Two centuries ago, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British navy at the War of 1812’s pivotal Battle of Lake Erie. Today, his legend swims on in another historical artifact, the English-style Commodore Perry IPA from Great Lakes Brewing Co. in Cleveland.
Commodore Perry has a loyal, if aging and declining following around northeast Ohio, but “we’re not just a Cleveland brand anymore,” says Chris Brown, the brewery’s interim co-CEO.
To attract a broader audience of IPA drinkers, Great Lakes leaned into its geography to create a balanced, subtly sweet, not-too-bitter Midwestern IPA. “Nobody really talks about it, but there is a Midwestern style,” Brown says. (Bell’s Two Hearted IPA is a bellwether.)
In February, Great Lakes released Midwest IPA, where “a sensible amount of hops politely greets a mild-mannered finish,” according to marketing copy, adding that it’s the “unofficial IPA of Midwest Nice.”
“We wanted to have something that made sense outside of Ohio,” Brown says.
During the early 2000s, the American IPA was cleaved along coastlines. Sweeter, maltier East Coast IPAs — earthy, floral — contrasted West Coast IPAs that smelled of dank cannabis and pithy grapefruit. Over time, West Coast IPA’s softened and turned tropical, while New England breweries birthed the juicy hazy IPA.
As craft beer boomed, location had scant bearing on a brewery producing directional IPAs, reducing geographic callouts to shorthand for aroma and flavor. We eventually became a nation of New England IPAs, our smooth highways paved with Citra hops.
Now it’s time for detours. To distinguish themselves, breweries are developing geographically distinct IPAs tailored to local climates, tastes, and native ingredients. From Ska Brewing’s Southwest Coast IPA, a specialty of Durango, Colo., to the desert-dry San Diego IPA, here’s how breweries are dropping fresh pins into the modern IPA map.
IPAs That Deliver a Sense of Place
This summer, after a quarter-century of schlepping, hustling, and paying ever-pricier rent in Brooklyn, I bought a house in Columbus, Ohio. It’s a welcome change of pace, from the lack of alternate-side parking rules to the surplus of fantastic local IPAs like Masthead Brewing’s Midwest Red and Bodhi double IPA from Columbus Brewing. Its motto: All for Ohio.
Confining beers to a city or state — New Glarus Brewing’s Wisconsin-only approach is a successful case study — can underscore regional differences. “When I travel, I like to drink beer and see what differentiates other IPAs from San Diego-style IPAs,” says Paul Segura, the brewmaster at Karl Strauss Brewing Co. in San Diego.
“When we tell them it’s New York State Nugget, Cascade, and Centennial, they’re just blown away. There’s so much nuance to our IPAs.”
Karl Strauss opened in 1989 and is San Diego County’s oldest brewery, a testament to its ability to adapt to new eras. The brewery produces craft classics like Red Trolley Ale, an Irish-style red ale, snappy lagers, and the tropical-piney Aurora Hoppyalis. It’s a great example of the clear and crisp San Diego-style IPA, which revamps the classic West Coast by subtracting malt character and amplifying hop aroma and flavor.
“There’s this running joke in San Diego, like, ‘Hey, there’s this fourth ingredient in beer called malt,’” Segura says, laughing.
Recipes for San Diego–style IPAs can lean heavy on dextrose, or corn sugar, that’s fermented into alcohol without contributing body or flavor. “It gives you a drier finish that makes the beer more drinkable, especially in the San Diego heat,” Segura says.
Drinkers can find stellar San Diego-style IPAs at standout breweries including North Park, Burgeon, and Societe. “We all just want to taste the hops, smell the hops, and bask in the hops,” Segura says.
American hops are largely grown in the Pacific Northwest, but cultivating the same hops thousands of miles away, in New York State, will impart a different terroir. Instead of grapefruit, New York-State-grown Cascade hops express stone fruit and tropical fruit, says Chad Zimar, the head brewer and owner of Steuben Brewing Co. in Hammondsport, N.Y., in the Finger Lakes region.
“We were like, ‘Well, we’ve got lakes. That’s our southwest coast.’ So we decided to claim our own regional-coast IPA.”
Steuben’s Local Liquid series features IPAs made exclusively with New York State malt and hops, including public varieties such as Centennial and Chinook. (Only licensed farmers can grow proprietary hops like Citra.)
Steuben’s IPAs lean hazy and deliver New England IPA aromatics with a clean, dry finish coupled with confusion. Guests are encouraged to guess the hop varieties, leaning toward Citra, Mosaic, and Simcoe. “When we tell them it’s New York State Nugget, Cascade, and Centennial, they’re just blown away,” he says. “There’s so much nuance to our IPAs.”
Inspiration for new IPAs need not grow in the ground. One day, Dave Thibodeau was watching a “Saturday Night Live” skit about partying at a lake beach, leading the president and co-founder of Ska Brewing to think about the area around Durango, in southwestern Colorado.
“We were like, ‘Well, we’ve got lakes. That’s our southwest coast,’” Thibodeau says. “So we decided to claim our own regional-coast IPA.” Earlier this year, Ska introduced the clear, brisk-drinking, and tropical Southwest Coast IPA for the Fours Corners states — Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Arizona.
“It’s pretty straw-colored, but it’s got some nice bitterness with a rounder mouthfeel,” Thibodeau says. “It sits right in the middle of everything, just like we do when you’re looking at geography.”
The Right Name Can Expand Sales
A decade ago, breweries could ship IPAs far and wide and expect customers to drink every drop. This led to exuberant nationwide expansions, like the San Diego-born breweries Ballast Point and Green Flash opening ill-fated production facilities in Virginia. Demand for West Coast IPAs brewed on the East Coast dulled as booming local breweries produced hazy IPAs, sending drinkers in a different direction.
“We’re still in the Pacific Northwest and one region. We’re just trying to unify it.”
Yet, the right name and recipe can now help an IPA travel far from home. In 2019, Odell Brewing of Fort Collins, Colo., released Mountain Standard, a juicy, low-bitterness “mountain-style IPA” designed as a midpoint between the classically bitter West Coast IPA and sweeter, thicker, and aromatic New England approach.
“We wanted it to be a little lighter in mouthfeel, so it’s more refreshing, but we wanted it to be hazy at the same time,” says Brendan McGivney, the chief operations officer, adding that Odell incorporated several kinds of wheat.
Today, Odell sells about 80 percent of its beer in Colorado, but Mountain Standard — a top-five brand at the brewery — is popular in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. You know, states with huge mountains. “It’s one of those beers that does well in all of our markets,” McGivney says
Breweries can also use names to bridge regions, especially where animosities might exist. Historically, Seattle and Portland, Ore., have clashed over everything from maritime trade to sports teams, notably soccer’s Portland Timbers-Seattle Sounders rivalry. Great Notion Brewing is based in Portland and operates several Seattle taprooms, where customers can grab 4-packs of an approachable hazy IPA named Northleft.
Tweaking language and recipes to appeal to a local audience’s tastes and regional pride can be key distinguishing factors, nudging fickle drinkers to grab a 6-pack today and tomorrow, too.
“We’re still in the Pacific Northwest and one region,” says Paul Reiter, a co-founder and the CEO. “We’re just trying to unify it.”
Staking fresh stylistic turf can give brewers a first crack at definition. Earlier this year, Firestone Walker of Paso Robles, Calif., introduced California IPA. To brewmaster Matt Brynildson, California IPA contemporizes the West Coast IPA by lightening the malt bill, lessening bitterness, lowering booze (6.5 percent ABV), and using expressive modern hops.
“There’s just a little bit more sensibility and balance,” he says.
Standing out in a store full of same-same IPAs ain’t easy. Tweaking language and recipes to appeal to a local audience’s tastes and regional pride can be key distinguishing factors, nudging fickle drinkers to grab a 6-pack today and tomorrow, too.
As for Great Lakes, the brewery is keeping Commodore Perry’s distribution docked in northeast Ohio. The plan is for Midwest IPA to settle into the hands of Heartland drinkers across Ohio and beyond. Says Brown, “We’re trying to create an IPA that will be interesting to our consumers for the next 30 years.”
