The Pursuit of Hoppiness

About a year ago, after wandering the American beerscape with conflicted preferences, I came out of the closet. As a Hophead.

Hopheadism has no cure save one: to find and drink nicely hopped beers -- that is, beers whose signature is the floral aroma and sometimes mouth-puckering bitterness imparted by the cones of the hops plant. And if you love nicely hopped beers, then there's a good chance you'll become a fan of perhaps the hottest beer style in brewing: India Pale Ale, or IPA for short.

IPA wasn't invented nor originally made in India. It descends from seasonal "March" or "October" beers brewed on 18th-century British estates when Britain was the world's unrivaled brewing power. India entered the nomenclature in 1767, when entrepreneur George Hodgson cut a deal with the East India Company to start providing beer to the British civil-service and merchant classes manning its colonies there. The Brits had long known that hops, besides imparting flavor, also act as a preservative (as do high alcohol levels). So Hodgson made his beer strong and hopped it at double the usual rate and -- blimey! -- the beer not only survived the long, hot sea voyage to the subcontinent but aged extremely well. It caused an instant stir.

IPAs splashed onto the American scene about two decades ago with the advent of the craft-brew revolution. From perhaps a score of IPAs at the end of the 1980s, the style has gained so many adherents in the past decade that Greg Kitsock, editor of Mid-Atlantic Brewing News, an Arlington, Va., beer publication, estimates that well more than half of America's 1,500 brew-pubs and craft brewers are making some variation of the style. Stone Brewing of San Diego makes three versions, as does Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Del. And in Phoenixville, Pa., the Sly Fox Brewhouse is currently offering its seventh IPA of the year as part of a project to produce nine different IPAs using eight varieties of British and American hops.

Beer is made with four things: water, malt, yeast and hops. Malt -- a grain, usually barley, that has been sprouted and kiln-dried -- is the soul of beer, determining body and color (the darker the malt, the darker the beer). Yeast is the mojo, fermenting malt sugars and turning them into alcohol while also producing carbon dioxide that provides beer's foamy head. Hops give beer its sex appeal, adding the perfume, the spice, the heat. (Hops, as a first cousin to the marijuana plant, also are a mild soporific.) But since virtually all beer contains hops, why the buzz about IPAs?

For one thing, America's best-selling lagers -- the likes of Budweiser, Miller and Coors -- can be satisfying enough on a hot day at the ballpark or the beach. But they do little to satisfy the cravings of Hopheads, given their modest to puny hop levels. We know these levels because there's a beer-industry index -- International Bittering Units, or IBUs -- that measures an acidic component of a beer's hop profile, and in theory, the higher the number the hoppier the taste. Michelob Ultra, a recent low-carb Anheuser-Busch offering, has an IBU rating of only four. The IBU ratings for most middle-of-the-road commercial lagers range from eight to 22. Contrast that with the hoppiest India Pale Ales that can register 125 on the IBU meter.

"It's the 'starving man' syndrome," says Chicago home-brewer and beer historian Randy Mosher, who explains that American beer, between the end of Prohibition and the beginning of the craft-beer revolution in the 1980s, declined in hoppiness as big brewers moved toward lighter and smoother styles that they hoped would have wider appeal. "We beer consumers were deprived of hops for a long time," Mr. Mosher says. "Now that we can wallow in hoppiness, well, wallow we do."

IPAs also are popular for the same reason Barolo wines and extremely peaty single-malt scotches are popular these days. "They're big," says Lew Bryson, who has written guides to Pennsylvania and New York breweries. "Big is in, big is a sign of being one of the cognoscenti. There's a definite element of 'I know beer well enough that I can enjoy beer this big while you probably aren't up to something this hoppy.' And big is fun."

Beer Geek in Waiting

Fun was certainly what I had in mind when I ambled into the Wine Seller in Ridgewood, N.J., a modestly adventurous liquor emporium of the sort found in or near major metropolitan areas across the country, and where shoppers are likely to find a reasonable selection of craft beers. I was pleasantly surprised to find 11 IPA brands -- unsurprisingly, given the limited regional distribution of many microbrews, these were skewed toward East Coast versions -- and I dragged them home and organized an informal outdoor tasting with family and friends.

As it turned out, one was a beer I'd already sampled: I first became acquainted with 60 Minute IPA from the aforementioned Dogfish Head because Dogfish Head features prominently in a chapter on Extreme Beer that is part of an upcoming book I've written about American beer culture. I saw no reason not to include it: As a nouveau Hophead, I'd admired it but don't keep it stocked in my refrigerator, and I wondered how it might stack up against the rest of the class. And, anyway, I wasn't going to prejudice the group with my opinions until everyone else had their say.

Another caveat: Though I'd recently spent more than a year researching my beer book, I don't consider myself a beer-tasting expert (though perhaps a Beer Geek in waiting). Everybody else in the group -- Jim, a Journal colleague; his wife, Jo; my wife, Lisa; my daughter, Sara; and her friend, Rob -- ranked as enthusiastic amateurs, but that was OK, too. I figured the majority of people not already drinking IPAs but willing to try them are probably enthusiastic amateurs as well.

We followed a few of the rituals I'd picked up at beer tastings I'd attended (yes, Virginia, there are beer tastings): water to rinse glasses between brands, a swill bucket to dump the leftovers, and crackers to cleanse the palate between samplings. We also tried to see how the beers matched up to the description of a classic IPA offered by a home-brewers' outfit called the Beer Judge Certification Program: An IPA should exhibit "a prominent hops aroma of floral, grassy or fruit characteristic...with assertive hop bitterness." The best IPAs are balanced by "sufficient malt flavor and body" -- that is, it isn't just a matter of dumping tons of hops into a beer and calling it a great IPA.

During the next 90 minutes, we strolled through the 11 beers -- pace being important considering that IPAs also are typically strong, commonly 6% to 9% alcohol by volume, compared with 4% to 5% for commercial lagers. Our tasting summary appears in the accompanying chart, but the group decided that in a field in which there were no bad beers, two bubbled to the top as Hophead delights: The Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA and Victory HopDevil IPA brewed by Victory Brewing Co., Downington, Pa. Both not only gave us the hoppy pop and fruity aromas we were expecting, but both also seemed wonderfully robust and balanced. While undeniably big beers, they were remarkably smooth to drink.

Hops That Bite Us

We also discovered something of a gender taste divide. The guys, while looking for smoothness and balance, tended to gravitate toward the beers with an extremely serious hops presence. We wanted the hops to bite us. The women tended to find such beers a bit overwhelming, and warmed to IPAs in which the hops were more understated.

Two beers that seemed to cross the divide were East India Pale Ale by New York's Brooklyn Brewery and Saranac IPA by Matt Brewing Co. of Utica, N.Y. Everyone admired both for their crisp tastes and easy drinkability -- indeed, East India might have joined Dogfish Head and Victory HopDevil in the well-rounded category, though the guys felt it was somewhat underhopped. Another beer, Cricket Hill Hopnotic IPA by Cricket Hill Brewery in Fairfield, N.J., drew raves from Lisa, Sara and Jo. But as a Hophead, I felt I was drinking a slightly sweet, mildly hopped lager.

So think about it this way: Cricket Hill is a good starter IPA; East India Pale Ale and Saranac are good bridge IPAs for those who think they may be headed toward Hopheadism. And Dogfish and Victory HopDevil are for the deeply committed among us Hopheads.

• Ken Wells is a Journal staff writer; his book, "Travels with Barley: a Journey through Beer Culture in America," is being published in October by Free Press/Wall Street Journal Books.
• Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher are on vacation. Their "Tastings" column will resume on Sept. 3.