East Coast IPA is what motivated me to become a home brewer in the early nineties. Real post-Ballantine East Coast IPA is closer to English IPA than it is West Coast IPA. C-hops only play a supporting role in this beer style. Post-Ballantine East Coast IPA can best be described as C-hop accented English IPA. What’s also unique about East Coast IPA is that hops such as US Tettnanger (which is actually a Fuggle selection) and Mt. Hood are commonly found in the hop schedule.
Contrary to what many people in the beer and brewing communities believe, the reason why East Coast IPA is closer to English IPA than it is West Coast IPA has nothing to do with the East Coast states being former English colonies. It has everything to do with decisions that David Geary made while founding DL Geary Brewing in Portland, Maine, which was the first post-Ballantine ale brewery on the East Coast. David tapped Peter Austin and Alan Pugsley to design and build his brewery. Alan Pugsley went on to install Peter Austin systems up and down the East Coast and in Canada. One of these breweries was Magic Hat.
Peter Austin’s and Alan Pugsley’s influence can be felt in East Coast breweries that they did not build such as Dogfish Head. While Sam Calagione founded Dogfish Head, the decision he made that put Dogfish on the map was to bring Jason Kennedy on as partner and head brewer. Jason was a brewer at the original Wild Goose Brewery, which was located in Cambridge, Maryland (Cambridge is located on the Delmarva Peninsula). The original Wild Goose Brewery used a Peter Austin system. Alan Pugsley designed all of the original Wild Goose Beers, and trained the original brewers.
With that said, a good post-Ballantine East Coast IPA grist needs to include the big three; namely, British pale malt, British caramel 60, and torrified wheat. Torrified wheat is what gives the better East Coast Pale Ales and IPAs their subtle nutty quality.
A Basic East Coast IPA Grist
90% British pale
5% British caramel 60
5% torrified wheat
As mentioned above, C-hops play a supportive role in East Coast IPA. Finishing hops are usually a blend of British/British-derived cultivars such as Fuggle, Goldings, Northern Brewer, Willamette, and US Tettnanger (which is actually a Fuggle selection), Cascade, and often Mt. Hood (it just works).
Any clean hop can be used as the kettle hop. Bitterness should be in the 45 to 60 IBU range. A hopback is almost a must with East Coast IPA because the style is usually not dry hopped. The breweries that Alan Pugsley installed used pellets in the boil and whole hops in a hopback as a final filter before the wort entered the plate heat exchanger. A reduced temperature hop stand is a suitable replacement.
While not an IPA, Geary’s Pale Ale was the original post-Ballantine East Coast ale. It set the stage for the bigger beers. The hops used in Geary’s Pale Ale are Cascade, Fuggle, Mt. Hood, and US Tettnanger. Cascade, Fuggle, and Tettnanger are found in many true East Coast Pale Ales and IPAs.
If you take anything away from this posting, the attribute that differentiates East Coast IPA from West Coast IPA is balance. Most of the better East Coast IPAs are well-balanced beers. I find most West Coast-style IPAs to be unbalanced aroma/flavor hop forward beers.