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LGM Beer Talk: I Like IPAs Because I Am Better Than You

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The last time I put up a beer post, the comment thread immediately descended into the inevitable LGM commenters line. Here’s how it goes: “IPAs are the worst. The WORST!!! Why can’t beer just taste like BEER!!!!!!!!” Whatever that is supposed to mean. This is always the same conversation. And it’s ridiculous. Look, IPAs are great. I love them. It’s also OK to hate them. There are lots of varieties of beer out there. The reality is that in any store, any bar, and almost any brewery, you can find something you like unless a) you only like one style of beer and then only maybe or b) you don’t actually like beer at all. We live in a cornucopia of great beers. But no one likes every style, or almost no one. Personally, there are lots of styles I don’t really like. I don’t much care for beers that are overly sweet, which means I drink very few brown ales or red ales, for example. I tend to not like the alcohol to completely destroy me, so I don’t really enjoy barleywine. I do appreciate big complex boozy stouts, but it’s a very occasional thing. Even among huge beer fans, there can be lots of disagreement. Not to out him or anything, but if you ever drink with djw, he’s quite likely to go for those big boozy beers that I mostly stay away from. And that’s fine–there are lots of great styles out there that not everyone has to like! Tastes change too. I used to drink tons of Belgians, 5 years ago or so, and now I drink a lot fewer. I have totally embraced sours, although not every day. The supposed Brut IPA is a garbage style that needs to go away. The Cascadian Dark Ale/Black IPA was huge 6 or 7 years ago, totally disappeared for 3 or 4 years, and now seems to be coming back into style. So yes, for me, the platonic ideal of a beer is a classic hoppy West Coast IPA, maybe at about 7 percent alcohol, a little piney and not too too fruity, though I don’t mind the Juicy IPA style (which is annoying name but less annoying than when it was called New England IPA even though it didn’t exist in Rhode Island). But I also drink lighter beers, smoked beers when I can get them, the occasional porter and stout, etc., etc. It’s all good.

Moreover, the vast majority of beer bars reflect this variety. All the whining about IPAs at bars really reminds me of classic conservative projection on other cultural and political issues, one that in this case means that even seeing a few beers you don’t like makes people feel like they need a beer safe space and talk about how the elitists are taking over. Whenever these conversations come up, I go to the website of Bier Stein in Eugene, my watering hole when I am home. It’s not the best beer bar in Eugene for beer nerds–that’s 16 Tons which is great but isn’t really for the casual beer drinker. Bier Stein is where you go with people, the food is pretty good, and they have a good solid taplist. Check out the current taplist, which they update in real time with percentages left on the kegs, which I always like. As of writing, the list has all of 5 of its 25 taps dedicated to IPAs. There are always a couple of German beers, a couple of Belgians, a couple of stouts, a couple of ciders, and a variety of other things. This is a NORMAL beer bar taplist selection almost anywhere you go in the country that specializes in good beer that isn’t a true beer nerd bar. Despite what so many LGM commenters, scared of new beer styles evidently, like to say, you can always find a good beer no matter where you go.

But a brewery can brew whatever it wants. I was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire a couple of weeks ago and ended up at Great Rhythm Brewery. Great place. And while I don’t necessarily believe this, given the last beer thread, let me point out that 6 of the 8 taps were IPAs, they were awesome, and you losers aren’t welcome there because your whiny ass tastes suck so fuck you guys while I enjoy my delicious IPAs thinking how much better I am than you. The End.

I have also recently visited Whalers Brewery in Wakefield, Rhode Island, which is a great example of how a brewery that I did not think was very good when it opened several years ago can really improve over time and do some really great beers, even if they still have their old hazelnut brown on tap sometimes, which was an original flagship that I thought was terrible. But they do some really first rate sours now and almost everything is solid or significantly above. So even if a brewery starts out kind of shaky, it can really improve. I also visited Stellwagen Brewery in Marshfield, Massachusetts, a place with a big space, but only three beers on tap when I was there–2 IPAs and one stout, all pretty good.

The other big beer news in my life I guess is that Toppling Goliath is now distributing in Rhode Island. I had heard of this great Iowa brewery and now that I have had it, I can see why people like it so well.

Anyway, I await what will no doubt be a very reasonable and well-considered comment thread for this post.

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