Gary Lohin knew he was on to something big in the ‘90s.
He was working as the brew master for a North Vancouver brewpub (the name of which he requested not be published here) and, inspired by the trends gripping Oregon at the time, he created an India pale ale, aka IPA.
This was a small brewpub, with no way to distribute the beer outside the bar itself, so few people knew about his IPAs. But the people in the know absolutely loved what he was making.
“People started flocking to it. I knew it was a beer that you had to have, wherever you go,” Lohin says. “From that point on, whatever brewer I was at, I had to have an IPA. It’s sort of like an ice cream maker – if you don’t have vanilla ice cream, you’re not worth your salt.”
A decade later, Lohin helped launch BC craft beer’s profile as the brains behind one of the province’s most popular – and influential – beers: Central City’s Red Racer IPA. A distinctly West Coast IPA, like all IPAs in the region, it bears little resemblance to the beer originally developed in 19th century UK to quench the thirsts of English soldiers
It’s won numerous awards, has earned distribution deals across North America and, perhaps most important, lit a fire under the behinds of every other brewery in the province.
“I never looked at it that way, though,” Lohin says. “I always felt we’re a leader in terms of that style. If we opened the door for more IPAs, then that’s great.”
One nation, under hops
IPAs are the best-selling craft beer in the US, according to the Brewers Association, making up roughly one-fifth of craft beer sales in that country.
Bart Watson, the Brewers Association’s staff economist, says IPAs are especially popular in the Pacific Northwest, which is likely due to the close proximity of the hops industry, centered in Yakima Valley, Washington.
Hops are the female flowers derived from the hop plant, Humulus lupulus, which is closely related to cannabis. It has been used as a bittering agent as early as the 11th century. Technically anything can be used to flavour a brew (brewers have experimented with marigold and dandelion during hop shortages) but it won’t technically make beer, as we all know and understand it. Hops are essential for that process.
The Chilliwack area was once a major source of hops in North America during Prohibition, and was the largest cultivator of hops in the British Commonwealth in the 1940s.
By the ‘80s, a complicated mix of politics and lower prices south of the border all but decimated the hops industry in BC, but recently farms like Sartori Cedar Ranch in Chilliwack have been sprouting to fill the craft brewers’ demand.
Local production still pales in comparison to the Yakima Valley, however, which is home to some of the best, if not the best, hops in the world. The Cascade hop in particular, an aroma varietal with citrusy characteristics that was first used by Sierra Nevada in a pale ale, spurred the American craft beer industry’s creative evolution.
“The brewers there were amongst the first to really think about using hops and push the hops envelope,” Watson says. “Obviously, people did that in other parts of the country too, but I think we saw it as a mass movement in the Pacific Northwest first.”
Comparable numbers for Canadian IPAs don’t exist – sales are proprietary in Canada and kept private – but anecdotal evidence suggests there’s a similar trend north of the border. Nearly all of BC’s 60+ craft breweries have an IPA in their portfolio. Red Racer IPA is Central City’s flagship beer.
Ditto for Driftwood’s Fat Tug IPA, another highly influential BC beer. Phillips Brewing, the province’s most successful craft brewery, launches several new IPA products each year.
So…why are IPAs so popular?
“Well, they’re delicious,” says Matt Phillips, founder and president of Phillips Brewery. “IPAs have great flavour profile. You can have 10 different IPAs and every one of them is going to taste totally different, even to a fairly untrained palate.”
And taste drives everything. The industry is fueled by the experimental whims of the brewers and their compulsion to improve on what they’ve created in the past. This has led to the creation of more craft beers, which are attracting more craft beer drinkers, which has led to the proliferation of craft breweries all across the province.
IPAs in particular have developed as the premier beer of choice for craft brewers. Ken Beattie, president of the Craft Beer Guild, says that IPAs are a canvas, of sorts, that allows brewers to show off, to prove their worth in terms of taste.
“There’s not a lot of sociological thought going on there, or research that there would be in big brewers,” Beattie says. “They kind of make what they want. Then they talk to customers, and customers seem to want IPAs.”
The Flavour Wheel
There’s a little something called the Flavour Wheel of Beer Nerdism. Have you heard of it? If so, there’s a good chance you’ve been talking to Chris Bjerrisgaard, co-founder of Craft Beer Week, marketing manager for Parallel 49, and the beer community’s most solicitous advocate.
The man – bearded, bespectacled, and perpetually gripping a pint – has thought a great deal about the natural palate progression he’s seen almost every beer enthusiast go through during his six years working in the beer industry.
It begins with lagers, (normally Molson, Labatt’s, or other macro brews). The palate then evolves to red or fruity ales, then on to pale ales. Then IPAs. On through bitters and stouts, and back around to (well-executed, German-style) lagers.
IPAs are arguably the most important for beer enthusiasts. Almost universally, Bjerrisgaard says that, once the palate adjusts to the hops, IPAs are the beer that hooks people into craft beer culture. There’s a graduation, of sorts, from “beer drinker” to “devoted beer enthusiast.”
“It’s the point where [beer drinkers] want to fly the flag,” Bjerrisgaard says. “In terms of the scene right now, and the maturity of the beer scene in British Columbia, we are in the midst of that happening.”
The popularity and healthy sales of IPAs, points to the fact that BC’s beer culture, like the individuals within it, are moving through the Flavour Wheel – and it’s currently set on India pale ales.
In other words, IPAs are really freakin’ popular.
For that, you can thank, in part, Nigel Springthorpe, co-founder of Alibi Room and Brassneck Brewery. He’s modest about this to the point of completely denying any responsibility, but it was through Alibi Room’s curation of local and provincial beers that Springthorpe helped shaped the palates of Vancouver-area beer drinkers.
When Springthorpe opened Alibi Room in 2006, his goal was to have all locally and provincially brewed beers on tap under one roof. It wasn’t a simple task – he’d literally knock on doors of brewpubs that had no distribution plan of any kind, or even a keg to spare. He was persistent, though. This came at a critical time when the BC’s beer industry was just starting to find its footing. Like a radio DJ on the vanguard of some new musical trend, Springthorpe help spread the word (and flavours) of thirsty and eager beer fans looking for something more than what the macros had been offering.
And it was Red Racer IPA, originally called Empire IPA, which garnered the most attention, blowing quite a few minds (and taste buds) in the process. Eight years later, Red Racer IPA is the only beer that has remained consistently on tap at the Alibi Room.
“This tells me, number one, it’s a great beer,” Springthorpe says. “Number two, [IPAs] are not a faddy thing, or a flash in the pan. From when it went on, that was the choice that everyone went for.”
But is it?
The Next Big Thing
“We’re in that hop market, but I think we’re on our way out of it. Saisons are a massive trend right now,” says Nate Rayment, managing director and co-founder of Postmark Brewing. “Everyone under the sun is doing one, and we can’t make enough of them.
IPAs really aren’t the make-or-break brew for craft brewers that they once were.
“It used to be a way for people to see what the new breweries are all about by trying the IPA,” Rayment says. “It would be the one thing that everyone would match up against all the breweries. Now, I think everyone’s a bit more educated on beer styles that it’s not necessarily the case any more.
Indeed, Phillips says, despite the steady launch of new hoppy products, IPA sales make up a very small portion of their sales. 33 Acres brewing, easily one of the busiest tasting rooms in Vancouver, hasn’t bothered creating an IPA at all.
Postmark, which opened its doors just this summer, is focusing on “sessional” beers – easier to drink, with lower alcohol content.
They’re marketing their pilsner as their flagship beer, waging their bets that they’re the next trend to sweep craft beer culture.
Still, IPAs are an important beer for brewers and drinkers. Parallel 49 recently launched its new IPA, Filthy Dirty, which, with moderate hoppiness and tropical flavours, seems designed to sweep burgeoning beer nerds into the tasty embrace of IPA nation.
Bjerrisgaard says, “Graham [With, Parallel 49’s head brewer] loves balance in his beers. Malt, hops, alcohol – it all needs to go nicely together. It’s kind of like, as much as we all like bacon, an entire meal composed of just a plate of bacon wouldn’t be that good,”
Filthy Dirty is part of a seeming trend from brewers to mellow their IPAs to reach a broader audience. The intense bitterness is being traded in for balanced flavour that’s palatable for the thousands of new people discovering craft beer every year. It’s just smart business.
“You can’t go from drinking a lager to drinking a Fat Tug,” says Ken Beattie. “It won’t work for the average consumer. It’s too big of a leap. It’s like drinking table wine to zinfandels. You can’t get there right away.”
