![]() I think its popularity really hit me at Spain’s Barcelona Beer Festival in 2018. Soon, though, the nation’s brewers and beer lovers were gripped by hazy fever. It launched their beer and the name nationwide. Some of the earliest IPAs include Blind Pig, brewed by Vinnie Cilurzo in 1994, when he was at his first brewery, Temecula’s Blind Pig Brewing, years before Russian River Brewing. Others examples are Pizza Port and Stone, both in San Diego, and Rubicon, inīy 2000, it was hard to find a brewery that wasn’t making an IPA. In 2005, Chuck Silva created an American IPA for San Diego’s Green Flash Brewing which they called West Coast IPA, trademarking the name. It wasn’t the first IPA, but it surely helped spread the style. When Lagunitas founder Tony Magee noticed people were ordering the style rather than the brand, he launched his hoppier-than-pale-ale beer in 1995, he branded it with a simple, large “IPA” on the label and a much smaller “Lagunitas” above it. The gambit worked, and the beer took off, especially in the Bay Area. ![]() And many American brewers decided, if bitter was good, more bitter must be even better. Othersįollowed suit -Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which debuted in 1980, is the most famous example. The style likely got its start in 1975, when Fritz Maytag took an essentially English pale ale and used decidedly American Cascade hops to create Liberty Ale, released to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Paul Revere’s famous ride. It just receded into the background as juicy or hazy IPAs caught the limelight. I have nothing against a good hazy IPA, but I’m a bit old school. To be fair, here in California, American - or West Coast - IPA never truly went away. Anything that increases the selection as I belly up to the bar is a welcome development. ![]() Even if that means only having two kinds of IPA instead of one, it’s progress as far as I’m concerned. Hazy IPAs are hardly going away, but I think there may be a rebalancing unfolding, a swing back to a time when there was more diversity in your beer choices. As I travel not only the length of the Golden State but the world - tasting great beer as I go - I’m seeing more and more West Coast IPAs on tap handles and in cans
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