EXTREME beer! (part I): I want good beer with BANG

I'm starting to realize what I really like: extreme beer. This sounds intense, and kinda weird, but really, it's any beer with either:

a) more than the usual amount of any usual ingredient.

b) an ingredient added that is not usually found in beer.

By that definition, most IPAs are extreme beers, because the hops is cranked up a notch. That's probably the best known example of extreme beer, but the idea goes way beyond that. Any beer you see with a really high alcohol per volume or something like Spearhead's Hawaiian Pale Ale (with pineapple, it's really hoppy and really delicious) are also extreme beers.

By this definition, too, the belgians are the masters of the extreme beer. They'll put anything in there, as long as it's delicious, and they treat beer making as an art, rather than a science, which is very exciting to me. Dubbels and Tripels are extreme beers for their high ABV and the fact that they often have sweets added to them for delicious.

I love them all. I love the extreme brewers' whole philosophy. I love hoppy IPAs. I love malty and sweet belgians dubbels, tripels, and dark ales.

I've discovered I'm not looking for faithful reproductions of beers from the good old days. The laid back porters, nutty english ales and lagers that my grandparents and their parents used to drink were pretty bland, I think. Balanced, perhaps, but bland. I want good beer. with BANG! not balance.

I'm quickly realizing that NOW is the good old days, and that's exciting. There's an explosion of flavours and adventure in beer that I think has never happened before (perhaps outside of Belgium). Here in North America, we can get beers from around the world, and from exciting craft breweries from around the world. The US is in full boom. Quebec has a wonderful belgian inspired beer scene. BC has some great West Coast IPAs (which can be hard to get in Ontario). Germany is Germany and Belgium is Belgium.

The world is on such a downwoard spiral in so many ways right now, it's exciting to think that I'm living in the golden age of something. It makes me want to join in, but I'm not sure how yet. For now, I'll demand good beer at restaurants, and I'll buy good beer for home. Life is too short to waste on bad beer. There's too much good stuff available to drink bad beer.

Ontario has been slow to extreme beer, though it's starting to pick up a bit. I'll write more about Ontario specifically in part two.