Linchpin white IPA

[Lewes]

My new favorite - a 7.0 collaboration between Founders & Green Flash. The perfect, hoppy Summer beer.

[chimay5]

Went to an all IPA Fest at Avery Brewing last Saturday. There were 90 so called "IPAs" poured.
Couldn't taste all of them nor would I even try. I thought the few fresh hopped beers were interesting but I don't understand the hulabaloo over them. They had an oily, viscus taste and appearance and were on the sweet side. A lot of the others I tasted were not at all what one would expect and were odd and out of style.
Think a lot of brewers are following the IPA craze by calling any of their highly hopped beers, IPAs. didn't find any WIPAs and just a few BIPAs.

[Jim Dorsch]

White IPA seems to be a growing style. I recall Saranac does one, and someone else, I think Deschutes.

[Josh]

I'd be curious to try this one. I found Saranac's to be really strange.

[Jim Dorsch]

I ran into Fred Matt in the airport on the way to the Craft Brewers Conference earlier this month. I recall his saying that the Citra hop provided a citric element, which would seem appropriate in a white beer. I haven't tried this beer myself, however, nor any other white IPA.

[LStaff]

> I haven't tried this beer myself, however, nor any other white IPA.

I'm hoping this trend fades away before I actually get around to trying it..... ;-)

[Jim Dorsch]

we are in agreement

[Lewes]

first DIPA, then BIPA, now WIPA.

[Jim Dorsch]

I was chatting recently with a fellow who pointed out something I'd never considered, although it's obvious. To say 'black IPA' is to say a beer is black and pale.

[Tripeler]

Thanks for the brilliant observation, Jim.
The term IPA has been totally abused, bent out of shape and made entirely meaningless by all the "me-too" permutations. I guess we can now take it to mean a beer that is stronger and hoppier than the norm. What we need is to stop using "IPA" when the beer clearly isn't.

[brentk]

When the style first emerged, it was known as a Cascadian Dark Ale. It is also known as an American Black Ale. I had a very nice example of it yesterday - Ithaca Fourteen.

[JessKidden]

> When the style first emerged, it was known as a Cascadian Dark Ale

Well, there is some debate about that. http://www.alestreetnews.com/beer-sty...

I remember New Amsterdam having a bottled "Dark India Pale Ale" but at this point can't recall when that was.

Still the "pale" part of IPA is itself an anachronism in today's beer market. I'll be sitting at a bar looking at (well, through) the US light lagers and light beers others are drinking and I'm always a bit taken aback by how pale those beers are today.

"Did that guy order a half 'n' half of Bud and Perrier?"

[TongoRad]

The New Amsterdam beer was called 'India Dark Ale' (no Pale in the title, so it looks like they put some thought into that aspect as least.) from around 1995. Unfortunately, I found that it didn't really live up to its promise; I'd peg that era's Black Butte Porter as being hoppier.

There's a line where the hops and roasted grain bill will clash- SN and Deschutes have always stayed on the good side of that line while these newfangled whatchacallits tend to be on the bad side. I'm just finishing a four-pack of Widmer's, and it may be the last time I venture into that territory.

[JessKidden]

Damn! That's right. I'd brought that N.A. label up in a previous thread when someone suggested that "India Black Ale" would be a better term. Don't remember much about it all, so I'd say that suggests I agree with your "didn't live up to its promise".

Altho' most of the new craft IPA's I'd had up to that point hadn't live up to the promise, either as best as I recall. Not a lot on the East Coast yet (as least as I remember it) and many of the West Coast ones (I remember Grant's and Portland's Woodstock IPA) were probably not very fresh.

[Jim Dorsch]

As an aside, New Amsterdam Amber Beer is the first fresh, good American beer I ever had. I was amazed at the hop and malt flavors. That beer would probably not amaze today, but I'll never forget it. This was 25 to 30 years ago, of course.

[MOREKASHA]

Yup, in NYC in the mid 80's New Am was a revelation. too bad Matty had to fuck it up w/the brewpub in the middle of nowhere. Sam Adams cam in w/a better biz plan and wiped the floor w/New Am, still miss that brew.

[steveprez]

"Still the "pale" part of IPA is itself an anachronism in today's beer market."

Not to mention that the "India" part of the name survives despite that these beers are not made for shipment to India. ;)

[The Professor]

The "style" (if you can even really call it that) emerged long before it showed up as "Cascadian Whatever". Clearly, Greg Noonan in Vermont got the ball rolling on popularizing it, likely more than 20 years ago.
And even considering that fact, hoppy dark ales had certainly been around even before that.
So it is anything but a "new style".
In the end, there are no real "style rules" in the real world anyway...only in homebrew competitions...where it has _really_ gotten out of hand.

[LStaff]

The "style" first emerged in VT (in this country anyway, the english did it decades before us), not the PNW, and it was called black ipa. Noonan.....

[Chinon00]

And don't forget Belgian IPA.

[Jim Dorsch]

See, that's another one I never thought about: Belgian Indian. Are there any Belgian Black IPAs? Heh.

[niquejim]

Give them time......

[AZeagle]

Stone did a collaboration with Brew Dog a couple of years ago that they termed a Belgian Black (Double?) IPA and I think Dock Street has one out now, and I am sure I have seen others.

[Kenji]

The Boston Beer Company also makes one. It's not a hybrid I'm crazy about.

[Jim Dorsch]

I'm not much for what I'll call nontraditional beers. I like them pretty simple, good malt, good hop character, no other spices.