Oh, the India Pale Ale — bemoaned by many, beloved by more. And though people love to loathe them, IPAs are the current bread and butter of the American craft brewing industry. And whether they want to or not, almost every brewery in the nation carries one on tap.
Part of the style’s success are its numerous substyles, which have allowed IPAs to straddle nearly every major beer category on the market. Some sip like lagers, some like sours, and others like witbiers or stouts. There’s very little that the IPA hasn’t been able to achieve. Some would say that the style has become something of a shell of its former self. But as with most good things in this world, evolution is necessary to thrive. And from the early IPAs of the British Empire to the sticky-sweet Milkshake IPAs of the mid-2010s, the style has persisted as a means to showcase one of the core pillars of beer: hops.
To catalog the IPA’s travels and makeovers since its inception, we’ve put together this chronological list of every major iteration of IPA. Here’s a breakdown of the IPA’s journey through the ages.
1829: English IPA
Bow Brewery October Ale
Back in the mid-1700s when the British Empire controlled vast swaths of land across the globe, it was standard practice to fortify beer with high ABVs and heavy hops so that suds wouldn’t spoil on their months-long sea voyages to India. More often than not, these beers were porters, but hop-forward pale ales slipped into cargo at some point. No one knows who first created the IPA, but we do know that these seafaring brews were originally referred to as “pale ale prepared for India.”
Though he wasn’t the first person to brew an IPA, many credit George Hodgson of London’s Bow Brewery with creating the first well-known example of the style. This beer was Hodgson’s October Ale, and it was a crowd favorite among British occupants in India.
Fast-forward to 1829, and we see the first known mention of the India Pale Ale in an Australian newspaper, specifically in an ad for imports from merchant A.B. Stark. There, buried in a list of various textiles and liquors, is “Taylor’s and East India pale ale.”
1975: West Coast IPA
Anchor Brewing Liberty Ale
For well over 100 years, the IPA style remained more or less the same. When the American brewing industry started to coalesce, lagers were still the predominant style, but a few early IPAs such as Newark, N.J.’s Ballantine IPA emerged.
A distinctly new style of IPA came to light in 1975 when San Francisco’s Anchor Brewing debuted Liberty Ale in honor of the then-upcoming American bicentennial. Though it wasn’t labeled as an IPA, the beer was reportedly the original example of what we now know as a West Coast IPA. More bitter, piney, aromatic, and crisp than its British counterpart, Liberty Ale was reputedly hopped solely with Cascade hops, a variety that Oregon State University’s USDA breeding program introduced in 1972 and would go on to become the flagship hop of the West Coast IPA substyle.
In 1983, Bert Grant’s Yakima Brewing and Malting Company started producing an IPA (also brewed with Cascade), becoming the first American-made beer labeled as such in the modern craft landscape.
1994: Double IPA
Blind Pig Brewing Company Inaugural Ale
Brewer Vinnie Cilurzo is best known for his work at Russian River Brewing Company, but before that, he owned Temecula, Calif.’s Blind Pig Brewing Company. On June 23, 1994, Cilurzo brewed his first beer at Blind Pig in an old military soup pot using fermenters held together with bailing wire and duct tape. That brew was Inaugural Ale, the first commercially available double IPA ever. Compared to other IPAs before it, Inaugural Ale arrived with a higher ABV and a more prominent hop profile, laying the groundwork for a substyle that would take the industry by storm in the coming decades.
1994: Black IPA
The Vermont Pub & Brewery Blackwatch IPA
The same year that Cilurzo brewed his premier batch of Inaugural Ale, a pair of brewers on the other side of the country coined another IPA substyle. Those brewers were Glenn Walter and the late Greg Noonan of the Vermont Pub & Brewery, and the style was the black IPA. Calling a beer both black and pale in the same breath sent some brewers into a linguistic feud, leading some to refer to the new substyle as Cascadian Dark Ale — a nod to the Cascade hops used in the beer’s recipe.
Monikers aside, brewing a beer that is dark and roasty (thanks to the addition of debittered black malts) yet still crisp, hop-forward, and citrusy sounds paradoxical. But like any good beverage, it’s all about balance. Black IPAs may not be as popular as they were in the early aughts, but there’s still a few that have become solidified classics, like the Alchemist Brewery’s El Jefe seasonal release.
1998: Fruited IPA
Dogfish Head Brewery Aprihop
If we’re going by the Reinheitsgebot (a.k.a. the 1516 Bavarian beer purity law) beer can only contain water, hops, and barley. But if we’re going by Dogfish Head Brewery founder Sam Calagione’s philosophy, anything in or around the kitchen sink is fair game. Since founding the brewery in 1995, Calagione has put herbs, spices, fruits, and even breakfast meat into his whimsical brews. One of the earliest examples of such is Aprihop, an IPA dry hopped with Amarillo hops and brewed with — you guessed it — apricot juice. Given that Aprihop hit the scene before the haze craze, it remains a great gateway beer for those who aren’t crazy about the intense bitterness of classic American IPAs.
2002: Rye IPA
Bear Republic Brewing Company Hop Rod Rye
In 2002, rye wasn’t exactly a new beer ingredient. For centuries, brewers in Europe used it as a de facto brewing grain, as it’s a hardy one that can grow well in colder climates. In those days, rye primarily existed as a base ingredient in lagers and saisons. But as brewers are wont to do, some decided to give the legacy cereal grain a spin in a new style. Enter California’s Bear Republic Brewing Company’s Hop Rod Rye. The addition of rye gives the otherwise hoppy West Coast IPA a hint of earthiness, an amber hue, and a slightly thicker mouthfeel than its counterparts.
2004: New England IPA
The Alchemist Brewery Heady Topper
John Kimmich moved to Vermont to learn how to brew under the tutelage of the aforementioned Noonan at Vermont Pub & Brewery in 1994. After ascending to the role of head brewer, Kimich and his wife set out on their own to open The Alchemist brewpub in nearby Waterbury, and started brewing Heady Topper as an occasional draft-only offering in 2004. When customers began pouring their draft pours into empty bottles for off-site consumption, the Kimmichs knew they were on to something big.
The Alchemist relocated to Stowe and started selling Heady Topper in 16-ounce cans, which are now distributed on a limited basis throughout the Northeast. Heady Topper was the catalyst that started the industry-wide haze craze, which still persists today. Hazy IPAs, or New England IPAs, are characterized by their drinkability, fruit-forward hop aromas, and cloudy, juice-like appearance. Heady Topper is unfiltered, unpasteurized, and brimming with hop bitterness and tropical undertones, largely thanks to Noonan’s Conan yeast strain. The beer may not be as “hazy” as more modern examples of New England IPAs, but it ran so the rest of the category could fly.
2005: Triple IPA
Russian River Brewing Company Pliny the Younger
Just over 10 years after Russian River’s Cilurzo blessed us with the double IPA, he upped the ante and gave the world its first triple IPA. Building on the recipe for Pliny the Elder, Cilurzo beefed up the hop profile and alcohol content to brew Pliny the Younger. Since 2005, Russian River has been releasing batches once a year. Pliny the Younger is often credited as the IPA that birthed the craft beer industry’s notorious “line culture,” and it still brings fans from all over the world to the Golden State whenever fresh bottles drop.
2006: Belgian IPA
Brasserie d’Achouffe Houblon Chouffe
The Belgians have been brewing beer long before the U.S. even gained independence, but the Belgian IPA is a relative newcomer to the IPA zeitgeist. In Belgian-style brews made stateside, brewers will take an IPA and sub out the yeast strain with a Belgian one typically fit for a tripel or golden strong ale. In Belgium proper, they simply add a boatload of hops to their tripels or pale ales and adjust the recipes to taste. American examples also often employ a blend of Old and New World hops, while the Belgians usually stick to Old World varietals. By most accounts, Brasserie d’Achouffe’s Houblon Chouffe was one of the first commercial examples of a Belgian IPA, and leans more spicy and fruity than an American IPA due to the Belgian yeast.
2008: Milkshake IPA
3 Floyds Brewing Apocalypse Cow
In 2008, Indiana’s Three Floyds Brewing debuted what it referred to as “a beer of udder destruction,” or Apocalypse Cow. The double IPA brewed with lactose is an intensely hoppy beer augmented with a creamy mouthfeel and subtle sweetness from milk sugar. While it was met with positive reviews, it did little to shake up the brewing scene and inspire others to do the same. In a sense, it was a Milkshake IPA before Milkshake IPAs.
It wasn’t until 2015 that we actually saw brewers adopt the Milkshake moniker. Jean Broillet IV, owner and brewmaster at Pennsylvania’s Tired Hands Brewing Company, linked up with Swedish brewery Omnipollo and used oats, milk sugar, strawberries, vanilla beans, and 50 pounds of green apple puree to produce a hoppy ale simply dubbed Milkshake IPA. Since then, they’ve cranked out multiple variants of the original, and ultimately set the gold standard for the substyle.
2009: Session IPA
Founders Brewing Company All Day IPA
Not to oversimplify things, but a session IPA is essentially the IPA’s answer to a light lager. They’re low in alcohol and easy-drinking, but pack all of that hoppy goodness one would expect from an IPA. When we consider the earliest purveyors of this substyle, all roads point to Michigan’s Founders Brewing Company. Back in 2009, brewmaster Jeremy Kosmicki had the vision to create a more crushable IPA, and over 20 recipes later, he landed on what is now known as All Day IPA. According to the brand, “it wasn’t quite an IPA – it was more of a hoppy pale ale.” Regardless, the name and style stuck, and now the beer accounts for over half of the brewery’s production volume.
Like several of these substyles, we don’t see as many session IPAs occupying supermarket fridge space as we once did, but they still remain a great option for drinkers who want a full-flavored beer without getting sloshed after two or three.
2010: White IPA
Deschutes Brewery Conflux Series No. 2
Boulevard Brewing Company Collaboration No. 2
White IPAs are a hybrid of two styles: Belgian witbier and IPA. That said, it may come as no surprise that the IPA substyle stems from a collaboration between two brewmasters: Larry Sidor of Oregon’s Deschutes Brewery and Steven Pauwels of Missouri’s Boulevard Brewing Company. They got together, concocted a recipe, and went back to their respective breweries to brew their own batch. Thus, we got both Deschutes’ Conflux Series No. 2 and Boulevard’s aptly named Collaboration No. 2.
The fruity, spicy nature of a Belgian witbier paired marvelously with the hoppy bitterness of an IPA, and it didn’t take long for a laundry list of other brewers to follow suit. Five years later, the Beer Judge Certification Program (BJCP) officially recognized the White IPA as its own category.
2017: Sour IPA
Hudson Valley Brewery Incandenza
The exact origins of the sour IPA are admittedly a bit murky. Some attribute the substyle’s creation to Colorado’s New Belgium Brewing Company and its dry-hopped, golden sour ale Le Terroir circa 2011. That said, there aren’t any hard-and-fast rules dictating exactly what a Sour IPA really is, and the BJCP has yet to recognize it as a bonafide beer style. But if we’re purely going by the moniker here, the first brewery to thrust the pseudo-style into the limelight was New York’s Hudson Valley Brewery.
The brewery opened in 2017, and immediately hit the ground running with its sour IPA releases, all of which combine the tart acidity of a sour ale with the hop-forward profile of an IPA. Hudson Valley Brewery uses its own house culture to ferment its sour IPAs before hopping them and adding adjuncts like fruit and milk sugar for sweetness and mouthfeel. It’s an “anything goes” sort of style, but in our eyes, it’s an IPA nonetheless.
2017: Brut IPA
Social Kitchen & Brewery Hop Champagne
Brut IPAs are the relative antithesis of Milkshake IPAs. While they come packed with hop flavor, they’re stylistically bone dry, light in color, and highly carbonated.
Former brewer Kim Sturdavant was working at San Francisco’s now-shuttered Social Kitchen & Brewery when he invented the Brut IPA with his iconic brew Hop Champagne, which was named for the sparkling wine the IPA emulated. The style quickly gained traction with the craft community at large, but fizzled out over the next few years. It’s hard to tell exactly why the style didn’t stick, but according to Sturdavant, it came down to a lack of execution and “a true understanding of the obstacles that were in place.” To his credit, there are a lot of not-so-stellar Brut IPAs out there, but there are exceptions that are still in rotation today.
2018: Cold IPA
Wayfinder Beer Relapse IPA
In a sense, the cold IPA bears many similarities to the session IPA: It’s hop-forward and lager-adjacent. That said, cold IPAs aren’t all that “sessionable,” as cans generally clock in around 7 percent ABV. Still, they’re designed to be crisp and refreshing while delivering the same hop-forward punch one would get from a standard West Coast IPA.
The substyle is the brainchild of Gold Dot Beer co-owner Kevin Davey. In 2018, he was working as the brewmaster of Portland, Ore.’s Wayfinder Beer when he set out to brew an IPA with lager yeast. He began tinkering and reverse-engineering, and landed on the recipe for Relapse IPA. Although cold IPAs are often confused with India Pale Lagers (IPLs), they’re in a league of their own, and some would say they’re a more refined execution of what IPLs strive to be: a light-bodied beer with an assertive, hoppy profile.
*Image retrieved from www.facebook.com/alchemistbeer
