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Totally agree. The craft beer industry needs to stop with all this IPA nonsense. It’s absurd how hard it is to find anything but yet another weird IPA. If the

Totally agree. The craft beer industry needs to stop with all this IPA nonsense. It’s absurd how hard it is to find anything but yet another weird IPA. If the craft beer industry is shrinking, this is one large component. Stop with the nonstop IPA’s. There is way more beers than just IPA’s.

lockhouse 3y ago
Not sure why you were downvoted. What you say is true! I’m a bit biased, but I’d like to see a few more Porters and Stouts.
- spookthesunset 3y ago
  Stouts are so good but even in a store with a large beer selection they are hard to find.
  - kelnos 3y ago
    At least you can usually find Guinness. Obviously not the best stout in the world, but at least it's consistent and you know what you're gonna get.
    - paulmd 3y ago
      Everyone rants about how great guinness is, but the draught cans taste incredibly watered-down to me for some reason. Extra Stout and Foreign Stout are fine and I have to imagine that's what guiness tastes like for EU customers.
      - lockhouse 3y ago
        Guinness Foreign Extra stout is so good! It’s a shame its so difficult to find.
        paulmd 3y ago
        Yeah that's my favorite of the guinesses. Extra is an acceptable example of a stout, drinkable but I've had better. But Foreign is actively good and I'd put it near the top of my list. My local grocery store was clearing them out, 4paks for $7.50 and it was a nice little turn of events. The Anniversary Stout is another great one but that was a limited return. Bell's Kalamazoo Stout is my One Beer For The Rest Of My Life though, just absolutely perfect in every way, as is customary for Bell's. I still enjoy some Fat Tire in the summer, and Bell's does a fantastic Czech Pilsner, and their Flamingo Fruit Fight pomegrate sour is actually fantastic too, but Kalamazoo Stout is the one I could never live without. Sad that Bell's has gotten bought out too, it's a trend recently where macros are buying up micros so they don't have to do the work of building their own products and branding. The macros know they're in trouble, nobody under the age of 40 is actively seeking out a budweiser or coors these days. A few of them are acceptable (Milwaukee's Best Ice, Rolling Rock, Genesee Cream Ale, etc) but most of them I'd rather drink something else than suffer through Budweiser or whatever. Calories count too much these days for me to waste them on something I'm not enjoying the taste of. Goose Island is coors iirc, Sierra Nevada got bought a couple years ago iirc, Blue Moon is macro, etc.
kulshan 3y ago
I work at a craft beer bar, in general folks want live fresh beer...I pour 1 stout for every 50 Ipas I pour. We have the option but folks love their pale ales and ipas. Anchor would just go bad on our rotation...a freshly brewed pilsner, i'll sell a bunch. A blaise steam beer that isn't "fresh" isn't winning any body over. That said I'm a big fan of anchor porter, the general public is not.
- kelnos 3y ago
  I do wonder how much of this phenomenon is just self-reinforcing. Sell a large variety of IPAs, and only a small number of other choices, and sure, people will tend to gravitate toward IPAs. Add on top of that heavy marketing of IPAs over other options, and people will gravitate toward them.
  - bartread 3y ago
    I think this is a lot of it: people order IPA because they think they know what it is and because they're everywhere. It's the John Smith's of the 2010s/20s. I went through a phase of drinking a lot of different IPAs, and it was fun, but now I'm looking at other options. The IPA thing has just been overdone and there are only so many iterations of weird IPA formulae that I can deal with. I will still drink IPA if that's the only ale/craft beer on offer in the bar... and that really goes back to your point about self-reinforcement.
  - kulshan 3y ago
    Well we have 10 taps...representing nearly 10 styles...I'll tell ya I change pale and Ipa every shift. The others, once a week.
- paulmd 3y ago
  pale ales are frankly a lot more palatable than IPAs imo. When I looked back at the IPAs I liked, I realized most of them weren't actually IPAs, they were just pale. but yeah I'm tired of being assblasted by overhopped west-coast IPAs. The ones I've liked, it turns out to be east coast. Even then, I'm tired of being hit over the head with hazy, juicy, mosaic, fruity, citra, etc. Very very rarely do I see these hops used effectively - Oddside Citra Pale Ale is an example of an exception.

lockhouse 3y ago

Not sure why you were downvoted. What you say is true! I’m a bit biased, but I’d like to see a few more Porters and Stouts.

spookthesunset 3y ago
Stouts are so good but even in a store with a large beer selection they are hard to find.
- kelnos 3y ago
  At least you can usually find Guinness. Obviously not the best stout in the world, but at least it's consistent and you know what you're gonna get.
  - paulmd 3y ago
    Everyone rants about how great guinness is, but the draught cans taste incredibly watered-down to me for some reason. Extra Stout and Foreign Stout are fine and I have to imagine that's what guiness tastes like for EU customers.
    - lockhouse 3y ago
      Guinness Foreign Extra stout is so good! It’s a shame its so difficult to find.
      - paulmd 3y ago
        Yeah that's my favorite of the guinesses. Extra is an acceptable example of a stout, drinkable but I've had better. But Foreign is actively good and I'd put it near the top of my list. My local grocery store was clearing them out, 4paks for $7.50 and it was a nice little turn of events. The Anniversary Stout is another great one but that was a limited return. Bell's Kalamazoo Stout is my One Beer For The Rest Of My Life though, just absolutely perfect in every way, as is customary for Bell's. I still enjoy some Fat Tire in the summer, and Bell's does a fantastic Czech Pilsner, and their Flamingo Fruit Fight pomegrate sour is actually fantastic too, but Kalamazoo Stout is the one I could never live without. Sad that Bell's has gotten bought out too, it's a trend recently where macros are buying up micros so they don't have to do the work of building their own products and branding. The macros know they're in trouble, nobody under the age of 40 is actively seeking out a budweiser or coors these days. A few of them are acceptable (Milwaukee's Best Ice, Rolling Rock, Genesee Cream Ale, etc) but most of them I'd rather drink something else than suffer through Budweiser or whatever. Calories count too much these days for me to waste them on something I'm not enjoying the taste of. Goose Island is coors iirc, Sierra Nevada got bought a couple years ago iirc, Blue Moon is macro, etc.

kulshan 3y ago

I work at a craft beer bar, in general folks want live fresh beer...I pour 1 stout for every 50 Ipas I pour. We have the option but folks love their pale ales and ipas. Anchor would just go bad on our rotation...a freshly brewed pilsner, i'll sell a bunch. A blaise steam beer that isn't "fresh" isn't winning any body over. That said I'm a big fan of anchor porter, the general public is not.

kelnos 3y ago
I do wonder how much of this phenomenon is just self-reinforcing. Sell a large variety of IPAs, and only a small number of other choices, and sure, people will tend to gravitate toward IPAs. Add on top of that heavy marketing of IPAs over other options, and people will gravitate toward them.
- bartread 3y ago
  I think this is a lot of it: people order IPA because they think they know what it is and because they're everywhere. It's the John Smith's of the 2010s/20s. I went through a phase of drinking a lot of different IPAs, and it was fun, but now I'm looking at other options. The IPA thing has just been overdone and there are only so many iterations of weird IPA formulae that I can deal with. I will still drink IPA if that's the only ale/craft beer on offer in the bar... and that really goes back to your point about self-reinforcement.
- kulshan 3y ago
  Well we have 10 taps...representing nearly 10 styles...I'll tell ya I change pale and Ipa every shift. The others, once a week.
paulmd 3y ago
pale ales are frankly a lot more palatable than IPAs imo. When I looked back at the IPAs I liked, I realized most of them weren't actually IPAs, they were just pale. but yeah I'm tired of being assblasted by overhopped west-coast IPAs. The ones I've liked, it turns out to be east coast. Even then, I'm tired of being hit over the head with hazy, juicy, mosaic, fruity, citra, etc. Very very rarely do I see these hops used effectively - Oddside Citra Pale Ale is an example of an exception.