America Gone Mild: Why British Beers Are Making a Comeback | Imbibe Magazine

Photo: Rebecca Stumpf

America’s modern beer culture rarely pays lip service to the past. On a fast-tracked hunt for unique tastes, brewers spice stouts with breakfast cereal, stuff sour ales with smoothie levels of fruit, and cram hops into IPAs like a clown car. The constant game of one-upmanship sends beers ascending to absurd heights. Yet the law of gravity remains undefeated.

“People are getting tired of a hop assault, and want something opposite,” says Will Meyers, brewmaster at Cambridge Brewing Company, in Massachusetts. Breweries are counterpunching excess with traditional British-style beers that spotlight malt expression, no outlandish adulteration required.