Beer or Plant Food?

Even though I am not a fan of over-hopped beers, I try them occasionally just to remind myself what a nasty trend it is. I like Sprecher beers, but this Double India Pale Ale from the Glendale, Wisconsin, brewery became plant food. Beer and hop juice are two very different things.

Hopcentricity has been all the rage for far too long, to the detriment of other aspects of the brewing spectrum. Wouldn’t it be great to see a brewery concentrate on something other than hops? Or is it just me that finds hopcentric beers so similar that they are boring?

I wonder about the stability of an industry that can be so easily distracted by trends such as the hop-forward trend that has dominated the craft industry in recent years.

But, then, who remembers dry beers of the late 1980s and clear beers of the early 1990s, just to mention a couple of gimmicks that didn’t stick. Well, I will be happy to see the back-end of this icky-tasting trend.

I firmly believe a day will come when American craft brewers and drinkers will get over their dependence on hops. Until that happy day when the industry moves on to the next big thing, whatever that may be, I guess we all must find our own way to suffer through the hopcentricity of the industry. Houseplant food is my solution.

* * *

I wanted to try Audible Ale from Redhook because of the cool-looking bottles. I wondered about the name – did they do something to the beer to make it snap, crackle and pop?

Once home, I find that Audible Ale was brewed in collaboration with some football geek named Dan Patrick. The idea, according to the Redhook website, was to create an ale with “plenty of flavor and aroma, and crushable enough to make you want another — without making you sloppy by halftime.”

To my mind, that is a really stupid reason for creating a beer, but then I find football (and most sports) about as exciting as watching mold grow.

However, despite its tenuous connection to football, Audible Ale is an easy-drinking 4.7 percent session ale with a slight spicy breadiness to it. I like the beer but not necessarily the reason for its existence.