Re-Evaluating the NEIPA

I’m not the biggest fan of the NE IPA style, which I had wrongly thought of as just being a hazy version of the grapefruit IPAs I used to get. Thinking of it that way made it easy to dismiss a style that was, I felt, both boring in its mining of flavors I was burnt out on, and visually unappealing due to ‘laziness’.

Turns out, there’s a lot more to it, and this story on Old Nation Brewing demonstrates. They were opposed to the style too and now they’re making it (and money) hand over fist. All in all, pretty cool and a good reminder for myself that professionals make it look easy and only a fool thinks it’s as simple as they make it look.

And sometimes, I’m the fool.

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Recreating History

I like this article, especially for this quote:

“It can be dull in a lot of ways, but then you have those moments of insight and discovery that make it all worthwhile. ”

I like that statement because it both reminds me that doing the work can often feel like drudgery, but if I can keep a lively mind during it, there will be opportunities to discover and make things better.

The Beer ATM

A friend sent me this article and I had three immediate reactions to it, and then a fourth a bit later.

1. They made a self-serve! That’s pretty cool.
2. Wait. That’s a little dangerous.
3. Oh. They have figured out how to charge you for a taste. The greedy bastards.

It’s that third point that stuck in my throat. And then it hit me:

4. This process has been casino’d.

That is to say; you hand over your “unlimited card of money” and press a pretty button over and over again to have “fun” dispensed to you.

And the more I think about that, the more I hate it.

An IBU Overview

I really appreciated this in depth look at what IBUs mean and are used for in the beer world. It’s informative and will help me have better discussions further on about what IBU means and does for beer.

It also helps guard me against the use of IBUs as a sales tactic (if you didn’t read the article I’ll summarize: it’s bullshit) and any knowledge that allows me to be less prey to the forces of marketers is good.

The Impact of Dry Hopping

I, like most other homebrewers, have been told that to make a good IPA and sometimes even a good pale ale, dry hopping is a necessary step because it offers the nose that the style is looking for. However, doing so just adds aroma, not bittering qualities so we didn’t have to worry about making the beer less palatable on the back end.

Or so we were told.

But Jeff Alworth differs on this and tells us why here. There’s science and everything!

Now, the impact of dry hopping in Jeff’s article applies a little more to commercial breweries but clearly has ramifications for homebrewers who are throwing as many hops as the wort can take. It also means that there’s a space for research into how dry hopping impacts a beer and what flavors may be produced that might be considered undesirable or even beneficial.

Sure, it leaves me with more questions than answers but at least these things are interesting!

On Monopolies

While I have a backlog of stuff to post, this is coming to the forefront because of the timely nature of things. Beer things, not the scary other things happening.

When craft brewery Wicked Weed sold to ABInbev it set off a wave of criticism in the industry.

Haven’t heard of WW? Me neither-but they were apparently beloved in their community and made some pretty good beer.

This article really digs into the meat of what’s going on and why ABInbev is buying these brands and I thought that it would be pretty informative to bring to my readers, too.

Then Lagunitas sold out to Heineken not even a week later. Heineken is the second largest brewing conglomerate in the world.

I’m reading that between Heineken and ABInbev, that’s 40% of the market. Globally. 4 of every 10 beers sold in the world goes to them.

As a result, the more craft breweries that sell out-and that is what it is-the graver my concerns about being able to get good beer at a fair price become. Especially in light of stories like this, about an illegal inducement campaign.

Fallout

This is an old story that was brought to my attention and is just too good not to share.

I mean, since we’re living (again) in the shadow of nukes, this might be good information to have!