{"id":23280,"date":"2024-06-28T03:10:53","date_gmt":"2024-06-27T15:10:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/?p=23280"},"modified":"2024-07-13T14:32:01","modified_gmt":"2024-07-13T02:32:01","slug":"brut-ipa-missing-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2024\/06\/28\/brut-ipa-missing-link\/","title":{"rendered":"A nearly missing link \u2014 ‘Brut IPA’ as an important transitional fossil"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
An interesting mix of clarity and obscurity<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, as I was helping out on a canning run at the brewery, I was listening to the ‘Why Brut IPA Never Hit It Big’ episode of the Taplines<\/em> podcast,<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and it’s had me thinking and reminiscing and pondering ever since. That conversation (between journalist Dave Infante and brewer Kim Sturdavant, who developed the style and coined the name) is well worth a listen, and I don’t really disagree<\/em> anywhere, but as someone who was bartending through the peak of the phenomenon and who really loved those beers, remembers them fondly and looks for their echoes to this day, I have a few thoughts to add.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Brut IPA, if you need a reminder, was designed as a pale, lean-bodied, strong on hop character but relatively light on bitterness, and particularly dry<\/em> take on its parent style \u2014 the latter often (but not always) achieved with the help of added enzymes.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It built on trends and local variations around it at the time \u2014 pretty much everything new thing does, after all \u2014 but now it had a name, a technique, a vibe all of its own, and (briefly) looked like it might solidify into a substyle, nestled alongside West Coast IPA in the family tree. But it seemed to peak and then fade incredibly quickly.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
An ale of a time, indeed<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Indeed, all but one of the examples in my own records land between June and November of 2018.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span> The ‘Southern Brut’ pictured here was a locally-hopped take from a Melbourne brewery in collaboration with the\u00a0Ale Of A Time<\/em> podcast,<\/span>6<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Christchurch’s Beer Baroness made ‘Lady Stardust’ which features at the top of this post (photographed as I cleaned Golding’s after its launch night), and I had a lot<\/em> of glasses of Urbanaut’s ‘Copacabana’ on a trip to Auckland \u2014 amazingly, the latter is still in production<\/a>, which nicely demonstrates that every trend (in this case, the steep downward part) has its exceptions; I’ll have to try and source some cans. The only one I found after that six-month streak was a cider-Brut-IPA hybrid at Base Camp in Portland a year later\u00a0\u2014 despite being not that<\/em> far removed (in either space or time) from where the style was born, sampling something like a hundred different beers during my visit to the city, and primed to actively seek it out.<\/p>\n

From a candidate for “next big thing” to the endangered species list in a matter of months. What went wrong? Where did they go?<\/p>\n

Dave & Kim touch on it in the podcast<\/a>, but probably undersell just how confusing the new style’s name<\/em> was to potential drinkers. The reference to the champagne type went over a lot of heads \u2014 and even if someone knew that the “brut” version is<\/em> dry, they might not know that it\u00a0means<\/em> dry and so would miss what it implied about the beer. There had also (in New Zealand at least) been quite a few wine-beer hybrids kicking around in the few years before, so people often wondered if this was another. And I saw lots of folks assume that the term signaled strength or intensity \u2014 as in “brute” or “brutal” \u2014 which definitely isn’t what these beers were, and wasn’t what a lot of people wanted<\/em> after years of extreme IPAs (as proven by the rise of NEIPA). All this was compounded by some of the branding used: Kim’s own original release was called ‘Hop Champagne’ and his gallery of the first ten Brut IPAs<\/a> includes a number of other wine references. Other examples leaned into the suggestion of big-and-powerful with names like ‘Brut Force’ or ‘I Am Brut’. And that Wolf of the Willows one pictured above features a bottle of bubbly and<\/em> a strongman character.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Vaporwave and almost vaporware<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It’s almost as if “New England” and “Hazy”\u00a0implied so little<\/em> on their own that people had to ask (or learn by trying) and so got an accurate idea of the style,<\/span>7<\/sup><\/a><\/span> while “Brut” gave them enough to assume from but often lead them astray. The alternate history I wonder about is whether the “style” would’ve survived longer if it’d simply been called Dry IPA: simpler, easier to grasp and harder to confuse with anything else, and still a strong contrast with the other main varieties on offer at the time \u2014 namely the bitter (but often quite full and malty and\/or boozy) West Coast IPA, and the distinctively juicy challenger rising from the East Coast. Garage Project dipped a toe in that direction with ‘West Coast Ultra’<\/a>\u00a0Dry IPA,<\/span>8<\/sup><\/a><\/span> but didn’t follow it up with more \u2014 and perhaps they were consciously avoiding the “Brut IPA” designation since they’d made a number of the wine-beer hybrids I mentioned earlier<\/a>, and would go on to release a ‘Bi\u00e8re de Champagne’<\/a> later that year. Maybe if brewers had pivoted terminology, things would’ve been different. Kim talks a bit about the unspoken feedback loop<\/a> between drinkers and brewers when it comes to the success or failure of innovation and to me this all provides a great example of why that loop should be tightened and made explicit: listen to your front-line staff, train them to spot causes of confusion in your customers, and work together to smooth out sources of friction.<\/span>9<\/sup><\/a><\/span> For years, Range insisted on\u00a0not<\/em> using the word “hazy” (or any of its synonyms) on their undeniably-hazy IPAs and it lead to frequent misunderstandings at the taproom where I worked, frustrating people who were looking for those beers exactly as much as people wanting to avoid them. It shouldn’t have been such a hard fix.<\/p>\n

But even as beers labelled Brut IPA faded away, the demand for that kind<\/em> of beer still existed, whatever it was called. It was there already, remember. I agree with Dave & Kim that Brut is certainly part of the causal chain that continues into ‘West Coast Pilsner’<\/a>,<\/span>10<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and its DNA is obvious in other recent trends like “low carb” beers and ‘Cold IPA’.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/a><\/span> But it was strange to not hear them mention ‘California IPA’. In New Zealand and Australia, that’s now a pretty common term for “broadly West Coast vibe, but leaner, more golden, and drier” \u2014 perhaps not to the full extent of the original Brut character, but most of the way there. These are very much my IPAs of choice at the moment, but it’s interesting to learn that as a “style term” it appears to be more common around here than it is closer to the actual California. I think<\/em> it traces to a few high-profile collaborations with Green Cheek (particularly with Balter<\/a> and Garage Project<\/a>) given that designation, but for now it mostly serves as another lesson in the vagaries of the evolution of ways of brewing and<\/em> of categorising beer. And ‘Bright IPA’ might yet supplant that as the common term; Parrotdog have been using it for a while<\/a>,<\/span>12<\/sup><\/a><\/span> and I’ve seen some mention of its influence over here<\/a>. It has the advantage of simplicity and directness (like Dry IPA might’ve had), and lacks the burden of a potentially confusing geographic term. We’ll see.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Urbanaut, serving Brut IPA in a suitably hazy environment<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Perhaps the simple truth is that it’s unsurprising Brut IPA didn’t solidify into a substyle because\u00a0very few<\/em> intentional coinages like that ever last. Cultural evolution \u2014 whether of language, or genres of whatever media, or indeed beer styles \u2014 is messier than that and it resists attempts to shove it in one direction or another.<\/span>13<\/sup><\/a><\/span> Jeff Alworth made some excellent observations on the problem of overthinking ‘styles’<\/a> and how trying to shoe-horn every trend into those terms obscures interesting questions about culture<\/em>. That’s where the action is, and why I try to pay attention to how “normal people” react to some new innovation. You can’t just make up a new word unilaterally; everyone else has to understand what you meant by it and<\/em> find it useful enough that they adopt it too.<\/p>\n

Maybe we wonder about the “rise and fall” of this particular thing so much partly by accident of timing: in the late 2010s “craft beer” was flourishing and a huge amount of attention was being paid to it, both from professionals and the wider circles of engaged folks on social media. A hundred years ago, if you had a quirky personal take on a regionally-popular kind of beer, hardly anyone would ever find out if it didn’t take off.<\/span>14<\/sup><\/a><\/span> It wouldn’t leave enough fossil evidence. Brut IPA hit a weird sweet spot of being just famous enough to be missed when it tailed off. But it left behind some good lessons in how these things evolve and I’m grateful to that podcast episode for a reason to look back. Plus, I really liked those beers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Hopefully not my last little glass of Brut IPA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, as I was helping out on a canning run at the brewery, I was listening to the ‘Why Brut IPA Never Hit It Big’ episode of the Taplines podcast, and it’s had me thinking and reminiscing and pondering ever since. That conversation (between journalist Dave Infante and brewer Kim Sturdavant, who developed the … Continue reading A nearly missing link \u2014 ‘Brut IPA’ as an important transitional fossil<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[71,55,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bartending","category-interesting-finds","category-taxonomy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":20386,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2023\/07\/21\/nyt-crossword-mainstreaming\/","url_meta":{"origin":23280,"position":0},"title":"The New York Times crossword as a measure of mainstreaming","author":"Phil","date":"July 21, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Like any New Zealander excited when the country is mentioned out loud in overseas media or just actually included on a map, I'm always interested when beer pops up in unexpected places. Last Friday's NYT crossword had\u00a0ipa among its solutions, which itself isn't uncommon \u2014 the crowded design of American\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Mediawatch"","block_context":{"text":"Mediawatch","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/interesting-finds\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Excerpt of the New York Times Crossword, featuring \"sour beers\" as an answer","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sour-beer-in-the-NYT-crossword-slight-grey.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sour-beer-in-the-NYT-crossword-slight-grey.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sour-beer-in-the-NYT-crossword-slight-grey.png?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Sour-beer-in-the-NYT-crossword-slight-grey.png?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":767,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/09\/16\/brew-moon-hophead-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":23280,"position":1},"title":"Brew Moon ‘Hophead’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"September 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm still kicking myself that me and my friends didn't know about the Brew Moon Cafe when we were on our South Island roadtrip a few years ago. They're in the charming-enough little town of Amberly, in North Canterbury, and we stopped there (we stop a lot, on our roadtrips)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Brew Moon 'Hophead' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Brew-Moon-Hophead-IPA-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":298,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2007\/11\/19\/gage-roads-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":23280,"position":2},"title":"Gage Roads IPA","author":"Phil","date":"November 19, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Verbatim: Gage Roads IPA. 19\/11\/07, present from KP+LB, 5.1%, 330ml. After trivia, watching Top Gear. Miss Parker & Mr Baker arrived last week, with beer in tow. This is Western, proper bottle stuff. Slight metallic note, but not nasty like Beck's. Good IPA. Hoppy + beery. Yum. Drinkable, very. Afterthoughts,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Gage Roads IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-1042-Gage-Roads-IPA-300x204.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1118,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/12\/04\/croucher-october-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":23280,"position":3},"title":"Croucher ‘October’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"December 4, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"This totally managed to stump a few people and cause a minor nerd-riot, it did. We had two kegs of it at work, and the first went on through a Hopinator crammed full of mandarins1 -- \u00e0 la the rather-successful batch of fruited-up Twisted Hop IPA we'd previously done. When\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Croucher 'October' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Diary-2039-Croucher-October-300x285.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1155,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2010\/12\/16\/townshend-%e2%80%98j-c-%e2%80%99-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":23280,"position":4},"title":"Townshend \u2018J.C.\u2019 IPA","author":"Phil","date":"December 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"So yeah, our Christmas Offerings at work included a beer which had burnt pohutakawa1 as part of the process, and a beer named after Jesus for no readily-apparent reason. I just loved the irreverence of that. Of course, it didn't hurt that both beers were really rather lovely, in their\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Townshend 'J.C.' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Townshend-J.C.-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":697,"url":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/2009\/01\/27\/peak-brewery-monkey-point-ipa\/","url_meta":{"origin":23280,"position":5},"title":"Peak Brewery ‘Monkey Point’ IPA","author":"Phil","date":"January 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"My payment for helping George and Robyn (mostly Robyn, actually, since George was wounded) move their furniture around in readiness for renovations. It's basically a ruthlessly traditional IPA. Originally, IPA was what happened when the English over-hopped and strengthened up their ales, so they'd survive the commute out to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Actual Diary entries"","block_context":{"text":"Actual Diary entries","link":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/category\/diary\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Peak Brewery 'Monkey Point' IPA","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-content\/uploads\/Peak-Brewery-Monkey-Point-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23280"}],"version-history":[{"count":92,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23396,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23280\/revisions\/23396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philcook.net\/beerdiary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}