Best APA

In between session IPAs and IPAs, APAs seem to hit the abv sweet spot for me. Hope that breweries continue to explore the style...

Ballast Point’s Grunion is one that I think is overlooked. It’s out now (became a seasonal) and really delivers some hops.

 

Big time Garlic and onion on that one, Love it!

 

For me...

Lagunitas - Born yesterday without question by a mile.

SNPA is the runner up but of the thousands of bottles of I'm with 10 miles of me I guarantee not one is less than 3 months old. It's still good, but a month or so its stellar. I won't buy it after 2 months out of principle of how backordered they get it in pa/oh.

 

Ain’t that the truth.

Still I’d have to go HopHands too, love they beer. As @JackHorzempa said, always ready is excellent and newer. If Zombie Dust was available to me, who knows. That’s a damn fine beer too.

 

Alesmith .394 is extremely solid, and I’d easily put it above ZD. .394 has more malt depth than just sweetness (in what I’ve tasted after they reformulated ZD for their expansion), and tastes like it has more classic American hops in it, which is more my personal preference. It definitely tastes more like an actual APA rather than IPA in the balance of hops with malt depth.

 

Also, HopHands is my favorite NE-style PA (and favorite overall) but Lagunitas DogTown wins as my favorite West Coast/classic American PA.

 

I feel the same way about Lagunitas Born Yesterday. They say it's a pale ale...but, come on. It's an IPA. It's around 7% and extremely hop-forward. It's an IPA. Let's be real.

 

Going back to the first time I had it, in the early 90's, I have always, and still do, considered SNPA an IPA. It remains the base standard for American IPAs, IMHO.

 

OB admits that Dales is an IPA. They just thought that including the word "India ruined the flow of the name.

 

Mirror Pond.

If by "APA", we're talking about a 5-ishABV beer that is well balanced between grain and hops, Mirror Pond is it. Satisfying malts, a touch of sweetness, and just enough hop bite to keep you involved while having several.

Silver goes to Mannys Pale from Georgetown Brewing.

 

When I first drank SNPA no was using the term IPA that I know of, Sierra Nevada called it a Pale Ale so it's a Pale Ale.

 

What about the brewing company that made the lighted sign in your avatar - "Falstaff Brewing Corp., St. Louis, MO" - which was still brewing and marketing Ballantine India Pale Ale in the 1980s and most of the 1990s? (With Bert Grant's India Pale Ale (Yakima Brewing & Malting) coming along in 1983, according to his book).

Unless you mean no brewer was using the abbreviated term "IPA"? Labatt had exported its India Pale Ale to the US, the label of which prominently featured those initials, but they seem to have stopped exporting it by the 1970s. Bass Ale labels in the US featured a small "IPA" notation sometime in the period of 1970s-1980s.

A few years back when Lagunitas' Tony Magee took quite a lot of heat because he had tried to copyright his "IPA" label and sued (or, maybe just threatened to?) Sierra Nevada, he pointed out that "IPA" - the initials - weren't commonly used on US beer labels at the time of his copyright application and I was surprised when everything I found looking through my files agreed with him.

Not sure when "IPA" as casual consumer/brewer terminology came about in the US - I would have thought it was used in the heyday of Ballantine but have no proof. (Given it is initials, it's a tough search term, too). M. Jackson used it in his 1970-80s books but that was obviously from his UK background. I sorta remember using the term in the 1970s...

 

There are four I could drink anytime.
1. Ozark APA
2. Boulevard Pale Ale
3. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale
4. Sweetwater 420 Pale Ale

 

I think a proper IPA is Mothers Lil' Helper, 7% ABV and 70 IBU's. A proper old school American IPA.

 

For me, my favorite APA is DDH Envie by Parish Brewing Co. The base beer is 5.5% and 42 IBUs and then they dry hop it with various different hops for each of it's limited batches. The last batch was Galaxy, which was subtle but very good.

Whirlpool by Night Shift Brewing would be my second place finisher and Sweetwater 420 would be third.

I'm still waiting until I can get my hands on some 4XDH Envie...

 

Gimme MO!

https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/20681/78906/

 

Yeah I forgot about that one, Was thinking about Anchor Liberty Pale Ale which many BAs call a IPA also.

 

I really enjoy Cigar City Guayabera.

 

This. It's what they're best in the world at.

 

This is currently my favorite pale ale, possibly favorite beer.