Hop to It

So last week, after my rant I said I might do a post about beer. So here it is.

ThIs might come as a surprise to some of you but I actually don't drink much. Ignore the fact that my garage is full of a huge amount of home brew. Some of you will also have the impression that I drink cider but that's just because of Sunday Cider, where I drink one bottle of cider on a Sunday night and tweet about it. I started doing that because I knew nothing about cider and I wanted to try lots of different types. No, when I do drink it's almost always some form of beer, and I'm definitely a real ale or craft beer drinker these days. I can barely stomach mass produced, commercial beer anymore and don't even talk to me about that crap we call lager in Britain. 

So to get to my point, I recently posted this on Facebook: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/drink/2013/05/hoppy_beer_is_awful_or_at_least_its_bitterness_is_ruining_craft_beer_s_reputation.html

Which I just realised was originally posted in 2013 and it seems nobody in the beer making community has taken it to heart at all. The vast majority of ale on sale at the moment is hoppy. I understand why as well. To the people who make it the hops are the interesting part. They're the bit with the most variety and the most subtlety that can be used to manipulate the tast of the beer you're lovingly creating. It also tends to be the part that the brewers are in to. Just like lovers of other food stuffs, the bit of it they like the most is the bitter bit or the bit those of us who aren't into it as much struggle with. And there's nothing wrong with that, go for it, go for your lives, you like it, do it, there's room for everything out there and it's obviously popular enough for them to be making money out of it. Here's the rub though, go to any pub with a decent selection of real or craft beers and check out how many of them are described as "fruity" 75%, 80%? It's a high percentage and the fruit it tastes of is grapefruit, and the problem with that is that grapefruit isn't a particularly nice taste. That's why supermarkets sell more oranges than grapefruit but you don't see any beer selling itself as "orangey" or "strawberry-y" or "star fruity" (whatever that would taste like). Last night I had a stout (I cant remember what it was called) that was also grapefruity - it was all manner of wrong. I can see why you might experiment with a hoppy stout but come on? Did nobody stop and ask why? 

So what I'm asking for is for some balance. Fine, make your hoppy, bitter, grapefruity beer but please why not try making different flavours with different malts and yeasts? You might just find you attract the people who have been put off by all the hops.