Beer styles that were once trendy
As in the music industry with “one-hit wonders”, singers or bands with a single hit, there are also beer styles that peaked in popularity years ago and now hardly take up any shelf space in specialist shops, let alone on the taps of the most “craft” bars. Throughout recent history, various beer styles have been touted as the next big thing, but they have failed to find their place in a complex environment that often moves in fads. Let’s look at some examples of former beer stars.
- Black IPA: Dark like a stout, fresh like an IPA. At the time, in the early 2010s, it seemed to combine the best of both worlds, but today it’s a rara avis. In principle, this trompe-l’oeil is only black in color, perhaps with a slightly more malty, caramelized, roasted note, but the malt should never dominate over the hop character. In reality, many brewers ended up making a sort of hop coffee, lacking any real sensory harmony. Other brewers produced beers that fit better as tropical stouts but labeled them as black IPAs. It’s a style that never really caught on in Spain despite its initial success, although you can still find the odd interesting example today.
- Brut IPA: After the warm reception of NEIPAs, it seemed that any new twist on the IPA style would enjoy the same success. Wrong. It was 2018 when this sparkling concept arrived. A brut IPA is nothing more than a very dry IPA with a light body and, consequently, almost no residual sweetness; and very bubbly. Originally, it was an ideal style to showcase hops in the nude thanks to its discreet malt character. Several Spanish brewers released their own adaptations to the market, more as a limited-run novelty than a permanent reference in their portfolio, but the truth is it never really caught on. In fact, some consumers insisted it was too similar to a West Coast IPA because of its dryness.
- India Pale Lager (IPL) and Cold IPA: On paper they are different styles, but in practice the end consumer never really perceived such a clear difference between them. There are few India Pale Lagers around today, although some remain, but cold IPAs… If the brut IPA phenomenon was brief, the cold IPA was even shorter-lived. Supposedly, cold IPAs allowed grains such as rice or corn to be used to lighten the body of the beer and called for lager yeast at 18ºC to avoid the fruity esters of ale yeast. Today they have disappeared from most taps. At best, India Pale Lagers are successful in Northern Europe.
- Gose: Aquí el lector advertirá que muchísimas cerveceras producen gose, pero... ¿son realmente gose? La gose se caracteriza por su componente salino, ¿pero qué es hoy día? Este estilo histórico se ha pervertido, y se comercializa como una cerveza ácida, incluso agria, con adiciones desmedidas de fruta. La mayoría de ejemplo son una sour. Es difícil encontrar una gose auténtica y genuina fuera de su entorno inicial, Leipzig (Alemania).
- Kölsch: Another German style, this time from Cologne, often mistreated by new brewers. A Kölsch must be bright and golden, never hazy. It is a style created to be refreshing and highly drinkable, which is why it is also filtered. Once the product is no longer filtered, it can no longer be called Kölsch. At best, it’s a German ale.
And like these examples, there are many others in the history of beer. Sometimes we mistake novelty for innovation, while other times we reinterpret styles with tweaks that completely break away from their classic characteristics. What will upcoming beer releases bring us?
