American IPA and Pale Ale versus British...

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

SRFeldman79

Beverage Consultant/Sales Rep
Joined
Dec 11, 2007
Messages
195
Reaction score
1
Location
Chicago
Has the difference between American IPA and American Pale been blurred beyond distinction?

I've had hoppy pale ales with a bit of malt backbone, ive had ones that went easy on the hops, ive obviously had IPAs that were hop bombs, and I've had IPAs that are more imitations of the English IPA and are malty and balanced with the hops (which is only really like the modern English IPA and not the original version probably).
 
I wouldn't say "beyond distinction", but there's definitely overlap. I generally think of IPAs as being north of 6% ABV, and having close to a 1:1 IBU/OG ratio. South of 6%, and a lower ratio (more like 0.75-0.80) = APA.

But by the BJCP guidelines, you can brew one beer that fits in both categories, at least by the stats.
 
yeah, the overlap is phenomenal though. ive definitely had pale ales that might as well been called IPAs. The Butte Creek Organic IPA, for example, doesn't smack you upside the head with hops but its got a lot of malt character...the one thing ive noticed is few pales bother with upfront malt character where as some IPAs will hit you with malts and hops.
and crap, i accidentally double posted.
 
I think that IPAs and APAs are sometimes in that gray area, sort of like the territory between Porters and Stouts. You know they're related, but everyone thinks that their method of classifying them is right. For example, in regard to Porters and Stouts, I've read in some places that the differentiating character is in the hop profiles, while others said it's the malt profiles and still others say that it's the ABV and adjuncts used.

Though it is nice to have a tidy classification for everything, not every beer needs to be in a cold, hard category.
 
Back
Top