What's Played and What's Not?

Hops: played.  (Oh god, please let the overhopped beer backlash begin soon.)

Bacon: they say it's played, but how can bacon ever be played?

Grilled cheese:  leveling out.

PB&J: has yet to start its upward trend.  Let's get cracking, folks!  :)

Comments

[Phil]

PB&J restaurant in New York:

http://www.ilovepeanutbutter.com/newyorker.html

[Joe Eater]

Well, thank god. :)

[Fritz]

Bacon is played they over did it

I consume bacon during the months I hate the most Jan and Feb

It is def something to refrain from to use only at desperate times to appreciate its full Mojo and in those cold winter months... it might also rub shoulders with real Vt maple syrup thereby keeping me from jumping off the bridge and rasing my hope quotient

[Joe Eater]

Fritz - I guess I could get sick of bacon, but I haven't yet. :)

[Brian]

Man, I have to disagree on hops. Not that there haven't been some egregiously overhopped beers in the last few years--certainly there have been--but the shortage of the last few years has led to a renaissance of hop formulations, with previously underutilized varieties taking center stage. In particular, brewers have discovered Simcoe and are figuring out how to use it...for a great regional example, check out the recently reformulated Sweetwater IPA. There's more to life than Cascade!

I think what's really played are bad American attempts at "Belgian" styles...

[fullsteam]

Viva la hops! Some things are not meant to be trends! There are other styles of beer out there if you don't care for hops!

Exclamation marks!

[Joe Eater]

You guys are right, of course. Hops are great, and it's hard to imagine modern beer without hops. I guess what I'm complaining about is hop overuse, and saturation of highly hopped styles in the market. There are a lot of highly hopped beers out there, to the point that I've gone into restaurants and had trouble finding a beer that I wanted. When someplace has 5 beers on tap with 3 labeled IPAs, and the 4th being something else that's highly hopped, you better hope you want that 5th one.

I've had some really nice hop bombs. I wish I could remember the name of the beer I had at a tasting Sean ran a few years ago at ATC -- it had the word "green" in it -- and it was really good. But anything nice can be overused. And I think sooner or later there's gonna be a backlash against hops. Then we'll probably have to suffer through endless overly sweet, underbittered brews.

[fullsteam]

Green Flash West Coast IPA! Wow, what a beer. As is Bell's Two Hearted Ale.

The shift you'll see (and in some regions we're already starting to see) is a move toward sour and wild beers...as well as milds and other "session" ales. These session beers are not necessarily sweet or malty, but beers you can consume over the course of a night without getting hammered.

Sour ales rock. Come to the Farm to Fork NC picnic on Flag Day if you want to try our sour rhubarb ale. Ommegang Rouge is most excellent. Very complex.