Quote from: S'mon;880867Assuming IPA is India Pale Ale and not something completely different, by the sound of it your American IPAs bear no resemblance to the stuff I'm familiar with here in London.

Virtually none any more.  About five years ago US brewers started going the way of those pinheads who make ' hot sauce' so hot it can't actually be eaten.  And ESBs are as scarce as eyebrows on eggs.

I actually like IPAs a lot, but there was a period last summer where every craft beer pub around'd almost only serve them. Then again, y'all need tougher tongues. Maybe go tongue some 0 lvl beers before you tangle with IPAs again?

Quote from: CRKrueger;880777As an adjunct to #1
9) Hipsters ruin everything they touch.  The latest purple darling rage rpg is just as fucking annoying as going into a bar in Tahoe and having 12 fucking types of IPA on tap, PBR, and Budweiser.  Jesus Wept.

Quote from: cranebump;880861As a certified IPA-hater, you have just described my personal Beer-hell.:-)

Not me, I wold have been fine there. Course I do like me some PBR:D

Quote from: Daztur;8807194. DIY is awesome. people who are fans of buying shit and people who are fans of making shit really approach hobbies in different ways. Ye gods can craft beer enthusiasts be annoying while homebrewers have never been anything but amazingly helpful to me. You can see a lot of the same DIY/consumer split in the RPG community. Who gives a crap if WotC or Budweiser make shit product if you can make your own stuff just fine no matter what they do?

Totally agree with this. Which is why I've been working on several gaming projects. (seemingly forever) Also why I'm going to be trying my hand at brewing a hefeweizen in the very near future.

Eh. For what its worth I'm on my fifth batch of mead. In five years.

What makes it really sad is that batches two through four were all failures.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880822And IPA is SUPPOSED to be "a noticeable hop presence," not "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS THIS MY TONGUE IS TURNING TO LEATHER I'M DYING I'M DYING IT'S GETTING DARK Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"

Screw you (cough cough) I've been having coughing fits all day (cough cough) from my GD asthma (cough cough) and now you have to send me into another coughing fit from the laughing.  Cough cough.  My cat hates you too.

Quote from: S'mon;880787I don't think it's arbitrary. In these systems (thinking especially Pathfinder, & WotC's 4e scenarios) building the optimised character and then testing the build in set-piece battles is often the main point of the game for a lot of people.

Was thinking 90's style "frustrated novelist" games as well which aren't really about set-piece battles but have tend to have really complicated chargen.

Quote from: Rincewind1;880805#10: The kind of beer you most like is objectively the best kind of beer in the world.

Well "beer that's not fucking bland" is the best beer in the world

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;880822And IPA is SUPPOSED to be "a noticeable hop presence," not "OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT IS THIS MY TONGUE IS TURNING TO LEATHER I'M DYING I'M DYING IT'S GETTING DARK Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?"

Quote from: The Butcher;880834I don't think I've ever tasted a "light hop" IPA. It's all tongue-parching bitterness from hell 'round here. But what do I know? I'm a cheap lager guy.

Quote from: cranebump;880861As a certified IPA-hater, you have just described my personal Beer-hell.:-)

You guys are way behind the times The IBU (measurement of hop bitterness) arms race has mostly been called off since the human tongue can't really register any more hop bitterness than 120 IBUs or so.

The new trend is to try to get more hop essential oils into the beer (they're the stuff that makes IPAs taste fruity/piney/herbal), which is really fucking annoying to do since you have to cook the hops to get the oils out of the hops with any real efficiency but if you cook the hops the damn oils boil off. Solution: MOAR HOPS.

Quote from: S'mon;880867Assuming IPA is India Pale Ale and not something completely different, by the sound of it your American IPAs bear no resemblance to the stuff I'm familiar with here in London.

Beer history time.

Victorian era beer was really fucking hardcore. You had 8% alcohol milds. Back then IPAs were pretty weak with only 6.5% alcohol or so. But then war and taxes took a massive toll on beer strengths for so long that the British got used to drinking lots of low alcohol beer that even though breweries can now afford to make strong beer the market isn't really there for it so much a anymore.

Then during the American craft beer revival American decided to make IPAs based on (wildly inaccurate, modern American IPA and Victorian IPA are different in a dozen ways but they both have about the same amount of alcohol and a fuckton of hops) interpretations of the old Victorian version, presumably because that's what was actually exported to India and those caught on.

Now Americans look down on English IPAs for not being "true to style" because they're a lot weaker and less bitter than American ones while not giving a crap about how different porters, milds, etc. are from Victorian beers or how the English have been making IPA that way for 70 years because they're a bunch of douchebags.

Except people who complain about Keith's IPA. They're right. That shit is just a light lager that is called an IPA for no fucking reason at all.

Quote from: Spike;880970Eh. For what its worth I'm on my fifth batch of mead. In five years.

What makes it really sad is that batches two through four were all failures.

Mead is finnicky shit, scared to try making that. You really have to go out of your way to get good honey though, so much American honey isn't any more flavorful than corn syrup.

For people who complain about IPAs, well generally when I go to a craft beer bar I order whatever the strongest and most bitter, not because I'm fucking hardcore but because I can't stand bland beers and I know those won't be bland. At home I can make mild beers that have plenty of flavor without a lot of bitterness or alcohol but I don't really trust commercial brewers to do the same so I usually get the craziest Imperial whatever they have that doesn't have any stupid spices or whatever.

For people who want to try craft beer but don't want to have the enamel eaten off their teeth try:
-Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: really common and cheap so you've probably already tried it but it's balanced and easy to drink while still having the American hop citrus tang.
-Indica IPA by Lost Coast Brewery: my wife loves this stuff and she thinks Pilsner Urquell is too bitter. It's got 50 IBUs or so which seems like a lot but it's more refreshing citrus than a hammerblow of bitterness.
-Bell's Two Hearted: haven't had it because I live in Korea but everyone says it's the best IPA for people who don't like IPAs.
-Anything English that isn't made by Brew Dogs pretty much. English IPAs are pretty different. Brew Dogs Jackhammer IPA is a really tasty example of the more hardcore enamel stripping American-style IPAs. Very tasty for me but their Punk IPA is pretty weak sauce.

Quote from: Daztur;880996For people who complain about IPAs, well generally when I go to a craft beer bar I order whatever the strongest and most bitter, not because I'm fucking hardcore but because I can't stand bland beers and I know those won't be bland.

I think you're a nice person.

Funny though - I avoid *PA beers for the very same reason and rarely recognize what I'm drinking if it's below 6%. ;]

OMG, Itaewon! Brings back delightfully hazy memories. Oh, the Wolfhound, how I love your burgers and beer.

But for real 2000ml+ madness I'd practically swim through Hongdae and Yongdae/Ehdae districts. Did opa (more like ong) "Gangnam style" a year before it blew up across the bigger pond. Hongdae's better for the madness, but my oh my was it fun regardless.

Gawd, now I'm jonesing for a double order of sundae and a personal 1000ml of beer in a tall, bubbly glass, to spill over me in golden deliciousness. A few of those bolted down and you're ready to go! And then I go dance and spin to the local indie scene trying not to vomit. Public drunkenness for the win...
 

Quote from: Daztur;8807192. It's the culture, not the product Here in Korea every single craft beer bar I've been to outside the foreigner ghetto of Itaewon has had a majority of female customers, often approaching 70%, often with the only male customers in the whole place being guys on dates. Back in the states it's a complete sausage fest even though the beer is pretty much the same. You don't get a hobby being less of a sausage fest by monkeying with the product you get it by not having the culture be full of "helpful" pushy douchebags.

Very interesting.

Why is craft beer female friendly in Korea? Based on your description, it sounds female dominated which is even stranger.

Are women also mostly the beer crafters or just mostly the customers?

Quote from: Opaopajr;881018OMG, Itaewon! Brings back delightfully hazy memories. Oh, the Wolfhound, how I love your burgers and beer.

But for real 2000ml+ madness I'd practically swim through Hongdae and Yongdae/Ehdae districts. Did opa (more like ong) "Gangnam style" a year before it blew up across the bigger pond. Hongdae's better for the madness, but my oh my was it fun regardless.

Gawd, now I'm jonesing for a double order of sundae and a personal 1000ml of beer in a tall, bubbly glass, to spill over me in golden deliciousness. A few of those bolted down and you're ready to go! And then I go dance and spin to the local indie scene trying not to vomit. Public drunkenness for the win...
 

Hrrrm? Never drank much beer there. Did have plenty of Captain Q & Coke. Was rather fond of Oscar too.  Never spent much time down South of the Han. The hotspot when I was there was up in Dongdaemun. I lived in Ponchondong for about a year after ETS.

Quote from: Daztur;880996-Bell's Two Hearted: haven't had it because I live in Korea but everyone says it's the best IPA for people who don't like IPAs.
-Anything English that isn't made by Brew Dogs pretty much. English IPAs are pretty different. Brew Dogs Jackhammer IPA is a really tasty example of the more hardcore enamel stripping American-style IPAs. Very tasty for me but their Punk IPA is pretty weak sauce.

Oh, I like an IPA quite well, if it's decent.  Sierra Nevada does one with "hop oil" that frankly tastes like the aftertaste of puking.

Bell's I like VERY much.  There's a brewery in the Black Hills here in SD that does a local IPA that is quite lovely, especially on tap.  And Sam Adams "Latitude 48" is one of my favorites when I can find it.

I really, really can't stand sweet beer at all, so I usually order an IPA.  But not a "double IPA" or "triple IPA" or "what the fuck is this IPA."

11)  That thing you hate is somebody else's favorite thing.

12)  Your favorite thing is the thing somebody else hates the most.

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;88107111)  That thing you hate is somebody else's favorite thing.

12)  Your favorite thing is the thing somebody else hates the most.

While 100% true, this doesn't serve much purpose in context of beer & RPG I'm afraid. After all, I'm not gonna stop calling Wraethtutu an utter piece of garbage just because some freak out there might like it. And just because whole bunch of people think, that anything under 4% deserves to be called "a beer" doesn't mean that I'm gonna stop enjoying my Baltic Porters.

Quote from: Spinachcat;881020Very interesting.

Why is craft beer female friendly in Korea? Based on your description, it sounds female dominated which is even stranger.

Are women also mostly the beer crafters or just mostly the customers?

It`s kind of like what I assume wine bars are like, lots of yuppie female customers but the people in the wine industry are still mostly male.

As for why it`s mostly female here`s my best guesses: male Korean drinking culture is very much about pouring each other drinks from the same communal bottle/pitcher and then chugging/doing shots together. Cheap beer, soju or Scotch work for that but chugging IPAs is a very bad idea and you don`t really order pitchers for the table in a craft beer bar. German-style brewpubs would be a better fit for men maybe and a lot opened in 2002 for the World Cup but they mostly crashed and burned hard afterwards.

For women the idea of ordering a sampler flight of craft beer and sampling it with your friends is a better fit. A lot of people want to look international and cultured so craft beer appeals to female yuppies for exactly the same reason imported wine does, which is also booming again largely among female drinkers.

Also craft beer`s artsy bohemian/hipster image just seems girly to Koreans I guess. The "macho men drink triple IPAs" doesn`t translate I guess.

Maybe also a part of it is a LOT of Koreans to go LA etc. Maybe the girls date a lot of craft beer hipsters there and bring back a desire for craft beer? Dunno but it`s funny seeing craft beers full girls with expensive handbags instead of hairy dudes.