some good english ipas available commercially:
bengal lancer from fullers (first time i tasted this, i was like WOW)
fullers india pale ale (bottle conditioned)
meantime ipa (in the big champagne bottle)
worthingtons white shield
jaipur from thornbridge
in terms of grist... i know for sure that fullers use all pale ale malt, no crystal, in their IPAs. white shield on the other hand, uses some crystal apparently.
as for hops.. bengal lancer uses fuggles and goldings for bittering, and has quite a good size dry hop with goldings and target. target is quite underrated as a dry hop btw.
white shield uses challenger and northdown apparently...
the fullers yeast strain is a good one to use for an english IPA - wlp002 or wyeast1968
if i was planning one just now (and i've done a little bit experimentation on the topic)..
i would go with something like this
-all Maris otter in the grist
-bittering with challenger
-hop burst with a big whammy of different UK hops, a "best of" if you will. this could include:
east kent goldings
challenger
fuggles
first gold
northdown
target
then finally do a dry hop with a mixture of goldings and target..
i haven't done this yet but i think it has a lot of potential!
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