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British Beer is So _Balanced_

I just came back from my first trip to London, where we visited 16 pubs in 14 days. The beer was very good. But one thing I noticed was that all of the beers we sampled were balanced between malt and hop flavors. There was nothing that I would have called heavily hopped. Even the one IPA we tried (Greene's?) was not especially hoppy. There was nothing like, for example, Tupper's or Hop Devil.

This isn't a complaint, since I liked all the beers. But I was wondering if this lack of hoppiness is a difference of national style between American craft and microbrews and British beers.

Dav Vandenbroucke davanden at cox dot net

Reply to
Dav Vandenbroucke
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"Dav Vandenbroucke" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

All I can say is...Viva la difference!

Best regards, Bill

Reply to
Bill Becker

Your observation is quite correct. American beers are typically so much more hopped than English beers, there is often separate judging categories for Brit and US beers of the same general style. For example, the GABF has two separate categories for Brit and American IPA's.

nb

Reply to
notbob

That sounds like my kind of trip!

Reply to
BAD's Revenge

"Dav Vandenbroucke" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

Yes. There are some more heavily hopped beers floating around Britain - Harviestoun's Bitter and Twisted comes to mind, although it still wouldn't be hoppy by American standards - but they tend to value balanced beers. There are plenty of hops in many of those beers, but they aren't as one-dimensional in that direction as many American beers.

In general, yes. Chalk it up to the typical American bigger-is-better attitude, but as a general rule, American craft brewers go for higher hops and higher alcohol. Personally, I'm getting bored with that and find the balance and drinkability of a good bitter to be preferable in most cases compared to the typical American hop monster. And they're a much better representation of a brewer's art and skill. Pretty much any moron can make an 8 percent, 80 IBU beer interesting. I know. I did back when I started brewing. It's much more challenging to make a flavorful, engaging beer at a gravity of 1040 and 30 IBU.

-Steve

Reply to
Steve Jackson

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