Over the past decade or so India pale ales have remained the most popular beer style in the craft beer revolution. Nearly every craft brewery makes one, and quite often breweries will have multiple IPAs on tap. There are many sub-styles of India pale ale but the most recent after hazy IPAs is the new brut IPA.
Brut India pale ales, as its champagne-style name attests to, brings dryness and paleness to the IPA experience. This new IPA style has quickly spread across our country and the world, but its origins are credited to Kim Sturdavant of California’s Social Kitchen & Brewery in San Francisco. The idea was to make an IPA as dry as possible, light in color and super refreshing and that’s what a brut
IPA is.
The brut IPA is brewed with an addition of an enzyme known as amylase glucosidase, which helps to further break down the sugars in a beer to make it drier. The style features fruit notes instead of bitterness similar to the hazy New England-style IPAs. Hops with fruity flavor and aroma profiles are used to achieve this.
The recipes will use pale malt along with corn and rice to get the lightest possible color. Brut IPAs also have a higher carbonation level to give it more spritz in keeping with the champagne theme. More and more breweries are producing these brut IPAs so if you see one on a tap list you should give one a try. Cheers!
Rob McFerren is the owner of Wolf Creek Restaurant & Brewing Co.
