We have over 60,000 IPAs on the site. There are lots of recognised and clearly marketed substyles of IPAs that can be added. These should be added in such a way that it would be possible to still look at all IPAs without the sub-styles if you wanted. There are lots of polls because lots of substyles have been suggested. Sorry. This seemed better than the same number of threads. In each case vote whether you want the style, and if you do, if you think there should be an Imperial style to match. If there’s no imperial version, imperial versions would default into the regular style like we currently do with black IPA.
Please feel free to post opinions too.
Black IPA (just a vote on imperial because I don’t think we’re going to delete black IPA)
Yes to imperial
No to imperial
0voters
Hazy / NEIPA (just a vote on imperial)
Yes to imperial
No to imperial
0voters
Red IPA
Yes, but no imperial
Yes with imperial
No
0voters
White IPA
Yes, but no imperial
Yes with imperial
No
0voters
Belgian IPA
Yes, but no imperial
Yes with imperial
No
0voters
Brut IPA
Yes, but no imperial
Yes with imperial
No
0voters
Milkshake IPA
Yes, but no imperial
Yes with imperial
No
0voters
Flavoured / Fruit IPA - name and exact contents can decided later
Is the problem with Flavoured IPA the name? Would have thought people would be pretty keen to move fruit IPAs out of the main category going off forum comments recently.
Agreed Fruit IPA better name. I’m pretty much Yes but no imperial on all of them. Have yet to try a Brut IPA havent yet run across but like that we may be out in front of something for once.
I think fruit IPA is bad from a threshold perspective. How much fruit would you need. Generally, I think they go fine in other styles. What about veggie or coffee IPA??
Any amount? Enough that it’s on the label? As I said, nothing has been decided on what would go in it. Veggie and coffee IPA would go in if it was called Flavoured IPA, that’s why some people suggest that over Fruit IPA.
We have over 500 Fruit IPAs alone tagged in the database (which implies there actually being many times more than that), lots of which end up in Fruit Beer because some regional admins have different opinions to others. A Fruit IPA category solves that issue.
So based on the current votes (17…well at least it’s worldwide), people seems to be trending to split most of substyles of IPAs but not their Imperial counterparts.
If so, we should also find a general consensus to where we will put every other substyled Imperial IPA when adding one.
In their respective non-imperial styles or in Imperial IPA ? (which IMO will be funny, because we will have a clean Imperial NEIPA style with an Imperial IPA style which is a mix of every other DIPA, from white to black)
The more I read this, the more I think that the subdivision IPA-IIPA is unnecessary; in average it’s just 1.5 points in alcohol difference (6.5 vs 8), not even perceived by the palate.
We’ll keep the 2 styles of course, they have been used for too long to shock people by merging those.
But makes me think if we really need to create the same issue with other styles.
I think the black IPA case is the perfect example of what to do with those imperial substyles - into the substyle.
The only one I really argue against would be Hazy (or whatever your preferred term is) IPA where I do think that the Hazy DIPA has become such a cultural phenomenon that we as a site would look foolish to omit it. Several of the most prominent hype breweries around the world are essentially just churning 50% Hazy IPAs and the other half Hazy DIPAs and I think to look relevant in a modern beer society we should reflect that on the site. This new style list was supposed to be about useability and there is a definitely a significant subset of the beer loving populace who will want to look up Hazy DIPA and will leave and go somewhere else when they see we don’t have it.
I agree. I note that, as I recall, during the initial wave of Black IPAs, I think many of them were being marketed just as Black IPAs regardless of alcohol content.
Good breweries:
most of the “juicy” IPAs I had in the last couple of years were 7.2-7.5% and then 8.0-8.2%
use creative names (Superfluousness, Holotape, Front Lawn Bench Press…), no “hazy, IPA, IIPA”
Mediocre breweries:
ABV range 6.0-6.5%
use “hazy”, “IPA” and “double IPA” in the name
Given the above, given that ABV is approximate, and that you can’t really tell from tasting if a beer is slightly above or below 7.5%, I would say that the categorization as IPA or IIPA for most of the leading hazy IPAs is artificial.
Imperial Black IPAs: there’s an overlap between American Strong and Imperial Stout, and that’s exactly where Imperial Black IPA can fit in.
If you were not given a name by the brewer, you would not think of the category Imperial Black IPA for 99/100 of the strong, black, hoppy beers you are presented.
We should start a Poll. Separate IPAs by substyles, each substyle including Session and Imperial counterparts. We could revolutionize the world of style classification
In my own personal categorisation, as a chunky-knit jumper wearing curmudgeon who wants you ORF MOI LORN!, I just have a “pale ale with shit added” sub-cat of pale ales, and I don’t care what the shit is. (This does have precedent - spices are neither herbs nor vegetables - a policy of “chuck all the non-beer ingredients in the same basket” definitely simplifies things.)
That’s because there was no other distinguishing characteristic for them.
Or, looking at it a very different way, plain IPAs are at the fovea, you’d expect finer granularity there.
The fact that something has been done in one context does not mean it ought to be done in all contexts - a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
