I would be lying if I said I was sick of drinking IPA.
IPA is shorthand for India Pale Ale, a style of beer that has come to dominate the American craft brewing movement. Of variable bitterness with an admirable quotient of flavor to heft, better beer lists are crowded with IPAs for good reason. But though I still enjoy their company, I am starting to feel the seven-year itch.
It was about that long ago that high-end beer-making in the States was nearly usurped by Trappist monks. Amid the wonderful American-made good beer revolution, drinkers who had learned to want something better than Milwaukee’s Worst had a fling with Belgian beers. Not only were they luscious, properly served, each was poured into a proprietary glass. For a couple of years, ambitious American beer drinkers dove into Duvel, Chimay, and Maredsous. I particularly looked forward (and still do) to the Christmas brews from Gouden Carolus and Delirium. It was a lovely moment, though one fraught with peril for serious, small-scale American brewers who found their customers being lured away by some of the best brewers in the world.
Luckily, people get bored and start looking for the next new thing. Which isn’t to say that Belgian beer isn’t selling well in the U.S. — the bland, industrial pilsner Stella Artois has captured a sizable share of the large international market for bland, industrial pilsners. But to the relief of American craft brewers, the tastes of stateside drinkers who are particular changed years ago. The infatuation with artisanal Belgian beers gave way to the IPA.
Instead of trying to copy Belgian styles, craft brewers were able, with the IPA, to play to their strengths and sell something distinctively American. Though initially a British type of ale, the IPA’s emphasis on hops allowed U.S. craft brewers to make it their own through the use of domestic hop varieties. “If there is a style of beer that encapsulates American craft beer, it is the IPA,” says Thor Cheston, co-founder of Washington’s Right Proper brewery. Go to any good liquor store with a robust selection of hand-made beers, and you’ll find one IPA after another.
A lager may have been the founding brew for Sam Adams, but the Boston beer company now has in its offerings a superabundance of India Pale Ales. There’s a “session” (that is, low-alcohol) IPA, a “hazy” unfiltered IPA, a grapefruit IPA, and — for those who want their beer hopped-up to the point where they don’t know which is the more prominent flavor, pine resin or lawn clippings — there’s a Double IPA.
That “Double IPA” business, however, suggests to me that we’ve hit peak IPA. It isn’t just a Sam Adams phenomenon. Sierra Nevada’s core offering has all along been an IPA-style pale ale. They added a variation labeled “Torpedo” that is an “Extra IPA,” and if that weren’t hoppy enough, they’ve brewed up a Double IPA, and now a Triple IPA.
That’s some aggressive use of hops, which is typical of West Coast IPAs, even those not labeled double or triple. By contrast, the East Coast — especially New England — goes in for IPAs regularly described as “juicy,” which demonstrates that there is plenty of variety available even just among those cans and bottles labeled IPA.
Still, the need for ever more extreme variations of the IPA makes me think it’s about time for American beer drinkers to entertain different styles of beer altogether. It’s not that they’re not out there. For example, craft brewers have been making “sours” of late, beers made with the same lactobacillus that gives kombucha its tang. I had a delicious Berlin Sour at Right Proper, but it is probably too peculiar a taste to challenge the IPA.
Farmhouse ales are another thing altogether. Rustic and refined at the same time, they are dry and elegant and happen to be Right Proper’s favored house style. I think they could give the IPA an overdue run for its money.
Then again, even Right Proper feels reluctantly obliged to make an IPA. And it’s their best-selling beer.
