In this week’s episode we take a look at IPA exhaustion. It’s the phrase we just made up to get at the realization that most of the beers we have to choose between are a variation on an IPA. IPAs, AIPAs, WCIPAs NEIPAs there doesn’t seem to be an end to the variations people are willing to make to be able to continue brewing some sort of IPA.

Seriously, god bless them.

IPA Exhaustion

Tired of Drinking IPA? Then Try One of These New IPAs

No matter if you call it “West Coast,” “Black,” “Belgian,” “Double,” “Imperial,” “White,” “Session” or just plain-old “India Pale Ale,” sales of all kinds of IPA beer have exploded over the last 15 years. And seemingly a new type of IPA seems to pop up every four to six months.

For the first time in a long time, I got a sense of why people feel like they have to write “IPAs Are Over” type stories. I was at a local brewery recently and, as normal, they had 15 or so beers on and only three of them weren’t IPAs or sours. For people who like to go to breweries, you would think the lack of choice was boing. I thought it was and then still ordered two of them.

There was a temptation to write a story about why the IPA obsession is hurting craft beer but there’s no point; primarily because it isn’t. Maybe I’m suffering from IPA exhaustion this week and you’ll have it next week. We never all will be bored with them at the same time, though. When it comes to making beer, though, it is worth lamenting the transition from brewers making beers that they thought were interesting to beers they think beer drinkers will like.

 

Craft Beer Tourism

How Beer Tourism is Changing the Jersey Shore Experience

It’s hard to be an independent brewer at the Jersey Shore. “I can open five taprooms in Pennsylvania without a liquor license. That would be unthinkable in New Jersey,” a craft brewer once said to me about the restrictive laws in the Garden State.

Although we advocate for and enjoy craft beer, its affect on tourism likely is negligible at best. People love to go to breweries when they travel, and some even make them the center of their travel plans, but beer rarely is the sole reason for a trip.  What is interesting is that, particularly in the part of rural America I visit, a brewery or a restaurant does make a difference when it comes to which antique-shop-driven town I visit.

One of our columnists actually wrote about a destination brewery he enjoys visiting and how the confluence of retail, craft beer and restaurants can turn a casual beer run into a day-cation.

A prehistoric thirst for craft beer

A new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports suggests beer brewing practices existed in the Eastern Mediterranean over five millennia before the earliest known evidence, discovered in northern China. In an archaeological collaboration project between Stanford University in the United States, and University of Haifa, Israel, archeologists analyzed three stone mortars from a 13,000-year old Natufian burial cave site in Israel.

It seems as if every time we think we’ve discovered the oldest beer, there is more to be had. It makes perfect sense,