A New Day for IPA (Summer 2024)

One of the great things about this beer is its stability: The roast continues to shine even after a few months in the keg or bottle. Some sweetness can build over time—but by then, we may be deep into winter, and that sweetness may be just the thing.

It’s the predominant style in American craft, and there are many great examples—it takes an exceptional one to impress fellow professional brewers. Here are five of their picks.

This bright and bitter American IPA—still with a light touch of caramel malt—won gold medals at the 2023 World Beer Cup and Great American Beer Festival, then went on to become one of our Best 20 Beers in 2023.

Billed as a “hop sandwich” by the St. Louis brewery, 2nd Shift’s Art of Neurosis is an evolving American IPA that features loads of Columbus and Simcoe with just a kiss of caramel malt.

At Bauman’s Cider in Gervais, Oregon, owner and cidermaker Christine Walker prefers to bottle her ciders as single-varietals whenever the harvest makes it possible—and this one features the red-fleshed Mountain Rose apple, native to Oregon.

This German-style helles is a year-round beer for the lager specialists at Enegren Brewing in Moorpark, California, and a favorite of cofounder and head brewer Chris Enegren and his team.

At Grimm Artisanal Ales in Brooklyn, New York, Cloudbusting is always a hazy double IPA made with 100 percent New Zealand hops—however, the hop blend varies from batch to batch. This is a recipe for Cloudbusting #11, but feel free to make your own custom blend.

Harvest-hopped beers are a seasonal delight no longer limited to breweries near the hop fields—nor even to the harvest season. Here’s a look at the logistics and tech that are expanding the harvest in time and space.

Released only last year, Allagash’s first year-round IPA is a modern take on classic American versions—golden, juicy, with hop-derived notes of pineapple, grapefruit, tangerine, and pine, balanced by refined bitterness and a dry finish.

The annual release of this beer in San Diego has become such an event that Harland Brewing now organizes an Ube Day party to mark the occasion in the fall.

It’s sweet, it’s purple, it’s trendy, and many folks from the Philippines will be delighted when you make some beer with it.