Why You Should Add Salt To Bitter Beers

If there is one part of the culinary landscape that has seen dramatic change over the past 30 years, it's the craft beer industry. Rooted in the 1980s and '90s with pioneering brewers like Sam Adams and Sierra Nevada, per Brew Bound, there is now almost no place left in the United States that doesn't have its own brewery. Americans love beer and they seem to love it even more if it's local — and an IPA.

The IPA — India Pale Ale — is something of a revolution within a revolution. We've been crazy for them for years. According to The Bold Italic, IPAs were a gold mine for brewers during the 2010s. It's a trend that continued to roll onward, as MarketWatch showed an IPA sales increase of 20% into the new decade.

IPAs are defined by their spice and their bitterness, which makes them popular to many and unlikeable to some. If you're in the latter camp, we're here to tell you about something that could transform your beer-drinking experience. Salt is a popular additive to drinks from coffee — as James Hoffmann explains on YouTube — to beer. What exactly will salt do to a bitter beer? Well, let's find out, shall we?

First, we want to clear the air a little. Adding salt to beer is by no means a new practice. According to Learning to Homebrew, people have been salting their beer for a long time. One particular sour beer, gose, is believed to have been brewed for over 1,000 years from the high-salinity waters of the River Gose in Germany, per Sound Brewery. However, there are far more recent periods in which salt was added to beer.

During the Great Depression, people would salt the poor quality beer that was floating around — remember, Prohibition was still in full swing — as a way of making it taste better. Bartenders would put salt in the beer pitchers to get customers to drink more, as salt naturally brings on a heavier thirst. So it's not like this is some new fad that people have suddenly discovered. No, salting beer is steeped in tradition, which is likely why so many people think it's a good idea to do it.

So now we try to understand why. Why would you put salt in your beer? What's going to happen? Well, Insider explains that when it comes to cheap, low-quality, bitter beers, the addition of salt will offset any bad flavors, making the beer more drinkable. Sound Brewing also adds that salt intensifies the malts to enhance the sweetness of a bland beer, and creates a dense foam that will liven up a flat beer.

Yet, these are not the only reasons to add salt. Salt in your beer can actually serve as something of a hangover cure, per Sound Brewing. When you find yourself in this sorry state, it is likely because of two things: dehydration and lack of sodium. Adding a pinch of salt into a beer will solve the sodium issue, though we highly recommend the rehydrating be done with water. Bringing it back to IPAs, most are well-crafted beers intended to be consumed as is. However, if you're not one for too much bitterness but like the spice and the kick of an IPA, give some salt a try and see how you like it. You might just find you're an IPA fan after all.