Hopped Out in the land of IPA

As we come off of the fresh hop and harvest season and abundance of bitter hoppy beers, some are feeling a bit…hopped out. Believe it or not, not everyone is actually into IPA’s, some prefer a malty marzen, a chocolatey porter, even a bready hefeweizen now and then.

Recently I came across a poem on this very subject, a rebuttal to trendy IPA’s from someone more bitter about the state of the industry than the hops themselves. The following was reader submitted to Denver, Colorado’s the Modern Drunkard magazine. Enjoy.

Hoppiness

by Michael Steffen

I’d rather eat a ghost pepper whole
than sip the bitterness of IPAs.
Having learned not to take flavor for granted,
I know most beers at my Stop-N-Go
taste like metal and cold water (Shaefer
is definitely not-as its slogan asserts—
the one beer to have
when you’re having more than one),

Still,

my IPA-swilling pals have opined
that I don’t understand its “subtleties,”
When I start to wonder if they’re right,
if maybe I should spend $22.50 on a six-pack,
I remember the first time I said,
No fucking way to my mother’s chipped beef,
and she made me gargle with Lysol,
the precise flavor of a double-hopped ale.
She was born in the Golden Age
of Starch and Salt, but dished out a bleak,
depression-era diet of yech—
canned meats, liver mold, tomato aspic,
tongue mousse…I grasped the need
to stretch a buck, but her Fairy Bread
was beyond frugal—-buttered dinner rolls
topped with multi-colored sprinkles. I felt like
I was at the world’s worst birthday party.

People claim to love IPAs,
but people don’t always tell the truth,
and the ones who do are often alone.
As a youngster, the first story
that lodged in my consciousness
was The Emperor’s New Clothes,
giving me the stones to tell m mother
cream cheese tasted like crap.
So did the cottage cheese, lima beans,
corned beef, fried Spam, fish sticks,
powdered milk, anything orange…
It gave me strength to endure
the penance of sitting alone, hours
after dinner, staring at a hardening,
untouched mound of her tuna casserole.

I’d love to drink some rad-sounding beverage
but not when hip means Raging Bitch,
Mouth Raper, Gandhi-Bot…Who labels a beer
after a holy man who was against alcohol?
When did crassness become de rigueur?
Has good old-fashioned horse sense,
with its mulish principles, abandoned
the shaping of palates, been vanquished
by haphazard cravings and the vagaries
of Madison Avenue, of IPA end-caps
nurturing mass market’s thirst for the worst?

Wouldn’t you prefer an ice-cold pilsner?
I used to sneak pre-adolescent sips
at Christmastime, when aunts and uncles
were too drunk to notice. Wouldn’t you love
the malty fizz of a nice, easy lager,
and the dizzy way it makes you feel,
like you’ve just stood up
from a spinning chair? India Pale Ale
reeks of dissonance, pretense,
and yet it’s consumed by tens of millions —
in hypocrisy, I’d argue. IPAs taste
like guava mixed with peat moss,
like eucalyptus, the acid reflux
of regret, like botched hopes and dreams,
anguish without cessation.
They taste like I’m alone in the world.