There’s a movement afoot in the US to make the hoppiest beers, too. I don’t get it. Sierra Nevada makes an extremely hoppy pale ale that’s excellent because it’s balanced out by a good maltiness (I believe it had the record for some time for highest-alpha beer). It’s been around for at least three decades. But in the last ten years or so there have been things like Hop Pocket, Hop-pocalypse, something like Hop Explosion, etc., which are hoppy for hops’ sake.
There are worse beers, though. My wife and I went out to Indiana to visit her father when we were first married. He’d heard that I like beer, so before he went shopping, he asked me what I like. I asked him to bring me something local, thinking of local microbrews. He brought me Sterling and Weidemann’s. I’d drunk Weidemann’s when I was a starving graduate student, at $5 a case, so I was familiar with it. It’s not a great beer, nor even a fair one, pretty piss poor actually. But it was WAAY better than Sterling, which was far and away the worst beer I’ve ever tasted.
Some others:
Sagres (Portugal)
Kronenborg 1664 (France)
Stroh’s (Detroit)
Iron City (Pittsburgh)
And there’s nothing like a homebrew that’s gone wrong (as in gotten infected). I’ve made a few of those myself.
I think this is the one our head brewer brought in for us to taste a couple of Christmases ago. It was drinkable but I find any single element, present in excess in a beer, to be repressive. It’s the same with those cheaper wines that are “oak-aged” (how deceiving is that) by having wooden staves suspended in them, or oak chips added. Good brewers strive for that elusive thing, the perfect balance and integration of all its characteristics. A great beer is a many-layered thing and doesn’t try to hit you between the eyes with just one of its ingredients.
One more thing to add about hoppiness: Sierra Nevada makes a product called “Bigfoot barleywine-style ale.” I don’t usually go for high-alcohol beers, but my brother does, so I got a six of Bigfoot a few weeks ago when he visited. My first impression: Holy sh!t this is hoppy. I’m not talking hoppy for a barleywine, I’m talking hoppy for a hoppy pale ale, bitter as all getout.
Now, those of you not familiar with barleywines, they’re sweet and a little syrupy. How Sierra Nevada can market Bigfoot as a barleywine is beyond me. If they called it an old ale, I could live with it, although I think it’s a beer in search of a style.
I don’t see how it can get better, but I can see it getting worse, reading a bit between the lines. Mostly, I posted because it shows the commitment here to make quality brews and profiles one of the pioneers for the revival of craft brewing, in the good ol’ US.. In a similar process, we had the takeover of Scharfennberger and the whole thing went downhill fast, despite initial promises to keep the brand distinct (a Berkeley gourmet chocolatier taken over by Hershey).
Many wines would be unrecognizable it it weren’t for the uninvited and sometimes regionally unique terrestrial arthropods who meet their demise in the grape presses. Ants like aphid juice too.
I sure did enjoy the beers greatly in Ireland. Some stuff that I wish I could get my hands on here . The sad thing is though, I asked the bartender there for the best lager, and he told me Bud was the best lager there. My head almost exploded. I had to ask for the best Irish lager instead. It was Harp, which anyone can get here, but I am always pleased with that beer.
. The sad thing is though, I asked the bartender there for the best lager, and he told me Bud was the best lager there. 
My head almost exploded. I had to ask for the best Irish lager instead. It was Harp, which anyone can get here, but I am always pleased with that beer.