![]() So, I mean, whether you’ve got an English IPA, or a New England IPA, or a White IPA, or a Black IPA, or a Rye IPA, West Coast, Session, there are so many types that the IPA portion of it becomes a bit ubiquitous, but someone’s going to find something within that style of IPA that they like. “So there isn’t, ‘Here’s an IPA, and if everyone doesn’t make it the same way, then it’s not an IPA.’ There are so many different styles that there’s enough out there for someone to like. “It spans such a wide variety of types of IPA,” he says. ![]() And so, consumers are more interested and more engaged in it.”Īl Marzi, chief brewing officer at Harpoon Brewery, also cites the IPA’s broad definition as one of the main reasons for its enduring appeal. So, they become locked in this very singular understanding of what the beer style can be, whereas, IPA has just entirely broken out of that. Belgian beer and some of the other more traditional beer styles just don’t have that level of versatility. “And I think my theory of why IPA versus why Belgian beer didn’t really take off is that there’s so many different permutations of IPA that are interesting and novel and fresh and engaging. American craft brewers and now global craft brewers really have taken up that mantle and just pushed that idea that hops can be so many different things, and you can get so many interesting and new and fun flavors out of them. “Then you had this confluence of American craft brewers taking the style and applying new and interesting hop varieties, techniques, all of these other things that then really started showcasing the versatility of it,” he explains. Granted, that story’s probably a bit embellished, but I think it’s important at least for establishing the mythology that I think it really captured a lot of people’s attention and really allowed for people to really start to engage in what the beer style is, become really interested in it, feel almost that connection to history.”īut while both IPAs and Belgian beer came with a mythology that, as Koenig says, “started a bit of a foothold, especially in American craft beer,” only one of those styles was malleable enough to birth substyles and cast a wider net. Likewise, with IPA, there’s this mythology around the British sailing around the empire, loading their casks of ale into the cargo areas of ships and using hops for their preservative effect. People were drinking these styles of beer because they were safer to drink than water back in the Middle Ages. Both have really interesting, good backstories: Belgian beer being brewed by Catholic monks back in the 1300s. “So, I think it’s an interesting, useful comparison. “We had a big hunch that Belgian beer would really take off in the United States in a big way, and it didn’t,” he tells InsideHook. To get a sense of where IPAs are headed, it’s important to remember how they first took off in America, and as Ross Koenigs, research and development brewer at New Belgium Brewing, points out, it wasn’t always obvious that they’d be the next big thing. But with so many recent IPA fads, is there still room for innovation? Or is the beloved style headed for a fall, doomed to be usurped by lagers, stouts or something else entirely as brewers inevitably run out of ways to put a unique twist on it? And as it continues to evolve, with more and more variations cropping up every year, there’s something for everyone, whether you prefer the overwhelming hoppiness of an Imperial IPA, the guilt-free consumption that a session IPA allows for, or the creamy mouthfeel of a milkshake IPA. ![]() Years after the IPA boom, it continues to be the most popular style of American craft beer. Even those whose beer knowledge barely extends beyond watered-down macrobrews are aware of it, poking fun at its trendiness and referencing it along with fixed-gear bikes, fancy coffee and indie rock to paint a picture of a very specific type of ultra-hip drinker whose snobbishness extends beyond booze.īut the thing is, IPAs aren’t just for snobs. Over the past 20 years, no other style has become as synonymous with American craft brewing as the IPA. ![]()
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