I Pee Ale

India Pale Ale, to be exact (I wrote this post just so I could use that title, followed by that line).

But it’s true. An important development has transpired over the last 1 ½ months. Heretofore, I’ve always found IPAs too bitter. However, since combining a Lagunitas IPA with Sonoma cuisine and discovering true euphoria, nothing less complex can satisfy right now.

It’s nothing novel to enter a new stage of preferences. I spent October ’07 through April ’08 salivating non-stop over New Belgium’s 1554, which will undoubtedly remain among my favorites. This latest stage, however, is a leap compared to historical trends. Although not a connoisseur by any means, I am a beer lover and many trysts litter my past (amber ales, brown ales, stouts, oatmeal stouts, lagers, hefeweizens, etc.). For all their character, none of these carried themselves with the sassiness of an IPA. Is this my mid-beer-drinking life crisis? Will I return to the past, mellow favorites after IPAs run their comparatively-flashy course?

All signs point to yes and no. Yes, as in, “Duh, Phil. IPA’s don’t mesh well with lots of foods and, just as moods shift and revisit themselves, so too do beer tastes.” No, in that my palette seems to have taken a seismic shift towards accommodating—and craving—more adventurous flavors. Coincidentally, my food tastes seem to be tracing a parallel course. All I can do is credit Sonoma with making it a lot harder to appreciate a $6 burrito and a Pabst.

Now we all know harder does not mean impossible. Nor, even, necessarily difficult, in an absolute sense. Just harder.