The 12 Most Important IPAs of the 21st Century So Far
At the turn of this century, as the 2000s began, IPA was not an initialism your average person would have known. Very few bars served IPAs. Very few stores stocked them. Very few breweries even made them.
Yes, a few pioneers of the (re)birth of the style had already come in the late ’90s, in the form of beers like Lagunitas IPA (1995) and Stone IPA (1997), but for the most part, breweries that still had IPAs had India Pale Ales as defined by the English more than a century before. These were beers with hops, yes, but ones hopped with old-fashioned varieties like East Kent Goldings and Fuggles, then balanced by a malty backbone.
The genius of the American craft beer revolution that was burgeoning, mostly on the West Coast, was in drying out the maltiness and focusing solely on hops: bitter, piney, grapefruity, resinous hops. Initially, that meant Yakima Valley “Big C” hops like Chinook, Cascade, and Columbus, before eventually shifting to a new breed of hops, many of them lab engineered. In the ability to manipulate the aroma and flavor of these hops, IPA would eventually become the signature style of craft beer and most breweries.
But that hasn’t always meant the exact same IPA.
Over the last 25 years we’ve seen the IPA grow bigger (double! triple! quadrupel!) and more and more bitter, then becoming softer and fruitier and hazier; we’ve seen it turn black and white, red and glittered; we’ve seen it become cold and brut and sessionable and even sober.
Everything is an IPA! And these are the ones that most put their stamp on the category this century so far.
Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA
2001
Launched in 1995, Delaware’s Dogfish Head was the poster child for the “off-centered ales” that began to differentiate craft beer from the fizzy yellow corporate-owned lagers dominating the beer aisle. It pushed the limits to a new extreme with 90 Minute, the first bottled double or imperial IPA to ever be released widely. Famously, brewery owner Sam Calagione was inspired to create a continuously hopped beer — as opposed to just hopping it in the beginning for bitterness and at the end for aroma as was typically done — after learning some chefs continuously add pepper to soup over its entire simmering life. Hopping for 90 minutes straight cut down on the bitterness, making for a high-octane beer that introduced an entire generation to the greatness of the category, while siblings 60 Minute and 120 Minute (both released in 2003) would further expand it.
The Alchemist Heady Topper
2004
If today Vermont is an IPA mecca, two decades ago it was still a bit of a backwater where, in the small town of Waterbury, a little brewpub made an IPA unusual in its softness, fruitiness, and haziness. Arguably the first-ever New England-style IPA, Heady Topper didn’t make its way to the masses until 2011, when Tropical Storm Irene ruined The Alchemist brewpub and they had no choice but to pivot to selling only Heady Topper in cans. These silver-and-black bullets with a “DRINK FROM THE CAN!” directive on the upper rim made the pounder can the IPA vessel of choice forevermore and the NEIPA the style that came to dominate the industry. Still an icon, the on-tap hand-pulled version remains one of the few bucket-list beers still around.
Russian River Pliny the Younger
2005
While Russian River’s iconic double IPA, Pliny the Elder, barely misses the cutoff by being first brewed in 1999 (although not bottled until 2008), its younger brother qualifies and is every bit as iconic. The world’s first triple IPA, Pliny the Younger hit the scene in 2005 as a draft-only, limited yearly release only available for a week or two in the Bay Area and a few isolated bars throughout Southern California, Denver, Portland, and Monk’s in Philadelphia. Almost immediately, it had ascended to being one of the top-rated beers in the world and one of the most elusive unicorn “ticks” in the industry. By the 2010s, unscrupulous beer geeks were muling growler fills out of the Santa Rosa brewery to sell and trade online. Today, over two decades after its first release, it’s still said to generate some $9 million in economic impact for Sonoma County.
Ballast Point Sculpin
2005
Jarring in bitterness and dryness compared to the maltier IPAs then on shelves, the “bomber” bottle with a funny fish on the label mostly existed as a San Diego-area cult favorite until 2015. That was when Constellation Brands acquired the brewery for a whopping $1 billion. Almost immediately, boxed 6-packs of Sculpin cans were stacked to the ceiling at supermarkets, drug stores, and pretty much any place that sold beer in the U.S. The quality of this world-class beer almost immediately plummeted as artificially flavored Sculpin variants would be pumped out, too — Grapefruit Sculpin, Pineapple Sculpin, Habanero Sculpin, and so on. The masses didn’t care, but beer geeks were turned off by these gimmicks, and the brand tanked. By 2019, Constellation was forced to unload Ballast Point for a pathetic $100 million, a cautionary tale in understanding what actually makes IPAs magical.
Bell’s Hopslam Ale
2006
Further solidifying the IPA as the style of beer to specifically seek out was this Michigan brewery’s limited release. While Bell’s flagship IPA, Two-Hearted, first released in 1997, became one of the most beloved, widely available beers of the style, Hopslam created a hunting fervor like few other beers. Initially a draft-only product at the brewery’s Kalamazoo pub, this 10 percent-ABV beer featured six different varieties and, uniquely, a touch of honey to round things out. By the time it was bottled — with a label depicting a person being crushed by a giant hop — and widely released every single January, it eventually earned the derisive nickname “Hypeslam.” Nevertheless, even the haters rushed around town trying to find some.
Mikkeller 1000 IBU
2010
By the end of the aughts, breweries had begun to believe that people liked IPAs for the challenge of drinking something so bracingly bitter. An arms race ensued with breweries releasing hoppy beers seemingly meant to harm you, and with dare-ya-to-drink-it names to boot: Stone Ruination, Green Flash Palate Wrecker, Ballast Point Tongue Buckler. These were beers for the sorts of people who liked hot sauce not for the flavor but for the machismo of burning their faces off. And, as Scoville units are to hot sauce, IBUs (International Bitterness Units) are to IPA. This culminated with Mikkeller’s self-reported 1000 IBU, supposedly the most bitter beer ever made. It got gobs of press back then, but wasn’t a particularly beloved IPA by any standard, and few remember it today. (For what it’s worth, the hazy IPAs that eventually dominated the industry have barely any IBUs.)
Founders All Day IPA
2010
If IPA was going to move to the masses, it needed to be a hair more drinkable. This Michigan brewery’s solution was to keep the hops but lower the ABV to a manageable 4.7 percent, then release the cans in 15-packs. If many beer geeks thought the entire session IPA category was kind of nonsense, the hoi polloi certainly didn’t. What other IPA could you drink several of without getting wasted? All Day IPA became one of the best-selling IPAs in America, accounting for over 50 percent of Founders’ overall business, while creating an entire new category of beer.
Stone Enjoy By IPA
2012
As more and more people learned of IPAs, breweries faced the problem of explaining that the best way to drink an IPA was as freshly as possible, almost treating it like milk. This clever series, “brewed specifically not to last,” solved that problem by literally putting an “enjoy by” date on the label. With about a month expiration date literally built into the name, Stone Enjoy By 09.21.12 IPA was first released five weeks earlier in August. Truly the first widely released IPA series denoting, if not demanding freshness, the brewery released dozens of different Enjoy Bys per year, every year, eventually spinning them off to countless variants still offered today.
Tree House Julius
2012
Heady Topper may have invented the supposed New England-style IPA, but Julius perfected it. Starting in 2012 out of essentially a barn in rural Massachusetts, when word got out about this brewery’s beers that were as fruity and thick as fresh-squeezed orange juice, the cars — and lines — quickly arrived. Tree House had lots of great IPAs, with names like Green, Hazy, and Juice Machine, but Julius was its standard bearer (and is arguably still the most important IPA in the world). There were countless Julius spin-offs like JJJuliusss, King Julius, and King JJJuliusss, all acclaimed, all only available at the brewery. Today, the (tree) house that Julius built has spun off into a half dozen brewing, distilling, and coffee roasting locations in Connecticut, New York, and Massachusetts (including a golf course!), highlighted by a 130,000-square-foot, $18.5 million brewery in Charlton, Mass., that keeps cranking out Julius.
Other Half/Trillium Street Green
2015
By the mid-2010s, a variety of breweries, mostly on the East Coast, had begun releasing “freshies” (just-canned IPAs) nearly every single weekend. It didn’t matter what they were called, it didn’t matter what silly image was on the label, it didn’t matter what hops were used (it was always: a] Citra b] Mosaic c] Galaxy d] all of the above), it didn’t even really matter how they tasted because they all tasted the same. This cultural moment was supercharged by two of the biggest names in the game — Brooklyn’s Other Half and Boston’s Trillium — releasing this collaboration IPA that created a four-plus-hour line wrapping around industrial Brooklyn with seemingly the whole borough clamoring for cans. The game was never the same after this as “line life” was eventually overtaken by Wall Street bros and even led to a gun wielding incident. All for IPA!
New Belgium Voodoo Ranger Imperial IPA
2016
At a certain point, the idea of the trendy IPA as something released weekly, straight from the brewery, that you needed to line up for became untenable for growth. Enter this longtime Colorado brewery’s attempt to overcome that. It wasn’t the greatest beer by any means, but it was competently made and available everywhere from supermarkets to sporting events to the drink carts on commercial flights. It quickly spawned into an entire line of Voodoo Rangers, whether Juicy Haze (a hazy IPA, natch), Juice Force (a hazy DIPA), Fruit Force (a fruited IPA), Ranger G-Force (higher octane), or, better yet, a full variety pack. By 2022, it was reported that, “of the Top 30 brands growing dollars YTD, pretty much all of them are IPA, and about half belong to New Belgium’s Voodoo Ranger family.”
Athletic Run Wild IPA
2018
And then, we were told, people had quit drinking alcohol. Yet, they were still drinking IPAs! Athletic Brewing was the first true “craft” non-alcoholic brewery, hitting the scene in 2018, not with the standard NA industrial lager like O’Douls, but rather with an NA IPA. A real attempt at making a flavorful, no-ABV beer, in a post-pandemic world, its light blue cans have arguably become the most ubiquitous IPA seen these days. That’s not just anecdotal — the brewery is said to be worth damn near a billion dollars.
The article The 12 Most Important IPAs of the 21st Century So Far appeared first on VinePair.