Top to bottom: Pepato, Humboldt Fog

India Pale Ale (IPA) and Imperial or Double IPA

STYLE NOTES: British brewers get the credit for fashioning the first IPAs, now the most popular of craft-beer styles in America. During the height of the British Empire, brewers prepared their pale ales for the long sea journey to India by brewing them stronger and with extra hops. The elevated alcohol and hops gave these ales more longevity, so they were still refreshing when they arrived, months later, in steamy India.

Modern American craft brewers have embraced and adapted the style, using Pacific Northwest hops to create highly perfumed beers with forward floral, citrus, pineapple, and pine aromas and a palate-scrubbing bitterness. American hops tend to have more essential oils than European hop varieties, so the ales brewed with them are more blatantly aromatic. Dry hopping—steeping additional hops in the beer after fermentation—gives most IPAs an even more effusive aroma. Malt aroma and flavor remain low-level players in most IPAs, contributing just a suggestion of toasty sweetness.

Today, many American craft breweries produce an IPA because consumers can’t get enough of this thirst-quenching style. West Coast brewers tend to make their IPAs more floral and hop forward than East Coast and Midwest brewers, who let the malt speak a little more.

Imperial IPA, often called Double IPA, raises the volume on the IPA style by employing even more hops to heighten the floral and grapefruit aromas and the bitterness. Imperial IPAs are often more alcoholic than a classic IPA, too, but it is the tongue-gripping bitterness that any drinker will notice first.

BEERS TO TRY: India Pale Ale (IPA): Anchor Brewing Liberty Ale; Ballast Point Big Eye IPA; Bear Republic Racer 5 IPA; Boulevard Brewing Single-Wide IPA; Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA; Founders Brewing Centennial IPA; Great Divide Brewing Titan IPA; High Water Brewing Hop Riot; Lagunitas Brewing Lagunitas IPA; Rubicon Brewing India Pale Ale; Russian River Brewing Blind Pig IPA; Victory Brewing HopDevil. Imperial (Double) IPA: Brooklyn Blast!; Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA; Firestone Walker Double Jack; Full Sail Brewing Elevation; Lagunitas Brewing Hop Stoopid; Oskar Blues G’night Imperial Red; Russian River Brewing Pliny the Elder; Stone Ruination; Victory Brewing Hop Wallop.

CHEESE AFFINITIES: The up-front bitterness of many IPAs and Imperial IPAs makes them particularly palate refreshing, a welcome “chaser” for creamy and high-fat cheeses, such as triple-creams. Their bold personality stands up to moderately strong cheeses, including spiced cheeses that might overwhelm lighter brews. Their bitterness can handle the tang of English-style Cheddars and the bright acidity of young goat cheese better than most beer styles.

The bloomy-rind Humboldt Fog from California’s Cypress Grove Chevre is a style icon among American goat cheeses, its fine ripple of gray ash amid a chalk-white paste making it instantly recognizable. The goat cheese’s dense, palate-coating texture and lively acidity challenge many beers, especially malty styles, but an IPA or Imperial IPA welcomes the task. The scrubbing quality of an IPA slices through the cheese’s chalky firmness and balances its tangy acidity to perfection.

Fiscalini Bandage-Wrapped Cheddar, patterned after the finest British Cheddars, is matured in cheesecloth (the “bandage”) instead of wax, so it breathes as it ages. Made with raw cow’s milk from Fiscalini’s own herd, this California farmstead cheese spends at least eighteen months in the creamery’s aging room, developing the classic crumbly-waxy Cheddar texture and profound nutty and grassy aromas. The snappy bite of hops in an IPA or Imperial IPA counters the Cheddar’s lingering tang.

Bellwether Farms Pepato was inspired by the black pepper–laced pecorinos of Tuscany, but this California version is intentionally moister, less salty, and more mellow. Made with raw sheep’s milk, laced with whole peppercorns, and matured for about three months, wheels of Pepato exhibit a floral, peppery scent mingled with aromas of lamb chops and wet stone. The flavor is moderately piquant, the finish tart and tangy. The bitterness in IPA and Imperial IPA complements this cheese’s spicy bite.

MORE CHEESES TO TRY: Appleby’s Cheshire; Bleu Mont Bandaged Cheddar; Cabot Clothbound Cheddar; feta; Fontina Val d’Aosta; Garrotxa; Hook’s 10-Year Cheddar; Juniper Grove Farms Dutchman’s Flat; Keen’s Cheddar; Kirkham’s Lancashire; Leiden; Matos St. George; Montgomery’s Cheddar; Mt. Townsend Trailhead; Tumalo Farms Capricorns; Vella Dry Monterey Jack; Wensleydale.