I have a hoppy ale with numbers; 1.054 OG, 1.011 FG, 5.6% ABV. Using my old version of BeerSmith, the IBU’s come in at only 25, but with a 60 minute stepped hopstand/whirlpool and a lot of post-boil hops, I estimated around 45 IBU.
By the book that puts this beer at the top of APA, but the hop aroma and flavor could pass as an IPA. Seems like a lot of brewers are crafting beers like this. Where are you entering them (besides your mouth) and what is your success rate?
'tweener beers like this are tough to figure.
Get ahold of a good commercial APA an IPA.
Pour a glass of each and a glass of your beer.
Taste all three and see which of the commercial examples is closer.
The things you want to hone in on are the Bitterness, Caramel presence, and if there’s noticeable Alcohol warming. (Hop flavor and hop aroma are wide open for all of these styles, so a lot of them won’t be detrimental in any of the 4 styles I’d consider below, so ignore them for this classification purpose).
Choose the closes between these 4 categories based on how the above flavors
IPA (bitter, some warming, low or no caramel),
Specialty Red IPA (bitter & caramelly, possibly warming)
APA (lower bitterness, very low or no warming, caramel can be present or not)
Am Amber (lower bitterness balance is to the malt, with caramel)
HTH-
It could be either. You’re correct there is an IBU overlap in the BJCP guidelines. But if your st the extreme of APAbetter to just call it an IPA