[SamAdams76]

I never understood the IPA craze. I’d much rather stick to porters, stouts and for warmer weather, pilsners.

[Steve_Seattle]

"I never understood the IPA craze. I’d much rather stick to porters, stouts and for warmer weather, pilsners."

Out of defiance, I went to totally non-hopped beers produced by a Scottish company. My favorite was called Alba Pine Ale, which was made with spruce and pine tips (as an alternative to hops). (The best American approximation of this is Alaska Winter Ale, which uses spruce tips.) They also had a beer containing kelp, one using heather, and one or two using various kinds of berries. The kelp beer sounds terrible, but it tasted much like a good porter, no "fishy" taste at all. All of these beers were supposedly based on very old recipes.

All were good, and now all are unavailable here in Western Washington. I was told at a beer store that all local beer companies - by state law or something - must purchase from the same supplier, and that supplier dropped the line with the un-hopped beers. But I still have my choice of 50 heavily-hopped IPAs!

Also, after drinking the unbalanced IPAs, some of the old standard beers like Coors didn't taste so bad, they seemed to have a good, refreshing balance even if not particularly noteworthy.