things and feel happy for the people involved, that they are finding something that they feel a passion for. I also sometimes feel disdain and judgment towards other peoples' interests, (pop music, for example) but I feel more and more as I get older that that those feelings do not serve me (or anyone else) in any positive way.

Enginerrrd 7y ago

I feel like this is reading into it a bit much. I'm not that into beer, but I really like hoppy IPA's and always have. Even in high school / college, if the only option was cheap beer, I just wouldn't drink it because I didn't enjoy it. I preferred microbrew beers, and found that I didn't really like belgians/red ales/porters/etc. But I loved my first sip of a fresh Lagunitas IPA. I noticed that not all batches were the same with them. Sometimes it would have a lovely crispness and fruitiness, and sometimes that wasn't there. Isn't it possible that people just like hoppy beers? They seem to have quite a range of flavors and aromas they can offer in and of themselves. I mean, I like coffee too and picked up that habit right quick in high school. I didn't do it because I was trying to be "manly", I did it because it was the only way I could pay attention to classes, and I rapidly came to like it. Coffee is bitter. So are grapefruits, and brussel sprouts and a lot of things that some people just enjoy. Not everyone has to agree, and it doesn't need to get labeled as some kind of weird virtue signaling. I do like the "mentrification" word though! Although it sounds like we differ in what I consider the "fun" in a hobby.

munificent 7y ago
Sure, I didn't mean to imply that all people who like hoppy beers do this. (I like IPAs too sometimes.) Just that some do, and they are loud and vocal enough that they influence the entire scene in ways that are a negative for others.
spike021 7y ago
I don't think the person you're replying to is making a blanket statement that anyone who drinks IPA's don't drink them because they like them but because of the image. I think they're just trying to convey that there is a decent sized subset of beer drinkers who seem to drink IPA's for a reason much different from yours.
erikpukinskis 7y ago
Yeah, I still remember the first time a had a Bells Two-Hearted. It was bliss. I think some people just like bitter and some don’t. That said, I can’t eat a straight grapefruit, even covered in sugar. Love a grapefruit soda though.

victor9000 7y ago

The abundance of hops in beer is a west coast thing, as east coast beers tend to be more mild. So that's something to look into if west coast beers don't appeal to your palate. However, assigning a regional flavor to some sort of bravado seems odd. Do people say the same thing about a dry wine, a strong flavored cheese, or an Islay scotch? Of course not, so this seems more like a personal issue than anything else.

amyjess 7y ago
Honestly, discovering east coast beers actually made me like hops. My experience with west coast beers convinced me that hops were awful and that my ideal bear would have _just_ enough hops to prevent spoilage and that's it. Which is why I drank nothing but Scotch ales, Belgian beers, and milk stouts for a long time. Eventually, I even started moving away from beer as I finally decided to give wine a chance. And then I tried a New England-style hazy IPA, and I fell in love. It's hoppy, but it's not bitter. Most have 40 IBUs at the absolute most, and 30 is pretty common (and when it's 40, it's balanced out by enough malt that the bitterness isn't detectable). They taste like alcoholic orange juice (less harsh than a screwdriver, though). So nowadays I will drink every hazy, juicy, and milkshake IPA I can get my hands on. (Edit:) So it turns out I actually do like hops after all; I just hated what west coast beers did with them. And milkshake IPAs really make a mockery of the original concept of an IPA: not only are they not bitter, but they're actively sweet because they have added lactose (which is an unfermentable sugar and thus directly contributes to sweetness). They're great if you really want an IPA for people who hate IPAs.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 7y ago
  I've toured a lot of eastern breweries tried countless east coast ipas. There certainly are plenty of ~40ibu ipas around. However, from my experience, you're most likely to find those at restaurants that are following the beer trends, slowly, and supermarkets. It's only been over the past couple years that most of my local shops started carrying mass produced double ipas besides arrogant bastard. By and large the best places to get a good dipa is at the brewery. Most of favorites see very limited distribution and very small runs. Finding a triple ipa is a task on its own. Quality, and consistency is all over the place between breweries and batches. I've bought cans that've spoiled on the shelf. Some breweries have purchase limits because enterprising folk have filled vans with cases of beer to resell in other states. Sours, like hill farmsteads ales, but more tart, have seen a resurgence. Stouts are still waning in popularity. Pilsners have a place in most long running breweries list as a fallback for those with less experienced or more traditional palates. I've grown fond of strong kombuchas >3% abv, goses, dry ciders, and randalled brews that have been cropping up lately. I've also had quite a few beers made with teas that have been great. Don't write off meads or gruits either.

ljm 7y ago

It feels a little cynical. You can enjoy beer and music and stuff without getting into a dick measuring contest. If all they want to do is one-up you then they’re not your friend. Find someone who listens to you. If that’s their way of enjoying things, then what’s so bad about it? They presumably dislike a lot of the hobbies you enjoy, they’re not out there to ‘mentrify’ them. (Why this gendered insulting is okay when it’s aimed against men, I don’t know.)

paggle 7y ago
Turning things into competitions often has extremely negative externalities. The desire to be the richest, or have the biggest house, or the fastest car, or drink the most alcohol, etc... destroys lives. And this kind of status scrambling is not exclusive to men.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. People seeking to do things better, faster and cheaper in order to make a buck (or even just for the bragging rights) in order to improve their own personal standard of living gives us electric lighting, oranges in February, the massive amount of infrastructure it takes to get this comment from my fingertips to your eyeballs and every other part of modern life you don't notice but would notice if it were missing. Yes there's externalities but at a societal scale we do a pretty decent job of playing whack-a-mole as they become critical.
  - shkkmo 7y ago
    > Competition is why our modern standard of living is what it is. Yet you can say the exact same thing about cooperation. I would argue that cooperation is atleast as critical an ingredient here as competition. Indeed, the infrastructure that allows me to view the comment you posted depends on open standards, open source software and generally could not have existed without groups of people working together to accomplish goals. I would personally say that cooperation, freedom and passion are more important than competition, greed and ego in terms of enabling the accomplishments of our society. That is not to say that competition has no role to play, but it is part of a melange of human dynamics that are necessary. Specifically, competition works best between between groups of freely cooperating individuals, especially when those groups can periodically set aside that competition to cooperatively further the goals of their mutual passions and dreams.

oh_sigh 7y ago

Women don't listen to music because men shows up and liked music too much?

ssully 7y ago
I think the poster is more saying men come in and make liking the music a competition, which from my experience is a very real thing. I have absolutely run into people the poster is describing, and unfortunately was friends with people like that for awhile. It wasn't "liking music too much"; they would act superior about music and tried to lay down what was "good" music to play/listen to. It is an incredibly narrow minded view and it is even worse when they are competitive about it.
- oh_sigh 7y ago
  How does one subset of an audience viewing something as a competition affect other subsets of the audience? Has any woman ever said "Boy, I wish I could like show tunes more, but there are just too many men who view Norwegian speed metal as the only real music"
  - dnhz 7y ago
    The original example was not listening to music but audiophilia. The segment of music listeners that buy super-oxygen-free cables, tube amps, and expensive speakers seems to be heavily male-skewed.
    - oh_sigh 7y ago
      Is there any evidence that women are being turned away from music in general or even audiophilia because of this?

rc-1140 7y ago

I agree with the content of your message, as I have seen it happen many times myself first-hand, but I disagree with the way you're framing the phenomenon. > My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. I believe that this is a loaded word that does nothing but churn the online gender conflict machine propagated by places like (surprise) Twitter. It doesn't highlight a type of person as the cause, it highlights a gender. The Meaningness article concerning "mops", the "mop invasion", and the "sociopaths" that follow[0] is overall a more accurate representation of what happens when a hobby, craft, or culture is co-opted like this. [0] https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

munificent 7y ago
Yes, that's all entirely fair. But the word nerd part of me can't help but be delighted by the absolutely perfect pun of "mentrification". It just... it's like the second you read the word its meaning leaps into your mind. It perfectly extends the metaphor of "gatekeeping".
tonyarkles 7y ago
Thanks for posting that! I was immediately reminded of that article but couldn't remember any of names of the groups or find the article.

uxp100 7y ago

> My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. So you think that less women ride bicycles and drink beer than 20 years ago?

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Definitely the opposite. Just as OP complains about bros getting to into things like beer as their identity, maybe the fail to realize that other people make their identities about real or perceived social injustices and how awesome they are to bring them up a every chance maybe not realizing that's more annoying.
- optimuspaul 7y ago
  This. I definitely see a certain culture of men that glom onto things like beer or bicycles or coding and making that their identity. It is because of this that they are seen as "Mentrifying" those hobbies. I do think that there is some risk in those groups alienating those without the same passion from becoming involved in those hobbies. In fact one of the reasons I don't golf anymore is exactly this. Golf culture is intensly insular and full of arrogant people (not to say that all are this way or maybe it has changed since I last golfed).
  - meddlepal 7y ago
    I think the key to enjoying golf is to learn to play by yourself or play with people that aren't interested in competition. I agree "golf people" are insufferable that's why I avoid them as much as possible.
    - optimuspaul 7y ago
      totally, but hard to get a course to yourself. To be clear it isn't the people I am playing with but the others on the course at the same time.

ratww 7y ago

Oh, this applies to anything. At my last job the competition for a few months was who had the largest vimfile. And if you used other editor you weren't manly enough, of course. People will complain, but dudebros are able to suck the fun out of anything. And the professionalism.

microtherion 7y ago

> A certain class of men (sometimes women, but it's almost always men) get interested in something and then desire to make it part of their identity. That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. Absolutely! I'm seeing the same thing in chocolate, where people chase cocoa %ages, and spicy food, where people brag about how many Scoville Units they can handle.

munificent 7y ago
Oh, those are great examples too. And, again, you see it happening clearly because they managed to conjure up some weird-ass numeric score for it.
- scrumper 7y ago
  It's a fun and clever little label for a trend that's quite obvious when it's pointed out! Someone upthread mentioned stinky cheese, dry wine, and peaty Islay Scotch. Those things don't yet have absolute metrics - it'd be amusing to see what happens if they ever do.
  - munificent 7y ago
    The future is now. For wine, there's the "Total Polyphenol Index": https://www.decanter.com/learn/advice/tannin-scale-ask-decanter-366976/ https://www.decanter.com/learn/advice/tannin-scale-ask-decan... For peat in Scotch, the "phenol parts per million": https://www.theyorkshiregent.com/whisky/the-scotch-whisky-peat-scale-explained/ https://www.theyorkshiregent.com/whisky/the-scotch-whisky-pe... Not sure if someone's found a way to game cheese yet.
    - scrumper 7y ago
      Wonderful. Wikipedia sorely needs a page listing quantitative metrics of comestible qualia. Inspired by those two, I went on a hunt for a cheese metric but the search results got rapidly unpleasant ("Why does it smell like Swiss cheese behind my ears?" was what made me finally close the tab.)

justincredible 7y ago

> My favorite Tweet ever was someone who described this process that dudes do where they show up, take over a hobby, and drive all the fun out (and thus women) as "MENTRIFICATION". It is my new favorite word. Versus when chicks show up, deconstruct every aspect of a hobby, and drive away anyone who was actually interested in it. At least with competition someone wins.

bagacrap 7y ago

When exactly did dudes "show up" to "riding bicycles" and "drive all the fun out"?

kalleboo 7y ago
I don't know about "driving all the fun out", but whenever riding a bike comes up in conversations with Americans, they seem to assume that you need to go full-spandex, $1000 racing bike with all the accessories just for your commute. I always assumed this was because in the US, riding a bike is a weird, dangerous activity, so the only people who did it was complete weirdos, but I could also see it being a dudebro cultural thing ("making [your method of commute] your identity" as the other poster put it)

starpilot 7y ago

https://brokeassstuart.com/2018/01/29/stop-pretending-like-ipas/ https://brokeassstuart.com/2018/01/29/stop-pretending-like-i... Taste is a weird thing. People hate bitter coffee, but seem to worship bitter beers.

apr 7y ago
That's a broad and unsubstantiated statement about coffee. Personally I love bitter coffee.

lordgrenville 7y ago

I have a theory that every subculture attracts two types of adherents: people who are genuinely enthusiastic about it and love introducing their passion to new people, and those looking for a way to set themselves apart, who primarily want to gatekeep and condescend to those not "in the know". It's easy to tell the two groups apart by their reaction when meeting a curious outsider. It sounds like your description would firmly fit the second group. (It doesn't need to be gendered, although it does usually seem to be men who act this way.)

munificent 7y ago
> I have a theory that every subculture attracts two types of adherents: people who are genuinely enthusiastic about it and love introducing their passion to new people, and those looking for a way to set themselves apart, who primarily want to gatekeep and condescend to those not "in the know". Yes, definitely. There are some who feel that their membership in the group is all they have and thus the more people in the group, the relatively less they are. Insecurity is the root of gatekeeping.

streb-lo 7y ago

>My uncharitable pet theory is this: A certain class of men (sometimes women, but it's almost always men) get interested in something and then desire to make it part of their identity. That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. So hacker news and technophiles? Good grief you sound worse than the people you are criticizing. Heaven forbid people like something.

zrobotics 7y ago
Liking a hobby/activity isn't a problem. The problem is when people start gatekeeping (such as "no real programmer uses Javascript", etc). For instance, I like whisky, but I actively hate most whisky aficionados because it often just turns into a competition of "who bought the rarest/most expensive bottle" rather than "I like this brand/year". This behavior definitely occurs in the tech sphere (I've been judged for using Windows, since no real programmer would possibly be able to use anything besides mac/linux), but this behavior is always obnoxious and drives people away from activities.
abathur 7y ago
I guess the inverse is: heaven forbid people like something without letting their passion curdle into possessive competition with other people who try to like it?

AareyBaba 7y ago

ABV = Alcohol by Volume IBU = International Bitterness Units

tomatotomato37 7y ago

A very similar theory to geek/mop evolution of subcultures: https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths

whatshisface 7y ago

Is competition and quantitative thinking exclusive to one gender?

anm89 7y ago

My uncharitable pet theory is this: a certain class of people who are deeply unhappy with themselves don't like to see other people enjoying things they don't like or understand because they themselves have not filled this void in their own lives. Because these people need to seek out confirmation from a larger group on everything they do to compensate for their own lack of of self perceived self worth, and because gender or race are the largest groups available, they need to frame everything in term of a group struggle regarding race or gender to guarantee there is a built in audience to cheer them on at every step and reaffirm their worth and place in the social hierarchy. It's gross. Also I hate IPAs.

mc3 7y ago

Yes this is definitely a thing. I haven't seen it in beer personally, but I have seen it in other walks of like. Programming for instance "I worked on a 1M LoC system" "Mine was 10M LoC", or "I worked on a 1000 requests per second" "Aah that's nothing, we got 1M requests per second" etc. Fitness is an obvious one. Especially now your can track your average minutes per mile and all that shit on your phone. It is much more enjoyable just going out for a jog and fuck the metrics.

mersenne 7y ago
Reminds me of that Monty Python skit about the Yorkshiremen competing on who grew up the poorest.

hirsin 7y ago

Sample size a couple dozen only, but IBU on the menu has also been helpful to non-IPA drinkers I know, so they can avoid things they don't enjoy. It's also trended locally (Ballard) towards golf - see Reuben's releasing a zero-ibu IPA.

munificent 7y ago
Yeah, I agree listing the IBU is useful even for people who want low IBU. But the reason that's even an issue in the first-place is because of grandstanding hop-heads pushing the upper limit so high that a casual drinker selecting a brew at random has an increased chance of getting something they'd find completely unpalatable. It's like hot sauce. You didn't need to put the Scoville units on the menu until people started making hot sauces that would peel the lining off your digestive tract. But they didn't start making those hot sauces until people started measuring and talking about Scoville units as the only metric worth caring about.

asdf21 7y ago

Let me frame that in a way that might make you feel less... disgusted apparently. Men used to primarily compete at killing one another and general conquest -- these all seem like fairly harmless alternatives comparatively.

reitzensteinm 7y ago

If we're going to draw arbitrary circles around groups of people, I think this is just as much of an American phenomenon as it is a male one.

anewguy9000 7y ago

daddy issues?

elhudy 7y ago

damn you guys are really overthinking it. I just like drinking bitter, floral, piney beer.

afarrell 7y ago

Note that its also possible to approach things as a competition without driving all the fun out of it. You just have to: 1) Admit that you're taking it farther than necessary because you get joy/fulfillment from the competition. 2) Appreciate and welcome the non-competitive hobbyists.

regulation_d 7y ago

I think an interesting counterpoint here is that people are doing different things with hops now than they were a decade ago. Most of the really hoppy stuff I've had lately has been heavily dry hopped with little bittering hops during the boil. The result is juicy rather than over-the-top bitter. I would wager that average IPA these days has much lower IBUs than the average IPA did 10 years ago.

joe_the_user 7y ago
Is "juicy" different from Citrus-y? Most of the IPAs I happen to taste lately taste something like bitter grapefruit soda but I'd be interested in trying something actually new.

taneq 7y ago

> That in turn means they want to convey that they are more into it than other people. Their passion expresses itself as competition. You see the same with coffee. "I love coffee!" "Well I love it MORE so I don't put sugar in it." "Well I love it EVEN MORE so I drink it black." "Well I love it EVEN MORE THAN YOU so I only drink black espresso with six shots a cup!"

golergka 7y ago

I don't know much about beer, but this reminds me so much of whisky peat and record-breaking Octomore releases.

tomcooks 7y ago

I wonder where women are allowed to compete, according to this world view of yours. Hair care and nail polish? Or cooking maybe? Ah no wait, knitting is THE TRADE for women in your opinion. Maybe this thing you complain about isn't something that people do, not just (American)(young)(white)(rich) males.

hnick 7y ago

I think spicy food (as in, more Scovilles) is an obvious analogue there too. I don't judge since taste is subjective, but I made the decision to cut back on chilies a few years ago when I realised it was getting in the way of enjoying the food. Up until then it was almost a personal challenge just to see where I could push it, for no real reason.

Smithalicious 7y ago

I don't think "hipsters exist" is a particularly novel theory and I especially don't see how any of this is a gendered issue that requires some kind of anti-men rant. I also think it's not very nice to accuse people of not actually enjoying their hobbies.