IPA

The India Pale Ale, or IPA, is a very popular beer style, at least among beer connoisseurs. It is the beer style that I drink the most. The IPA is a type of Ale (fermented at warm temperatures, unlike, for example, lagers). It is typically a Pale Ale (exceptions are black IPAs). It was invented in England in the early 1800’s and became popular for exportation to India. It is characterized by its higher content of hops and the level of alcohol is often higher as well. More hops and more alcohol made it easier to preserve the beer for the trip to India.

A can of double Yellow Rose on the left. A can of Yellow Rose on the right. Both cans feature two ladies and a yellow theme. There are two IPA glasses in the middle containing each beer and two yellow lucia saffron buns.
Double Yellow Rose ABV 10.0%, IBU 90 (left) and Yellow Rose, ABV 6.8%, IBU 62 (right) both from Lone Pint, Magnolia, Texas. The flavor of both beers is mango, pineapple, orange, blueberry and then there is a grapefruit rind and pine resin like bitterness. The Double Yellow Rose has more pine resin like bitterness at the end. They are both delicious and so are the saffron/St.Lucia buns.

The aroma of the IPA is often floral, piney, and fruity, and it is less malty. If the flavor has fruity notes, it comes from the hops. The color can be light yellow, pale golden, reddish amber, brown or black. Just like lagers can be pale golden as well as black, so can IPAs, which combined with the fact that the beer advocate count 120 beer styles, is a good reminder that a broad classification of beers based on only color is not very helpful.

A glass filled with hazy pale golden beer on the left with a can of King Sue on the right. There is a grill in the background.
King Sue is a New England style IPA from Toppling Goliath, ABV 7.80%. New England style means that is hazy and the flavor is fruitier with less bitterness than other IPAs (but certainly a lot more bitterness than lagers). The flavor is fruity plus some bitterness. I can taste mango, orange, pineapple, grapefruit and a grapefruit rind bitterness at the end. It is thirst quenching.

I tried to find out what share of the beer market IPAs have in the United States. I could not find that number, but I found out that in 2021 craft beer share of the American beer market was 26.8% and out of that IPAs share of the craft beer market was at least 40% (these two numbers according to statista), or 46% according to one source, which make the IPAs share of the American beer market at least 12.3%. It is probably closer to 20% since craft breweries aren’t the only ones brewing IPAs. I can add that craft beer is beer that is not mass produced, or not owned by large conglomerates. Examples are microbreweries and brewpubs.

A Scarborough Faire glass filled with Heady Topper IPA and the can to the right.
Heady Topper from the Alchemist, ABV 8.0%, IBU 100. It is the Imperial IPA that is ranked the highest in the world according to the beer advocate. If you like IPAs it is to die for. I can taste grapefruit and mango, citrus, and then a pine resin like hoppy bitterness. It is juicy, dank, bitter, in a good way, and thirst quenching.

Perhaps those among you who are Americans and were around in the 80’s remember the bitter beer face commercials. At that time beer was supposed to taste as little as possible. Bitter beer was to be avoided according to many. The IPAs have reversed that trend by making IPAs intentionally bitter, more bitter, and oh my golly super bitter having 100+ IBU. IBU stands for International Bitterness Units and brewers of IPAs often brag about the IBU, the more bitter the better. A public poll showed that more people prefer bitter beer over non-bitter beer.  Jabberwocky an IPA from Lone Pint below feature 117 IBU. Beyond 100-120 IBU the IBU scale begins to lose its meaning according to Wikipedia.

An IPA glass filled with Jabberwock IPA on the left and a Jabberwocky can on the right.
Jabberwocky from Lone Pint, Magnolia, Texas, ABV 8.5%, a very bitter beer that I love. The flavor is white bread, honey, it’s fruity with tart grapefruit, orange, and a dry tart bitterness like grapefruit rind and pine resin. Jabberwocky is quite bitter at the same time as it is fruity, juicy and dank. I think it is a delicious IPA.

The beer advocate divides the IPA style into American IPA (or Westcoast), Imperial IPA, New England IPA, Black IPA, Belgian IPA, English IPA, Brut IPA, and Milkshake IPA. The American IPA or Westcoast IPA is the most popular of the substyles and the most bitter. Imperial IPA is not really a substyle but just an indicator that it has more of everything including alcohol. The 120 minute IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery, is a very popular Imperial IPA with an ABV of 18%, IBU is 120. It is a bit sweet, very bitter in a good way, and this hides the alcohol, which is a bit dangerous.

A glass of 120 minutes IPA on the left and the bottle on the right. There is flip-flop shaped opener in the foreground.
It taste sweet, honey, dark fruits, plum maybe, grapefruit and then there’s a significant pine resin bitterness at the end. You can taste some booziness but not much for this ABV and it complements the overall flavor in a warming way.

Finally, miscellaneous IPA photos.

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Author: thomasstigwikman

My name is Thomas Wikman. I am a software/robotics engineer with a background in physics. I am currently retired. I took early retirement. I am a dog lover, and especially a Leonberger lover, a home brewer, craft beer enthusiast, I’m learning French, and I am an avid reader. I live in Dallas, Texas, but I am originally from Sweden. I am married to Claudia, and we have three children. I have two blogs. The first feature the crazy adventures of our Leonberger Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle as well as information on Leonbergers. The second blog, superfactful, feature information and facts I think are very interesting. With this blog I would like to create a list of facts that are accepted as true among the experts of the field and yet disputed amongst the public or highly surprising. These facts are special and in lieu of a better word I call them super-facts.

35 thoughts on “IPA”

    1. It started out as an obscure specialty style in England but now in northern Europe (UK, Belgium, Germany, Scandinavia) and North America, basically every restaurant that has beer has an IPA in addition to a few pale lagers. The same with small breweries, they all have one or a few IPAs that they brew. The beer advocate lists 124,850 IPAs out of around 250,000 beers in total. Half the beers listed are IPAs. It has become very popular. I think it is the most popular style after the pale lager (I am not sure about stout, it could be stout that is second).

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  2. IPAs aren’t my favorite. Actually, I don’t drink anymore, but they WERE not my favorite. A black IPA sounds interesting, though. Since yesterday’s post, the hubster has been looking everywhere for the strange-looking Blue Dream lambic.

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    1. Yes of course, everyone has their own taste, and since you are interested in black IPA perhaps I can guess that you prefer the beers to be maltier. About Blue Dream, it is not a lambic, it is a Fruited Kettle Sour, which may not be everyone’s cup of tea, I mean beer. It’s very sour. However, it is from Martin Brewhouse in Fort Worth.

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      1. Oh, oops, not a lambic. I don’t think I would like it. But it’s STILL cool looking! Yes, the maltier the better. My favorite is Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout or Sam Adams Imperial Stout or Left Hand Milk Stout. You can kind of tell why I needed to quit drinking!

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    2. Yes I have a feeling you wouldn’t like blue dream. It is not a very malty beer. It is fruity, tart, a bit soda like or liquid candy like, but not malty. A lot of people like lambics but fruited kettle sours are not like lambics. I’ve had Left Hand Milk Stout and it is very good. The other two you mentioned I’ve heard of, they are both listed as Russian Imperial Stouts, but I have not had them. I like both malty beers such as porter/stout but also less malty ones like IPAs. It is much healthier not to drink any alcohol.

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    1. Yes the King Sue label is quite interesting. The beer is named after Sue Hendrickson the discoverer of the largest T-Rex skeleton in the world. Toppling Goliath, the brewery, is a very respected small brewery in Iowa where the T-Rex was found and they made an entire set of beers centered around the T-Rex. Jabberwocky feature the hop flower (looking like a pine cone) as a monster because their thing is “this IPA is a ton of hops”. Some people are joking about it; skip the malts/grains, fermentation, just fill a glass with hops and add a teaspoon of water. Anyway, Jabberwocky is brewed by Lone Pint in Texas.

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    2. Thank you, Kymber. Yes, I thought the T-Rex story and Toppling Goliath is quite interesting. They are also a very environmentally conscious brewery, and they signed a statement of support for the environmental organization I volunteer for (Citizen Climate Lobby).

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    1. Yes I think you are right. A lot of small breweries put in a lot of effort into being special to justify their typically higher pricer, the variety of styles, the higher quality of the ingredients, and the labels. Jester King in Austin Texas have some truly remarkable beer labels. Beeing a beer label artist is a niche job. An artist friend of mine made labels that I am using for my home brews. Someone suggested to her that she should do beer labels but she prefers her favorite art.

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    1. I drink them but I always take photos first and then I post in 8-10 beer groups on Facebook (I administrate and moderate half of them), my own profile, Instagram, Untappd, and the beer advocate. Yes, there are so many varieties and a good portion of the beer drinkers in the US have gotten on board with trying something else than pale lagers and trying smaller breweries. As I mentioned at least a quarter of all beer sales in the US are craft breweries. The Beer Advocate counts a quarter million different beers and 120 beer styles.

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    2. Yes you are right. I used to drink only the mass produced popular pale lagers then after a few micro brewery visits I realized that there were so much more to beers. It’s a lot varieties and a lot of small breweries. I read somewhere that are more than 4,000 breweries in the United States.

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    3. Yes, a quarter of the beer sales are by these small craft breweries, so a signficiant portion of US beer drinkers must be drinking beers other than the big mass produced ones. In fact, I’ve been reading that Coors, Miller, Budweiser and Corona are all very concerned about the competition from the small breweries. Budweiser even had an attack Ad on micro breweries at the superbowl last year.

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  7. Great post. I love a good IPA. It’s almost the first thing I order when I try a new brewery to judge how well I’ll like them. Fortunately, we have a few good craft breweries in Las Cruces. It’s been a while, but I used to brew my own beer and even grew my own hops. I won two silver medals in the New Mexico State Fair. In this case those were for a porter and a chipotle smoked ale I created. This makes me tempted to brew another batch of beer soon!

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    1. Wow congratulations on your two silver medals. I’ve done some home brewing but not at your level. I’ve had many New Mexico beers (primarily from La Cumbre, Marble, Bosque, Red Door, Santa Fe Brewing, maybe more) but I am not sure about Las Cruces. On the other hand I’ve never been to Las Cruces. It would be interesting to explore.

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      1. Thank you. Of the ones you list, La Cumbre and Marble are my favorites, though all are good. Icebox Brewing in Las Cruces makes several good IPAs. I also like Little Toad Creek Brewing. Both are pretty small and I don’t think have much distribution outside the area.

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  8. My husband particularly enjoyed your post about IPA as he is a fan of this beer, his favourite here in England is Greene King IPA which is from a nationwide brewery. I like the look of black IPA – looks like a Guinness!

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    1. England, that’s where it all started. The Black IPA is fairly recent invention but in addition to IPA hop flavors and has a little bit of roasted malts, like a Guinness, but not as much. I will look for the Greene King IPA over here. They might have it. Thank you for the comment.

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    1. Thank you Robbie. There is an index for almost everything. There is an index for how spicy something is, the Scoville scale, and an index for how much a bug sting or bite hurts, the Schmidt Pain Index.

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    2. I read about this guy who was letting himself be stung by insects and then he rated the stings according to the index. Whenever my job at Siemens was difficult I just compared with his job. There is always someone with a worse job.

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