I love IPAs, and I’ve had a lot of them, mostly in the Pacific Northwest. These are my few favorites.

Lush IPA, Fremont Brewing, Seattle, WA

I first had this one at an outdoor concert at Marymoor Park in Redmond, WA.

From Fremont Brewing’s website:

We bring this tropical treat to you as a gift from the Pacific Northwest. Lush is brewed with a hand-selected blend of malts and lush, tropical hops reminiscent of lime, mango, and guava…Because Beer Matters! “For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.” – Douglas Adams

Down & Dirty: 2-Row Pale malt with Citra® and Mosaic® hops and Citra® Cryo.

ABV: 7.0% IBU: 80

Color: Pale gold

Aroma: Tropical, melon, citrus, grassy

Flavor: Medium sweetness with moderate bitterness and a toasted biscuit backbone

Wanderlust IPA, Breakside Brewery, Portland, OR

From Breakside’s website:

Golden IPA made with five different hops. Intense grapefruit and dank notes with a crisp finish. Bronze medal at the 2014 Great American Beer Festival!

Minivannin’ IPA, E9 Brewing, Tacoma, WA

I had this one at Summit Public House in Seattle, which is a great place for craft beer. They often serve E9, which isn’t available in most other places in the city.

Breakside IPA, Breakside Brewery, Portland, OR

From Breakside’s website:

Breakside’s most popular offering is this beautifully clear India Pale Ale featuring the unique character of Citra and Chinook hops. This light copper beer has huge citrus and tropical fruit aromas, with hints of perfume and pine. Flavors like apricot, guava, and orange hit the tongue accompanied by a mild evergreen note. There’s just enough caramel sweetness to balance the hop flavors, but this is really a showcase for the beautiful varieties of hops grown in the Northwest.

New Slang 9 IPA, Dageraad, Burnaby, BC

I had this at The Drake in Victoria, BC, another great bar for craft beer.

From Dageraad’s website:

Alcohol by volume: 7.0%

Volume: 473 mL

Ingredients: Water, malted barley, malted wheat, sugar, hops, malted oats, rice, yeast

A new language of yeast-driven IPA is emerging and Dageraad wants to add to the vocabulary. These IPAs are driven by new strains of yeast that can transform odorless compounds in hops and grain into vividly fruity thiols, changing understated old world hops into fruit bombs.

For New Slang 5, we really wanted to dial in the thiols. By mash-hopping one batch, we allowed the thiolizing yeast to express more of the potent fruit notes before blending with a dry-hopped batch to add back in classic IPA hop character using Rakau, Vic Secret and Laurel hops. The result is a smooth, lightly juicy IPA with a fruit and floral nose backed by lush notes of melon and passionfruit and a mellow resin character.

Cold Crash Cold IPA, Victoria, BC

From Category 12’s website:

Cold Crash is an incredibly smooth and satisfying marriage of tropical fruit notes and light, bright malt. A cold fermentation provides a crisp lager-like finish, allowing us to showcase the aromas of Cryopop and Citra hops to shine through.

I really like Category 12 beers, and this one’s my favorite so far.

It turns out ‘Cold IPA’ is a particular type of IPA. According to Firestone Walker Brewing Company:

A Cold IPA is an IPA that is brewed with lager yeasts at colder temperatures, creating a crisp, drinkable yet generously hopped India Pale Ale