Style family · 8 styles · node 01 of 11

IPA

America's engine room. Roughly one in three new labels is an IPA, and the family keeps splitting — hazy, cold, double, black, brut. If a brewery gets one beer label approved this year, it's probably here. Hop-forward, bitterness from assertive to nominal, 4% session cuts to 10%+ triples.

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Labels: 6,214
This week: 53
Median ABV: 7.0%

Styles in this family

IPA (other/unspecified) 1,940Double / Imperial IPA 1,842Hazy IPA 1,296West Coast IPA 510Fruited IPA 305Session IPA 182Black IPA 85Cold IPA 54

IPA (other/unspecified)1,940 labels: Labeled IPA with nothing more specific on the can — plain IPA, plus the smaller branches: brut, red, white, rye, milkshake. A large share of the family lives here because many breweries simply write IPA and leave the rest to the tap list. Read the hop list and the ABV; the label is telling you what it can.
Double / Imperial IPA1,842 labels: The IPA past roughly 7.5%: double, imperial, triple. Both camps live here — hazy doubles and West Coast doubles — because the label's claim is strength, not haze. These are disproportionately the limited, drop-day labels; when a brewery you follow gets a triple approved, the release is usually weeks away, not months.
Hazy IPA1,296 labels: The New England shape of the IPA: opaque, soft, low bitterness, hops chosen for fruit rather than pine. Labels lean on the words hazy, juicy and DDH, and on hop names — Citra, Mosaic, Nelson, Galaxy — printed like a cast list. The substyle with the most labels on Hop Grail for a reason; also the fastest to date, which is why the approval date matters here more than anywhere.
West Coast IPA510 labels: Clear, dry, bitter, resin and citrus over a pale malt bill that stays out of the way. The style the American IPA grew up as, now labelled as a deliberate counter-statement — West Coast on the label is a promise about clarity and finish. San Diego and Los Angeles breweries make it a flagship; elsewhere it tends to arrive as a seasonal reminder.
Fruited IPA305 labels: An IPA with fruit actually added, not merely fruity hops: mango, guava, passion fruit, blood orange. The label has to name the fruit, which makes these easy to read and easy to date. Smoothie and milkshake IPAs land here when fruit is the point; expect lactose and vanilla to appear in the fine print too.
Session IPA182 labels: The IPA at or under about 5%: full hop bill, less body, a can you can finish two of. New labels peak into spring and summer, and the word session often shares the label with beach, patio or a day of the week. A quiet tell for breweries thinking about volume rather than the trophy shelf.
Black IPA85 labels: Dark malt under a hop-forward beer — roast in the color, hops in the finish. Labelled as black IPA or Cascadian dark ale, almost always as a one-off or a winter seasonal. A style that never became a shelf staple, so each new label tends to be a brewery indulging itself, which is a good reason to notice it.
Cold IPA54 labels: An IPA fermented with lager yeast, cold and clean, so the hops land on a crisper, drier base than an ale gives them. A recent coinage out of the Pacific Northwest that the label dates actually pin down: it appears on labels as cold IPA or, occasionally, as IPL. Fewer labels than the hype suggested, which is itself information.