Recently, I was asked by a leading restaurant industry magazine to survey some specialty beer bar owners and find out what beer styles they anticipated being hot sellers this summer. Some of their responses were predictable enough – wheat beers, both Belgian and Bavarian, and lighter tasting ales and lagers like kölsches and pilsners – but a few stood out as surprises, like the super-hoppy IPAs noted by the head beer guy for the southern U.S. Flying Saucer chain, Keith Schlabs.
Then again, once I thought about it, Keith’s picking out of IPAs wasn’t really so unusual after all. As any beer geek will tell you, hops are the source of bitterness in most beers, and bitterness begets dryness. And as anyone who has ever tried to quench a ravaging thirst with sugary soda will attest, drier is better than sweeter when it comes to fending off impending dehydration.
Which is why, this summer, my beer fridge will carry a wide array of styles from which to choose, including summer standards like Czech and German pilsners and the aforementioned wheats, but also a healthy crop of pale ales and IPAs. So should yours.
Think dryly hoppy pale ales like the famed Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, as good a summer session standard as there is, and Quebec’s fruitier St. Ambroise Pale Ale. Then kick things up a bit with a good IPA, maybe hopped with American Cascades like Anchor Liberty Ale from San Francisco, or more in line with the British style, like R&B Brewing’s Hop Goblin’ IPA from out Vancouver way. (In truth, the former will likely be more refreshing, but the spicy hop hit of a U.K.-influenced ale, backed by plenty of caramelly malt, makes for a beer that’s nothing if not a versatile barbecue companion.) Finish off your selection with a double IPA or two, like Three Floyds Brewing’s Dreadnaught, or their only slightly less hoppy legend, Alpha King, or Rogue’s I2PA, also know as the Imperial India Pale Ale.
Whatever you choose, the rule of the season for this summer is not to spare, or fear, the hops. Bitterness in beer, or any food, for that matter, is a learned enjoyment – most poisons in nature are bitter, which is why humans are programmed to reject the taste – so a particularly hoppy IPA may not be to everyone’s taste. But once you get used to the flavour, just as you learned to love pickles and peppers and garlicky pesto, the rewards are many.
