Is there a clear dividing line in your brewhouse? Or has this become an ambiguous Stout/Porter thing? I know, I know…call it whatever you want.
IBU’s - this seems to be the only obvious rule of thumb, IPA>APA. But according to the BJCP, it doesn’t have to be that way. So if you have a 45 IBU IPA, then is something else defining it as such?
Malts - Cold IPA’s and NEIPA’s aside, is there really much difference here? Maybe a little crystal in the APA??
Yeast - Keep it simple, keep it clean.
Hop load and hop schedule - Bigger top of the boil addition for the IPA, and the rest is free game either way.
Personally, I’ll make my IPA’s lighter in body and color shooting for just a touch of alcohol warmth. Firm bitterness but not roof-scraping. Citrus hops are preferable. Clarity always looks great, but completely irrelevant to my enjoyment.
With APA’s, I like a touch of bread and caramel, a little extra malt presence, piney hops, also firm bitterness, some color depth in the glass, very clear.
I’m just curious if anyone is making any obvious attempts at separating the styles.
None of the parameters are measured in BJCP competitions so judges are going by perception. Keep in mind that typical homebrewer’s calculations may vary, sometimes considerably, from actual measured values and an individual’s perception may not closely align with either.
It appears that you’ve done a good job of closely defining the difference you want between the styles. It’s your beer and that’s what counts.
Philosophically my take is that both styles are hop forward but an APA is deliberately balanced while an IPA is a showcase for hops. An APA should balance bitter vs. sweet and although hop forward, still let malt flavor appear. In an IPA, the grain acts in a supporting role to let hop flavor/aroma and bitterness shine. IMO an APA is not a lower ABV IPA and vice versa.
The BJCP has to take a broad accounting of both styles because they reflect the realities of the beer market which uses those terms interchangeably to sell beer. Practically there is a huge grey area between the two but marketing blurs meaningful distinction in the taste buds of most beer drinkers. We’re left to make a judgment call and surely we would all place that division somewhere a little different from everybody else.
Denny, he was getting a lot of smirks from other judges. He was also sitting across the table from one of the most well-known judges in the world (I won’t mention his name, but I bet you know him personally), and he was grinning, lol… to each their own I guess. I found it odd, since the beers were cold-ish, and most likely carbonated.
Yeah, I should have left out any mention of the BJCP in the original post. ;D
The above in bold is more what I’m curious about. How are we all going about separating the styles. What ingredients or processes make them different?
There’s obviously a lot more to it than just this, but as an example:
APA: I will almost always use some C-malt with American Pale malt…and Cascade hops are a must.
IPA: I like a Pils base with some Munich, and I’m most likely going to use Citra with other supporting hops.
They are obviously related, but I can visualize, taste and smell a particular something when I’m mentally putting together an APA recipe. A similar but clearly different path emerges when creating an IPA. Whether I get there or not is a different story.
what everyone else said, but i miss pale ales that were sort of mini-IPAs. pale ale now, at least here is back to the almost pre-craft beer notion of just a pale (as in 3 to 7SRM) inoffensive beer made with a neutral ale yeast. we have gone full circle on a lot of stuff imho in a bad way
The typical IPA I brew is about 5.5% ABV and 50-60 IBU. It may or may not be hazy. It may have no Crystal malt, or it may have 5-7% of any Cara malt from C-15 up to C-80. It generally has about one metric sh*t ton of late hops/dry hops. Is this an IPA, an APA, a Blond ale (if you’ve had Eureka from Tree House, you’ll understand what I’m talking about), or something else? I call them IPA’s and tell my friends that’s what they are. I doubt many would qualify as an IPA in a competition, though.
In my book (which means nothing), if you added the crystal, it’s an APA. If not, an IPA. But at 50-60 IBU’s, it would be (has to be!) well out of Blonde Ale territory. Though I get your point about Eureka. Treehouse just doesn’t seem to play by the same hop rules as everyone else.
I do think a late addition of a metric s#!t ton of hops is fair game for both APA and IPA. So…you aren’t making anything that you specifically call an APA?
I recently brewed what I thought would be an IPA but it just didn’t seemed to have enough Ooompf for today’s criteria. It was only scoring low 30(s) in competition so I entered it as a Blonde. It took a 40 at SNAFU. [emoji23]
One day, you’ll wake up and there won’t be anymore time to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. Don’t wait. Do it now.
Just like the hint about porter vs. stout, I’m not sure there’s enough of a difference anymore. There should be, maybe, except that nobody cares, so then there’s not a difference.
APA: Style 21, “Historical Beer” in the next update!
The responses here have been very telling.
It is interesting to hear about the inconsistencies and vagaries of beer competitions, but I suppose that’s either an issue with judge training or poorly written style guidelines. I’m sure it applies across many similar styles as well, not just IPA/APA. And certainly, commercial examples don’t help. Dale’s Pale Ale immediately comes to mind as a beer that blurs the lines.
But…I care, at least enough to see if anyone else does. And that’s why I still brew what I call an APA and a different beer that I call an IPA. (I also brew a “Stout” and a “Porter”…what a kook!) I never considered myself “old school”, but hey, there it is.
For me, if the gravity is under 1.052 and IBUs are under 50 or so, I call it an APA. If those numbers are much higher I call it an IPA. Color and malt make-up don’t make so much difference as long as it’s not too dark or roasty.
I don’t have any hard and fast rules. I prefer more modern takes on both styles which treats crystal malts as an option rather than an obligatory ingredient. A small amount of lighter crystal malt can round out grain flavors or balance out bitterness (particularly in an IPA) without adding more bready flavors. With hoppy beers I think about what flavors, bitterness and sweetness make sense for the particular hops.
If I had a go-to APA recipe, it’s something close to 75% pale malt, 20% pils malt and 5% lighter crystal malt. I don’t brew enough IPAs to have a go-to recipe but if I did it would probably be similar but switching the pale and pils.
I come from a time when Crystal malt was allowed in IPA’s ;D, so that’s not a determining factor to me. And to that point, the only time I brew anything I call an APA is when I get nostalgic for APA’s from 20-30 years ago from breweries that have long since gone away. They definitely have nothing close to the hopping rates that I use in my IPA’s, or even most modern APA’s.
it sounds crazy but when i use crystal malt in a beer now i feel that i notice it more, and get those flavours. as all humans, but me especially i really love the myriad of caramel flavours in something
