The many shades of IPA
Or, when does the moniker become meaningless?
By popular demand, we explored IPAs for this month’s beer club. I’d been collecting data on all the fan faves from each of our sessions and almost every damn time, some variation of IPA wins. In fact, NEIPAs are the regular winners of our sessions.
So this month, I decided to do a deep dive into IPAs to show just how varied they can be - but let’s be honest, also I wanted to reconfigure their expectations of IPAs with a curveball or two ;)
IPA is undoubtedly the most popular “craft” beer style in the world and has been since the early 00s. They don’t compare to the popularity (and ubiquity) of lagers in terms of macro styles, but they’re the archetype of modern beer and actually, they have quite a long history.
You may have heard the tale - the one about how English brewers added more hops to their Pale Ales to preserve them for long trips to India, hence India Pale Ale. Along with this, it was said that hops were “essential” to beers that would be consumed in warmer climates. Well, that’s not entirely true, or at least, it’s not quite as simplistic as that, which we explored in our Beer Ladies IPA episode.
What we do know is that hops first emerged as a beer ingredient around the 8th century in Germany, Before that, brewers used Gruit (a mixture of herbs and spices) to add some bitterness to beer. We need bitterness in beer because it balances the sweetness that comes from the grains. German brewers were making and exporting hopped beer from around the 13th century, and English brewers started using hops from at least 1412. The brewery most attributed with the “invention” of IPA was Hodgson of Bow - as they were exporting beer to India by 1793.
Martyn Cornell has excellent summaries of IPA myth-busting on his website, but the SparkNotes version is that Hodgson IPAs were the most famous, but not necessarily the first IPAs in the world.
Now, IPAs would have been quite different back then. Today, we know them to be highly hopped, bitter beers. Back then, since they were made for ageing rather than fresh consumption, they would have been less “IBU arms-race, hop-bombs” than the modern examples. In addition to that, considering how long these beers would have been aged, the hop aromas would have all but disappeared.
My theory is that brewers added more hops to beers to prevent the end result from being too sweet - as that happens with beers over time: the hop flavours, aromas and bitterness fade and the malt sweetness overtakes it. If I’m right, the beers on the other end of the trips would have been more evenly balanced because of the extra hops, not “hoppy” as we tend to think. They may also have had some “funk” from Brettanomyces - a wild yeast that gives off “horse blanket” or “leathery” notes - common in wooden barrels. So these were not the IPAs that we know today - not at all.
The style was “resurrected” by American craft brewers back in the 90s, and production has only increased since. Except that these IPAs feature more hop bitterness, more hop flavour and aroma and a completely different family of hops.
The initial IPAs in the homebrew and craft beer world were all examples of what we now call West Coast IPAs. They tended to be clear, deep gold to copper in colour, ±6% ABV and as bitter as we could make them with prominent piney, resinous or citrus hop aromas and flavours. But through the years, a whole bunch of IPA styles have emerged.
On the one hand, it seems like IPA is style-family as opposed to one style, but on the other, it seems like we can append IPA to anything with little impunity.
These were just some of the IPA styles I could think of. Not all are recognised by BJCP as distinct styles, but this gives an overview of just how varied they all are. Anything from using regional hop varieties, speciality malts to different yeast strains. Basically, brew a style with more hops than is called for and you can call it an IPA …. /s
Here’s a very (VERY) basic breakdown of each of the styles, just so you get the main differences:
English IPA: Hoppy, bitter beer using English hops giving it a more earthy, floral or spicy profile. More restrained than West Coast IPAs in every way.
West Coast IPA: The original interpretation - bitter, hoppy ale, 6-8% ABV with American hops which give it a citrusy, piney/resinous profile.
East Coast IPA / New England IPA: An IPA that uses lots of late hopping and focuses on hop aroma and flavour, as opposed to bitterness. Often has an addition of oats or wheat for a pillowy mouthfeel. Low bitterness, high hoppiness, soft and juicy.
Mountain IPA: Hop varieties are resinous, but with the rest of NEIPA character. Hella confusing. Not sure this style ever really got off the ground outside of the few breweries who were trying to punt it.
White IPA: Brewed to be a hybrid of Belgian Wit beers and IPA; an IPA with added wheat and using citrusy hops.
Black IPA / Cascadian Dark Ale: The ever-controversially named version has added dark, roasted malts. Looks like a stout; tastes like an IPA.
Red IPA: Typically a West Coast style that has extra caramel/crystal malts, giving it more of a toffee or caramel flavour in the malt base.
Brown IPA: Same as above, but using brown malt. Can have a chocolatey or biscuity malt flavour alongside the bitterness and hoppiness.
Milkshake IPA: An East Coast style IPA that has added lactose and/or vanilla, for an even softer, creamier and sweeter flavour and mouthfeel.
Sour IPA: Basically, a highly hopped sour beer.
Brett IPA: Barrel-aged IPA with added Brettanomyces to give it extra depth and complexity.
Wet IPA / Fresh Hop IPA / Green IPA: IPA that is made from fresh hops, normally very soon after the first harvest of the season. Not so much a different ingredient, as a different form of it.
Rye IPA: IPA (typically west coast) with Rye making up some of the grain bill. Rye gives a beautiful earthy, spiciness to the flavour.
Micro IPA: <4% ABV (Alcohol by volume)
Session IPA: 4-6% ABV
Standard strength IPA: 6-8% ABV
Double IPA: 8-9.5% ABV
Triple IPA: >9.5% ABV
Belgian IPA: An IPA fermented with Belgian yeast, but could also be an IPA that uses typically Belgian ingredient bills with extra hops. Either way, it takes advantage of the unique spicy phenols and esters in Belgian yeasts.
IPL - India Pale Lager: an IPA brewed with a lager yeast strain (and therefore fermented colder too) giving it a clean finish
Cold IPA: This one uses Ale yeast, but ferments cold (at lager yeast temperatures) but may also add adjuncts like corn or rice to thin the body and dry out the finish.
Brut IPA / Dry IPA: Using a champagne yeast to help fermentation, this variety is brewed to be extra dry, hence Brut. Another style trend that seemed to be short-lived.
The 5 beers we drank for beer club from left to right: To Øl - Batch 1000 (Brut IPA), Lough Gill - Lost Armada (West Coast IPA), Wicklow Wolf - Tundra (East Coast IPA), Kinnegar - Brewers at Play 25 (Sour IPA) and Kinnegar - Black Bucket (Black Rye IPA)
Back to Beer Club. I wanted to show the breadth of the IPA family in this tasting, and chose beers that touched on different parts of the spectrum.
I somehow missed the Brut IPA trend so I was delighted to find one, although I didn’t find it as dry as I expected, nor as “champagne” like. The West Coast IPA was actually lower in ABV (and flavour) than the ones I encountered when they took over the world. The NEIPA was great - it’s my favourite example of an East Coast, juicy style that I’ve had here in Ireland. The Sour IPA, which was always going to divide opinions was interesting, although I found the flavours a bit muddled.
My fave of the day was Kinnegar’s Black Bucket; it’s a marvelously roasty, bitter IPA and I’m a sucker for rye. Any guesses on the crowd’s pick?
You guessed it. The East Coast wins the day once again. LOL
Tune in next month when I’ll be taking my colleagues through English Styles - I’m looking forward to learning a bit more about them, especially since a lot of our modern beers are interpretations of them.
