Hops for IPA... All citrus or mixture of citrus/pine

So, should an IPA use hops that are a balance of citrus/pine or have brewers been successful with an all citrusy blend of hops? (i.e. Citra, Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, Magnum)

My dads standard IPA is 40 IBUs Cent. 60 min 2.25oz Cascade at 15min, dry hop with an oz if both, its pretty good

Depends on what you like. Best way to describe how I like one is to say a 3:2:1 ratio between citrus: pine: earthy. I usually use a small add of Northern Brewer to give a bit of earthiness to the malt and give complexity. Straight citrus flavors are the easiest to do alone, as blending the pine or dank hops can be overdone. An IPA that tastes like chewing on "nugs" is not my idea of tasty.

When I started writing recipes I just looked at every IPA I liked and everyone I didn't and then researched their recipes and made a spreadsheet of their hops. Industry trends as well as your personal tastes should become pretty apparent to you if you go this route.

Yeah what he said up there^. Bitter with magnum 40 and 20 additions with NB and 5 min and dryhop with Ahtanum my fav.

I just finished killing a keg of an all-Cascade IPA, and it was amazing. Easily one of the best beers I've ever had.

An IPA should use whatever hops you like. I'm a big fan of Amarillo, and always try to incorporate it into my hoppy beers. Best IPA I brewed had a combo of Amarillo/Cascade/Simcoe/Chinook (good balance of citrus and pine); wish I had an unlimited supply of that one...

On the converse, I did an Amarillo/Citra "Pale" that was very citrusy, and I liked that one more than most of the IPAs i've brewed (sans the one mentioned above).

For my money, the hops depend on the grain bill (or vice versa). I can see all-Cascade in an IPA w/ Munich or C10-20, but as the body gets fuller &/ or richer,I like to move towards more resinous or abrasive hops like Simcoe or Chinook.

seems like a lot of highly regarded commercial IPAs use citrus/pine combo, especially amarillo/simcoe

any recommendations for what goes well in black IPAs?

Stone Ruination and Bell's Two Hearted are both essentially all Centennial (the bittering additions are not Centennial in the Ruination if i remember), but they are both amazing beers despite being all citrus hops.

My first all-grain IPA (Big SAC) was a 6.8% Simcoe/Amarillo/Citra Hopped (7 oz total, 2 in dry hop for 59 IBU's) that was fantastic! I am now mourning it's passing as it kicked last nite

SnidelyWhiplash said:

seems like a lot of highly regarded commercial IPAs use citrus/pine combo, especially amarillo/simcoe

any recommendations for what goes well in black IPAs?

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Add citra and centennial to that mix and you got 90% of the top 100 ipas/iipas on the market.

Any combo of those would work well in a black ipa.