Have We Reached Terminal IPA?
Today Portland joins the rest of the state, and most of the rest of the country, in Phase One of reopening—but let’s consider that another time. Today, let’s talk IPA.
The timing of this think-piece is occasioned by the release of a couple high-profile new releases: Little Sip from Lawson’s, one of the OG Vermont hazy producers, and 3-Way from Fort George—the buzziest annual IPA release in the Northwest. Both were exciting prospects. I was surprised to make Lawson’s media list out here in Far Oregon and receive a special “not for resale” can, and when I was in Astoria over the weekend, I made a point to stop at the brewery to get a four-pack of the freshest 3-Way. My anticipation built.
IPAs Through the Years
1700s: The British ship beer throughout the colonies, some of it pale ale, some to India.
1820s: Seeing an opportunity, breweries capitalize on the romance of the Raj by marketing special pale ale "as prepared for the India market."
1800s-1982: The style goes through the same changes as the rest of British beer, becoming little more than a marketing niche.
1983-2000: The American revival of IPAs delivers a kind of new-world echo of the 19th century British IPAs, with robust strength and very stiff hopping.
2000-2010: Experimentation with new hops, new techniques, and fusion styles delivers IPAs in which the hop character is emphasized more in flavor and aroma than bitterness.
2011-2018: The "juicy" era arrives, with beers that have extremely low bitterness and incredibly saturated flavors and aromas. IPAs become the dominant craft style worldwide, and substyles, many evanescent, proliferate.
2019-->: ???
For the past decade, the release of a new IPA contains within it the hint of promise: this is something you’ve never encountered before; it may blow your mind. We have gotten so used to change that IPAs have become drug fixes for our ADHD minds: little rushes of novelty wrapped up in candy-color packages. The newness has become the thrill.
So, as I peered at my chilled cylinders of delight, I wondered what these breweries may have come up with. Since its inception, 3-Way has been a kind of tuning fork for IPAs. It is never on the bleeding edge of change, but it seems to capture what’s happening at any given moment more vividly and skillfully than anyone else. It brings trends into focus. Lawson’s, for its part, promised more liquid sunshine in a can. Trumpeted the press release: “It’s my new favorite everyday beer!” exclaims Lawson’s Finest Liquids founding brewer and co-owner Sean Lawson. “For years, fans have been saying how much they love Sip of Sunshine and asked me to brew a similar juicy hop-forward IPA with a little lower alcohol.” So exciting!
Then, with much anticipation, I decanted the future to see what it held. And … hmm. They were both great beers; they were just—familiar. Little Sip is a juicy rather than hazy IPA with a ton of Mosaic (I’m guessing—it tasted quite savory to my palate). The use of Mosaic and Citra are now roughly as common as Cascades and Chinook were two decades ago, which is to say very common. 3-Way lacks Mosaic (but not Citra!) and is softer and juicier. It also boasts the use of spelt rather than wheat for hazy-making purposes. Because it lacked Mosaic, it hit my palate as juicier, and I quite liked it. As usual, Fort George and partners (Level and Structures this year) have created a highly accomplished beer. Both were IPAs the breweries have been fine-tuning, and it showed.
In neither case, though, was anything new on display. As I was drinking them, it occurred to me that I haven’t tasted anything new in the IPA realm in a while. New hops, like the strawberry-tinged Belma that Ecliptic uses to great effect in its current Vega IPA, create a new flavor palate, but they are nested within familiar styles. It has now been two years since brut IPAs debuted, the last of the giant catalogue of IPA substyles. In fact, the most recent trend I’ve noticed is actually a retrenchment, as West Coast IPAs enjoy a revival.
I don’t doubt the ingenuity of brewers, and it’s entirely possible they’ll find a way to prod this style along on its evolution. I personally can’t imagine a new permutation, though. It seems like things have been pushed as far in every direction as they can. We’ve had extremely strong and weak IPAs, bitter and juicy, clear and hazy, dark and pale, sweet and dry; we’ve seen experiments with every type of yeast (including wild yeast and bacteria), grain, and hop. Is there anywhere else to go?
That thought has been gestating in the back of my mind for some time, but it was during the 3-Way that it became a full-fledged epiphany. Eventually, the great explorers had put feet on every land mass on the planet. Things are finite and we must ultimately come to the end of the road. And so I put it to you all: have we reached terminal IPA, or is there yet some undiscovered territory yet to explore?