Commentist Beer Barrel and Open Thread: Singled Out

Two of my favorite beers of all time are Lone Pint Yellow Rose, and Independence Gold Deluxe, and they have one thing in common: They were each brewed with just one hop variety, and one malt variety, part of a trend known as Single Malt and Single Hop (or SMaSH) brewing, a trend that’s begotten various other forms of single-hop brewing. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first I’ll tell you a bit more about the composition of these beers I love. For Gold Deluxe, a blonde ale that I’ve had exactly twice and that was sadly never brewed again, it was Japanese Sorachi Ace hops and the English winter barley malt Maris Otter. For Yellow Rose, probably the best IPA in all of Texas and a beer that thankfully remains extant, it’s Mosaic hops and… you know, I don’t actually know what malt Lone Pint uses, and I couldn’t find the answer anywhere. Probably some kind of American 2-row barley? In any case, both of these beers are perfectly crafted creations that make the most of their limited ingredients, consciously melding them into a perfect whole. And that’s why I’m here to say to breweries everywhere: Chill out putting single-hop beers on the shelves. Enough is enough.

“What the hell, snow?” you might be saying. “You like everything. You like (sours/IPAs/stouts/fizzy yellow beers/whatever the everloving shit a “gruit” is). What precisely the fuck is your problem with single-hop beers, of all things?”

Well, it’s like this: First of all, I think that if a brewery releases a beer for consumption, it should be good. That’s a fairly simple proposition, and I know it sounds obvious, but I want you to keep it in mind moving forward. Now, the SMaSH trend, and consequently the broader single-hop trend, as I understand it anyway, originated out of homebrewers’ sensible instinct to simplify their brewing. But there’s an additional, pedagogical reason for its popularity: You can learn a hell of a lot about what various hops and malts taste like from these sorts of beers, given a series of them. And so, various breweries are giving us, over and over again, a series. A series of SMaSH beers, a series of single-hop beers with the same malt profile, a series of single-hop beers with malts meant to match. Regrettably, series of this sort tend to self-perpetuate whether their individual beers are good or not, and so, more and more I’ve found myself trying beers that seem like unsuccessful experiments. And, hey, it’s in the nature of experiments that many will be unsuccessful. A failed experiment still generally moves its field forward. Thomas Edison had to test over 10,000 combinations of materials to invent the alkaline battery. But this is important: Thomas Edison never tried to sell any of the failed combinations as batteries.

Now, let me switch gears for a moment and talk about Green Flash Brewing Company, one of the many world-class breweries that calls San Diego home. Green Flash’s impact on the world of brewing, and in particular the world of hop-focused brewing, cannot be overstated. Their West Coast IPA arguably defines an entire (eponymous) regional style. Green Flash Imperial IPA… well, pretty much the same praise applies. Palate Wrecker is a genuine legend of the hops-race era. And Le Freak is, without question, the best Belgian-style IPA I have ever had. Green Flash is, without question, one of the breweries most responsible for my love of beer, and I’m telling you all of this because I’m about to say some very unkind things about one of their beers. It’s not their fault. It should have been Mikkeller, but suddenly, I can’t find them here. Oh well.

Green Flash Styrian Golding Single Hop Pale Ale is a figurative mouthful to say all at once. That’s a minor but additional point against single-hop beers: Most of them have names like this. Green Flash SGSHPA is also several literal mouthfuls of beer, but those mouthfuls are a bit on the disappointing side, for me. One of the things I like least about a hoppy beer is when it tastes dirty, and unfortunately there’s a fair bit of that going on here. Even more damningly, there’s just not very much beyond that. There’s a bit of what might be orange or grapefruit if it had the courage to really express itself. The overall feel is watery and weak. This isn’t horrible. It’s not painful to drink. It’s a worthwhile experiment. But, for me, the question is: Would this have been a good enough beer for a great brewery like Green Flash to sell as just another pale ale, without the “experimental” hook? To me, at least, the answer’s no.

lady snow’s on short-term injured reserve this week, but she’s eager to get back on the field. I know better than anyone that the Beer Barrel’s not the same without her; sorry for the inevitable drop in quality this week.

tl;dr: Showcasing a particular hop doesn’t make a beer good. Making a beer good makes a beer good.

Grade: One hop out of three.

make it snow is an alot of beer who’s had just an exhausting week and, despite the tone of this review, is even more grateful than usual for a beer. His disapproval of Green Flash Styrian Golding Single Hop Pale Ale didn’t keep him from drinking five of them while writing this review. You’ve got to be absolutely sure about something like this.