The American IPA and its descendents are without question the absolute king of craft beer. Although small brewers still only make up around 13-15% of the total beer marketplace, IPA is the third most popular style according to sales, behind only macro lager and light lager. Within the past several years, we’ve come to recognize that popular knowledge about the origins of this style are pretty far from the truth. Despite what you might have read or heard, it was not “invented” by any one single brewer in England, and it was not originally brewed to higher strength and highly hopped solely for the purpose of stability on the extended journey to India. We’ll delve a bit more into that history in our post on English IPA, so let’s focus our attention on its American counterparts.

In addition to being the most popular style, beers called IPA in the US today are some of the most varied things you’ll find with the same label on the can. On one end of the spectrum, you’ll find beers that are light amber in color with brilliant clarity and a bracing, bitterly hoppy finish. On the other, you’ll find beers with fruit, spices, lactose, and even flour added to the brewing and packaging process. In this post, we’ll focus on the traditional, clearer, older style of American IPA, but you’ll find a post on their hazier cousins coming soon.

The origins of IPA in America are a perfect reflection of the spirit of craft. As we discussed in our post on American Pale Ale, brewers were challenging the status quo in the 1970s and 80s. The first beer in what’s now Anchor Brewing’s Christmas Ale series–initially called “Our Special Ale” and brewed with a different recipe every year for the Christmas season–was an IPA brewed in 1975 that eventually became Anchor’s Liberty IPA, which you can still find on shelves today. Being a special release for the holidays, brewers created something bolder to celebrate the season. Sierra Nevada followed the 1980 release of their Pale Ale with Celebration Ale in 1983. Also originally brewed for the holidays, you’ll still find this amber-hued IPA on shelves every fall after it’s brewed with the freshest possible hops from that year’s harvest (and if you haven’t tried it, grab some next time you get a chance…it’s one of the best you’ll find).

American hops were a hit. Many of the early microbreweries in the states recognized this, including Bell’s (1985), whose iconic Two Hearted remains its flagship beer, Dogfish Head (1995), whose 120-minute IPA we’ll talk about in our Double IPA post, and Stone (1996) whose IPAs are still among the best you’ll find. The consumers supporting interesting beer were hooked on these piney, citrusy, bitter brews, and the style grew steadily through the turn of the millenium, then exploded in the early 2000s.

You won’t walk into many brewpubs or taprooms that don’t have an IPA (or 12) on tap. If you’re looking to try one of the more traditional versions, beers labeled “West Coast IPA” are often close to these roots. Bitter, drier IPAs are enjoying a bit of a comeback in the regions that they left as hazy IPAs become less of a novelty and more the norm (those dry, bitter beers never really left the west coast, where they’ve been standard on taplists through the juice boom). Look for these on our taplist at Black Flannel, too–we love all IPAs equally, and chances are you’ll see these crop up, even in our northeast hazy haven.