I was going to bring into the discussion that numerous Brodie's (and loads of other brewers) beers could be called IPA or APA, but are just called "pale" ales as I thought it would confuse the issue, but you are absolutely right! The trouble with the Pale Ale brand is that it could apply to just about anything that is lighter than (pale) orange.Originally Posted by london calling
That's interesting,I didn't realise that list of ales were brewed exclusively with American hops.
I agree that if it is pale and only has American hops it should be classed as an APA. By contrast most true IPA's seem to me to have a somewhat darker hue,so that could be another differentiator.
"Good people drink good beer" Hunter S Thompson
Some interesting points there. So the clue really is in the name: if it's pale and brewed with American hops then it's an APA. That sounds like enough to be an individual beer style even if it was inspired originally by the traditional IPA but clearly as brewers experiment with different hops there's bound to be some crossover I guess.
London Calling has brought light into my darkness about the beers which could be classed as an APA, even if not labelled as such, and perhaps this is a much larger 'beer category' than I thought.
I'm with BF on colour purely on experience. I've found the APA's which I've tried tend to be very pale - golden if you were to classify them, whereas most IPAs fall around midway between golden and traditional best bitter in colour.
Any other thoughts from the cognescenti are very welcome.
Two new ones for the list - and possibly a good few more if LC can remember which were Drinkable and which less so.
GK Yardbird - "tastes like cheap lager", "watery", "disgusting". Enough said!
The Drinkable
Darkstar - American Pale Ale 4.7% (TP)
Butcombe - Great Grey Owl 3.6% (MD)
The Less Drinkable
Big Hand Zeta 3.6% (TP)
Greene King - Yardbird 4% (BF by proxy)
Caledonian- All American 4.1% , not at all drinkable.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields
Right, let's put aside the pedantic arguments! I nominate Portobello and Long Man APA's firmly in the GOOD category.
As 95% of the beers I drink are new to me and will probably not be tried again I find it hard to rate a beer on one sample.The really good ones are remembered and tried again.As Aqualung found recently at the George you can try 2 imo good beers but if they taste crap they taste crap.brewers, publicans, hot weather, cold weather can all spoil a decent beer.
Just to confuse the issue I had Twickenham-Yakima valley IBA today.So that's American brown ale.Too much rye for my liking and worst Twick beer I can remember drinking.But others will like it.
I had a low ABV Black IPA today in superb condition and was absolutely astonished to find out who brewed it.
The silly thing is that they don't admit that it is a Black IPA presumably because that would be too edgy for their audience!
It doesn't matter matter what the beer or the brewer is ,any beer can be crap due to the wrong circumstances , but as with many things in life the cream will rise to the top and the truth will out.. I know what I mean but in my defence I have just been sampling some Darkstar Greenhopped IPA, not APA but bloody good.
"Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer."
-W.C.Fields
I know what you're saying! I had a pint of the Greenhopped IPA in the Croydon George today and thought it can't get better than this. It did when I bumped into a pint of the 12.9% O' Hanlon's Brewers Special Reserve in the Leyton William IV.It doesn't matter matter what the beer or the brewer is ,any beer can be crap due to the wrong circumstances , but as with many things in life the cream will rise to the top and the truth will out.
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