2018 is in its sunset, and the beer industry was once again an impressive one. I won’t bother giving you the dollars and cents, nor the percentages and that ever-growing number of independent craft breweries, although the Brewers Association has some good news for you on that front. I’d like to take a few moments to talk about what I noticed to be en vogue around the beer world, as noticed by a beer brewer, consultant and, most importantly, as a beer consumer.
Like so many artisanal creations, beer is as much a slave to the latest trends as chukka boots and avocado toast. If you want to have a successful piece of the market, you can either embrace them or hope that you’re daring enough to change them. Why not bank on the former while chiseling out the latter?
I’m not saying my observations are the totality of what was going on with beer, nor will everyone agree with my opinions leveled at some or all of them. One thing you can always count on me to be, however, is objective. In this list, I will do my utmost to keep the integrity of the overall drinker’s experience at the foremost, and hopefully elicit a chuckle or two while keeping a judicious eye on the “Hater” button. After all, I’m here to drink beer, not the Kool-Aid.

Late to the Party but Highest on the List: Brut IPA

With the holiday season in full swing, you may have noticed a new-fangled IPA being poured into champagne flutes and pilsner vases at work Christmas parties and “It’s Dark at 5:15, Let’s Drink” get-togethers. It doesn’t really look like an IPA (because it isn’t one), having a lighter, golden hue and spritzy head on it, with (hopefully) lots of pretty little bubbles dancing around in it. It doesn’t really have the body of an IPA (because it isn’t one); it’s a little slimmer around the waist and very dry on the palate. It does, however, have the deliciously hoppy smell of an IPA (despite not being one) and was most likely dry-hopped with massive amounts of just about any kind of wonderous, aromatic hop strain you can think of. In addition, it’s lighter body and dry balance can make the bittering hops really sing, provoking long-lost thoughts of those West Coast palate wreckers you used to drink up until about five years ago.
What exactly is a Brut IPA? One of the hottest beer trends of the year, brewers are basically making an Americanized, hop-forward version of the Bière Brut or Bière de Champagne and calling it an IPA so that people will drink it. Think about it: How many times you have you seen a Birra Del Borgo L’Equilibrista or Mikkeller Nelson Sauvignon on the shelf at some bottle shop and turned your nose up at it after performing a quick Google search and finding out that it’s one of the highfalutin-sounding styles? They’re fantastic beers in a style category that’s both hard to find and hard to “properly execute,” yet you can’t be bothered to give them a second thought. I mean hey, anyone who can decipher your Untappd badge collection can tell you’re an IPA drinker, amirite? So, brewers do their level best to brew a Bière Brut, up the IBUs a little to give it an amazing, hoppy bouquet, call it a Brut IPA and suddenly, you’re dragging your great aunt to the tap room so you can beat the purchase limit and walk out with a few extra bottles. It’s an ingenious sales ploy and I don’t fault them. I do think it’s a shame that you have to treat beer drinkers like they’re two-year-olds and dupe them into drinking great beer like it’s peas and carrots or something. But that’s people. And now that you know what it’s about, grab yourself some, especially for New Year’s!

They Make For Odd Beer Pics: Smoothie Beers

I remember when my Insta feed started touting pics of viscous-looking beers the color of Play-doh served in odd glasses with no head on them. Smoothie beers have become an Instagrammer’s delight, adding an eye-catching pink beer they can showcase in an Erlenmeyer flask for the ultimate in hipster know-how of beer drinking. They have been typically relegated to Berliner Weisse, IPA and APAs so far due to their logical affinity for fruit flavors but give it time; this is a trend with unfortunate staying power, in my opinion, and next year will inevitably include wheat beers, more acidic and complex sours, and the likely product of someone telling an adventurous soul “You can’t do that!”
What is a smoothie beer? In a nutshell, you brew a “milkshake” version of the style, meaning you add lactose (milk sugar), among other things, for a smooth body and slight sweetness. Add to that vanilla bean and fruit such as raspberries, blueberries, peach, mango, etc., typically pureed for the yeast’s sake and let it chew. If the color and consistency isn’t to the level of Crayola 64-pack that you like, some brewers add ingredients like beet juice or the juice or puree of the beer’s featured fruit to get it where they want it. In all honestly, I’ve only tried two smoothie beers and I just didn’t get it. Bad head retention, odd mouthfeel and the synergy didn’t really translate to something I’d like in a beer. I was hoping that a few dozen breweries would put a Pumpkin Smoothie Ale on the market so we could all get it out of our systems, but I guess we’ll have to wait until next Fall. In my opinion, this is a fad that should be dropped as quickly as Google glasses.

You Loved Milkshake IPAs, Now Enjoy Milkshake Everything

Milkshake IPAs took the market by storm, and so brewers have decided to add lactose to just about any kind of beer style that doesn’t make you retch to show you the chemistry of brewing. I say give it hell. We’ve gleefully quaffed milk stouts for decades, marveling at their smooth chocolate and roast textures. My foray into the milkshake IPA offerings immediately took me back to the 80s and visits to Orange Julius – do they still have those? I guess I’d have to find a shopping mall – do they still have those?
As mentioned earlier, when you see “milk” or “milkshake” in a beer name, it typically denotes the addition of lactose to the brewing process. Stouts and porters were the obvious beginners of this hallmark as their malty and roasty flavors married well with a milky-sweet nuance. Brewers quickly discovered that fruity flavors in IPAs and Florida Weisse (a heavily-fruited, tropically-hopped version of the Berliner Weisse) could also benefit from a little nudging from lactose. The major drawback I’ve experienced from breweries who go crazy over lactose is over-abundance which leads to unstable beers. I remember eagerly opening a new Milkshake IPA from a regional brewer and noticing a small pile of white powder had settled into the bottom of my glass within minutes. For those who have mastered the questions of how much to use and when to use it, next on the horizon is tackling other styles. I’ve already tried a Milkshake Barleywine and while it wasn’t bad, I found myself asking “Why?” just like when I was sampling Nitro IPAs a few years back. Personally, I think adding lactose to beers like stouts, porters, IPAs and Berliner Weisse make for an interesting change of pace for those styles. Just take it easy with that measuring job, Justin Wilson (those under the age of 40 feel free to give Justin the Goog and take a trip down a YouTube hole).

Sour Beers Continue to Dominate and Begin to Assimilate

The demand for sour beers among beer drinkers is staggering to me. Years ago, I couldn’t pay people to drink sour beers (except for Cascade Brewing Apricot – my friends would always bogart that one) and now that seems to be the hottest ticket on the market. Granted, from an American standpoint, beer drinkers don’t really want the old-school sours like Belgian lambic, gueuze or Flemish red or Oud Bruin. Beer drinkers stateside tend to want fruitier, sweeter, beers with a cleaner acid profile and less complexity. So, the tart Gose and sour-but-not-abusive Berliner Weisse are the biggest hits with the sour beer-loving crowd as they can often be treated with fruit to ease the pain a little. Farmhouse ales, wild ales and “American Sour Ales” are big on the list, but King of the Sour Beers right now is still the highly versatile, relatively low-alcohol and palate-pleasing Berliner Weisse.
And why would Grendel’s mother need to slay Beowulf when she could simply seduce him? Because I halfway paid attention to the movie in 2007 instead of completely ignoring it when we read the story aloud in ninth grade. What you can glean from that quick aside is that sour beers have become immensely popular, but can’t possibly unseat the Pinnacle of Craft Beerness, the IPA. And so, you get the hero you never thought you wanted: Sour IPA. The Sour IPA is fairly self-explanatory as far as basic premise, but I can tell you a few things. For one, the bacterial strain Lactobacillus that is used to give Berliner Weisse its signature acid tang isn’t typically hop tolerant, although some strains are a little more tolerant than others. Remember, hops don’t just smell great, they have preservative (anti-bacterial) properties, among their other talents! So being able to add hops to an acidic beer, usually during the dry hop schedule, is tightrope walk of not overpowering the tart acidity of the beer or wiping it out altogether. Another thing to consider is the synergy of input you’re putting your palate through. Only a masochist would enjoy sour and bitter, so brewers are adding hops to put their amazing bouquet of aromas to work. The problem that arises is when smelling those hop aromas, our minds will often say “Ooo, I know that smell. That’s the smell of a bitter beer!” Guess what? You may perceive bitterness even if you don’t actually taste it. So once again, nuance is the way to go with this style. And finally, fruit additions, particularly those that are harmonious or at least forgiving with tart or sour notes like raspberry, lychee and passion fruit make this beer much easier on the palate and a little easier to envision yourself drinking. Overall, it’s a slippery slope, but this is the kind of brewing that expands the gastronomic frontiers of the industry and I applaud that.

Smaller but Noteworthy: Dessert Beers and Maple All Over

A number of beer styles have traditionally been considered great for drinking with dessert: stouts, porters and browns often feature malty chocolate or roast coffee notes and are often treated with chocolate, coffee, nuts, fruit and a variety of flavor-enhancing foods. Likewise, fruited lambics, fruit beers and spiced ales are often ideally suited to drinking with certain desserts like cheesecake. I personally like to go for the dry, effervescent and superbly balanced Trappist ales; there aren’t too many desserts that a dubbel, tripel or Belgian dark strong won’t wash down with bourgeoisie finality. Obviously, brewers began to shun the idea of eating dessert when they could be drinking it.
The “new” dessert beer is a trend that I’m getting behind, albeit cautiously. Simple milk stouts have evolved into “pastry” stouts, with lactose accompanied by adjuncts such as graham cracker meal, slivered almonds and expensive coffee varietals. With names like Candy Bar Pinstripe, Koo For Coconut, Chocolate Cherry Icing on the Cake and Brownie Batter why would you need anything else all that decadent to cap off a meal (unless you’re me)? Want to tone down the chocolate and caramel for something fruitier with a slimmer waistline? The Berliner Weisse style has been showing up with fruit, vanilla bean and lactose, aimed specifically at being a dessert beer. With names like Blackberry Orange Pop! and Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Dream, these fruity dessert beers will most likely give your palate a high-carbonation, low-alcohol zing to clean your palate and put it to rest, or at least twist it up and leave it in a panting, exhausted heap.
Once relegated to the larger breweries who could handle the expense of procuring the barrels and gambling on the product like the once-coveted Founders CBS, maple flavoring has made a big impact on the beer scene, and its not just imperial stouts carrying the torch any longer. American browns, strong ales and spiced ales are also getting the maple flavor treatment but look for the majority to be made in the American stout or Dbl/Imperial stout style, as you need something for all that syrupy goodness to stick to. If you’re out at a bottle shop and see “pancake” on the label, you’ve hit the Canadian jackpot (I say that with love, Canada!).

Continuing, Fading and What’s on the Horizon

Look for dry-hopped sour beers and the New England IPA to continue to fire on all cylinders for a while. They’re all the rage and as long hop farmers and mad scientists are sleeping in the same bed, brewers will anxiously wait for the letters like BRU and HBC to show up in the subject header of their emails, and the people will rejoice! Late hopping, hop bursting and dry-hopping (often doubled and sometimes TRIPLED!) will be the preferred vernacular of the sour beer and IPA drinker into the foreseeable future and I’m ecstatic to ride this wave.
You may have noticed a downturn in a few trends that were everywhere you looked in the brewing world. The use of Brettanomyces has cooled somewhat; rather than force-feeding it into every style and hoping the beer equivalent of foie gras is the result, brewers have slacked their experimental thirsts with this wild yeast strain and succumbed to the economic reality that for Brett to really shine, its nuances take years to develop rather than weeks or months. Today Brettanomyces is still commonly used, but mostly by those with long-game artisanal history of Farmhouse ales and lambics aged in old wood. I don’t see it as the flash-in-the-pan it was a few years back. In addition, I remember seeing saisons emblazoned with every conceivable fruit addition adorning beer shelves floor to ceiling a year or so ago, but have noticed that brewers are letting the more quickly-produced Berliner Weisse carry the fruit around while shifting the saison’s focus to dry hopping and the mildly funky, citrusy notes we’ve always loved in the yeast characteristics apparent in Saison Du Pont and Crooked Stave Surette, for instance. There are still plenty of treated saisons available on the market, but brewers have stopped beating the style into submission with the fruit stick.
As for telling the future, I’ll leave you with two things, and while one is shrewd conjecture, the other is already in the works. First, the bigger of the two. Recreational marijuana in fifty states is as inevitable as craft beer in fifty states, and cannabis-infused drinks, many of which will mimic beer in most respects, are already in their infancy. In fact, Canadian pharmaceutical and cannabis company Tilray is getting into a $100 million joint venture with AB InBev. With that beer giant’s money, lobbying power and Old Man Potter-esque tactics, it won’t take long for you to find…uh…cannabeers (See what I did there? And I’m in the final stages of copyrighting that; hands off) on shelves in bottle shops and dispensaries in every state in which marijuana is legal. Count on it. Finally, with the evolution of IPA flavors and aromas moving to the much more fruity and floral with much less apparent bitterness, I foresee an eventual throwback to the popular IPAs of the 90s like Lagunitas IPA, Bell’s Two-Hearted and Harpoon IPA. Don’t get me wrong, I love the hop-burst IPAs and the beer drinking masses seem to, as well. But I’m quite sure that the masochists among us will yearn for the tongue-numbing bitterness of double-digit alpha acids by the fistful, and we’ll soon see beers based on those classic IPAs.

That brings us to the end, for now. Just to be clear, if you think this article with its limitless insight means I can spot trends in other major markets such as fashion or money, you’re reaching. This list was diligently accumulated through consistent and thorough consumption and investigation of beer. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to drink Old-Fashioneds until next year, when I start taking notes again.

Frank