IPA Styles
Every IPA sub-style mapped — West Coast, hazy, double, and the frontier.
The IPA Styles domain is the map of the entire IPA family — every recognized sub-style, organized by lineage. The IPA is not one beer but a genus of beers, all sharing a hop-forward identity yet diverging in malt, yeast, strength, and clarity. This note is the hub: use it to navigate, and see the IPA Family Tree for the visual genealogy.
Every style note carries a quick-stats table (ABV, IBU, color, key hops, glassware). For side-by-side numbers across all styles, jump straight to the IPA Style Comparison Table.
#The Three Great Branches
The modern IPA splits into three trunks, each with its own descendants.
#1. The British Lineage
The original. Earthy, balanced, malt-aware.
- English IPA — the ancestral style; biscuity malt, English hops.
#2. The American Lineage
The craft-era reinvention that conquered the world.
- American IPA — the broad parent category.
- West Coast IPA — clear, dry, aggressively bitter, citrus-pine.
- New England IPA — hazy, soft, juicy, low perceived bitterness.
- Double IPA — imperial strength, 8–10% ABV.
- Triple IPA — the 10%+ extreme tier.
- Session IPA — sub-5% ABV, hop-forward but light.
- Red IPA — amber, caramel-malt-forward American IPA.
#3. The Hybrid & Cross-Genre Lineage
IPAs that borrow from other beer families or fermentation traditions.
- Black IPA — dark malt meets hop intensity.
- White IPA — IPA crossed with witbier.
- Belgian IPA — Belgian yeast esters and phenols plus IPA hopping.
- Rye IPA — rye malt spice.
- Brut IPA — bone-dry, champagne-like.
- Milkshake IPA — lactose, fruit, and vanilla; full-bodied.
- Cold IPA — lager yeast and adjuncts; crisp.
- Brett IPA — Brettanomyces funk plus hops.
- Sour IPA — kettle-soured hoppy beer.
- India Pale Lager — the IPL; an IPA-hopped lager.
#The Long Tail
Beyond the named styles lies a continuous frontier of novelty — Specialty and Experimental IPAs — where brewers blend, mutate, and invent faster than guidelines can catalog them.
#Style Codification
Competitions and judges impose order on this chaos. The note BJCP and Style Guidelines explains how the Beer Judge Certification Program and others draw boundaries, assign vital-stats ranges, and decide what counts as which style.
Read Modern IPA Diversification alongside this domain. The IPA family tree grows new branches every few years; any style map is a snapshot, not a final word.
#Continue Reading
- IPA Family Tree — the visual genealogy
- IPA Style Comparison Table — all styles, side by side
- BJCP and Style Guidelines — how styles are codified
- What Is an IPA — the foundational definition
- Style Index — alphabetical reference