The style of beer that came to be known as the West Coast IPA deserves a lot of respect for its place in the evolution of craft beer. In many ways, this style could be thought of as the quintessential American Craft Beer. It’s coming to prominence in the later 2000s was a pivot point for craft beer: from then on, brewers constantly pushed the envelope in terms of flavor profile, finding ways to shove ever more flavor into their brews. Our latest iteration of this style here at Gotahold is a re-release of a classic West Coast IPA: Past the Breakers, which we’ve modified a bit to make it bolder and hoppier.
To really understand this style’s importance in the history of craft beer, it’s worth considering a little brewing history and lore revolving around American hops. Hops have been grown in the US for a long time, largely for domestic beer production. While some of these hops were exported, everyone – including American brewers – thought US-grown hops were inferior to those grown in Europe. Brewers think of and use hops for two distinct purposes when they incorporate them into a recipe: (1) Bitterness, to balance the sweetness from the malt, and (2) aroma and flavor, where hops act like the “spice” of beer. On both of these scores, American hops were considered undesirable. Brewers thought they provided a more harsh bitter flavor than continental hops, and the typical aromas – piney, resiny, ‘catty’, etc – were considered unsuitable for incorporating into the flavor profile of a well-made beer. ‘American taint’ was the term used to dismiss US-grown hops for any purpose aside from utility bittering of inferior brews. At the dawn of the craft brewing age, most small brewers took on this received wisdom, and a lot of early craft beer reflected this idea and incorporated European hops when it came to adding hoppy flavors. Samuel Adams, for instance, aggressively advertised their use of German Hops in their beers. Exceptions abounded, of course; Sierra Nevada built most of their business featuring American Hops, and their success inspired imitators.
Things changed in interesting ways in the 2000s: ways that are classically rebellious and American. Beer in the US for a very long time – really since prohibition – had been getting lighter, blander, with recipes using less hops every year. Bitterness was minimized, and hop flavors were nearly absent. On the aggregate, this continued through the early craft brewing era as mainstay macro beers like Budweiser and Coors were supplanted by Bud Light and Coors Light as the brand’s flagships. The American hop business was shrinking as less hops were needed for such beers. This dynamic changed with the advent of West Coast IPAs. Hops were back.
American Craft Beer in its early phases was very focused on brewing styles of beer that either existed in other places (think English Pale Ales and Irish Stouts) or re-created historical beers that had gone out of fashion, brewing things like “pre-prohibition lager” and talking about brewing “Grand-daddy’s recipe.” Often these beers were European in style and inspiration. West Coast IPAs were truly something completely new. They were called IPAs – so at least etymologically-speaking stuck to the tradition of beers brewed in historical England for shipping to the Raj. (Brewers have always been more creative in their brewing than in their use of nomenclature.) What made these beers so distinctive and novel?
For starters, in a country where bitterness in beer was frowned on, West Coast IPAS emphasized this aspect of the flavor profile. I recall a period during the later 2000s into the 2010s where brewers were using high IBU numbers (a measure brewers use for amount of bitterness in beer) as advertising, basically bragging and trying to outdo one another with beers that were more and more bitter; a kind of IBU arms race. More importantly – because this part stuck around – West Coast IPAs and the brewers of this style embraced and made a virtue of the so-called taint of American hops. Bold and overtly hoppy beers were suddenly something to seek out. Beers were described with “catty” or cat-pee aromas, piney aromas, diesel-like notes, notes of onion or garlic and so forth. It was really a break from the past: these beers weren’t recreations of versions of some lost style. These were wholly new beers that not only broke from the historical brewing traditions, but also were complete opposites of the mainstream beers that most people drank. In short, they were rebellious, cool and had swagger: very American.
It’s worth thinking about where things went from there: quite possibly too far eventually, but some truly great things were born. For one, hop breeders went to work finding new hop varieties that would bring the bold flavors that hopheads were seeking out: citrusy and tropical flavors especially. Brewers started conducting wild fermentations, trying to engage the local microflora in an effort to create something new, often with wonderful results. Many interesting non-traditional ingredients found their way into beers. Breweries successfully incorporated foraging and creating beers from regional specialty foods. Eventually, things were added to beers like Cocoa Puffs, bacon, ice cream, pickle juice, Gatorade and so forth – the “too far” part I mentioned, and it feels like things are swinging back. Quite a few small brewers are now brewing American Lagers, which the BJCP style guidelines indicate should have, “a very neutral flavor profile and low bitterness,” in other words, boring beers. So be it. Hopefully it won’t swing all the way back and we’ll still be able to get our fix of delicious, high flavor impact, locally made beer going forward.
Toward that end, we’ll release Past the Breakers this week, a classic West Coast IPA featuring a solid bitter bite, and those piney, resinous, citrusy, very green hoppy aromas that helped convert so many beer drinkers into hopheads and launch so many brewers into the world of craft brewing. May the marriage of hops, malt, yeast and water in its bold, rebellious American form go on forever!
Wendy’s thoughts:
The first time Dave made this IPA, I fell in love with the floral notes and soft palette. Future iterations brought in more piney “bitterness”. which had the nostalgic hit of the first IPA that hooked me waaaayyyy back in my Flagstaff, AZ days. This version reminds me of the first rendition of Past The Breakers. It reminds me of the first time I saw the Pacific Ocean, first wave I caught on a surfboard (small wave, but big deal for me), palm trees and sunshine that were in abundance in the desert I called home for 11 years.