In my latest IPA post, there was quite a call for West coast and East coast IPAs from America to have their own style categories. I can sort of see why. I can see a big difference between English and Scottish Ales and they're only a few hundred miles apart. I guess it makes sense for Ales that are a few thousand miles apart to be a little different... Point taken.I've had my fair share of American IPAs, too many to remember to be honest, but I've never actually done a side by side (knowingly anyway) of a West and an East coast IPA together. I'm going to be gathering together a selection of each to pair off against each other, but that's where I need a little help. Whilst I've had plenty of US IPAs I don't know what characterises each side of the pond, and that's something I'm going to try find out.
Those who know me will probably know that Geography is one of, if not, my worst subjects. (or is it spelling and grammer...) Sure I can bore you with useless trivia about earthquakes and volcanoes, but when it comes to actual places, I'd have a hard time telling you where Manchester is in relation to Leeds... With this in mind if I was told where a beer was from in the US I'd probably (80% of the time) not really know which side it was from. Sure I know which side classics like Goose Island IPA and Brooklyn IPA come from, but if asked about others I usually have to look it up.
So I'm asking the beer blogoverse for more classic examples from both the West and the East coasts of the US and any that you think would work well against each other in displaying what's best about each side.
Answers in the box below please :)
Love that you've misspelled 'grammar'... :P
ReplyDeleteI aim to please.. ;)
DeleteI guess on the east you got Brooklyn, Southern Tier, Smuttynose etc and on the west Sierra Nevada, Deschutes... And the whole of San Diego... The list is almost endless!
ReplyDeleteWest Coast ones are usually lighter in colour and dryer, they tend to let the hops stand out a bit more, Its not just about were the brewery is either, Ballast Point brew both styles, Big Eye and Sculpin.
ReplyDeleteMaybe in California, but IPA's from the North West coastal states like Oregon and Washington tend to be much maltier and quite red in colour... but you probably already knew that!
DeleteWouldn't Goose Island be a 'Mid-West' IPA, given it's brewed in the MW's biggest city? Maybe there's a third participant, or a referee?
ReplyDeleteI should re-post your query on my blog to see what Americans think, in part because my guess is that there's absolutely no consensus. (Or anyway, that's my hypothesis.) New England IPAs used to be made with a glance toward Old England; that is, they used Goldings and Fuggles (or Willamette) and brewed them with stiffer water. The West Coast ran with American hops and created the phenomenon we now recognize as "American IPA," less biscuit, more caramel, and lots and lots of citrus hopping.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is, American IPAs have won out. The vast majority follow the saturated-hop template, and the emphasis on American hop varieties (and ever newer, more exotic ones) are the standard. Indeed, this style has gone international--though in some cases New Zealand hops are the spice of choice. (The style is much the same.) All the talk of maltier, more caramel, redder--these strike me more as differences in breweries, not regions.
If I were going to draw any distinctions at all, they would be on the following dimensions: type of hop (super citrus versus legacy varieties); malt backbone, especially the emphasis on caramel malts; and the degree to which the hop character is achieved through massive early hop bitter additions or later flavor and aroma additions. I don't know that it's possible to sort the different kind of IPAs by region, though.
(Except, MAYBE, that here in the Northwest of the country, we have elevated late addition hopping to heights not appreciated outside the hop-growing region. Unfortunately, most of the more well-regarded practitioners of this style are regional brands no one has heard of, so I don't know that this is anything more than the deep weeds of beer geekology.)
Thanks for the comment Jeff, I'd hoped you'd have something to say about this. It would be interesting to see the responses from Americans and what they actually think about all this..
DeleteWell, Americans. You can't really trust us, you know.
ReplyDelete