BJCP guidelines

There's probably a good reason for that

 

I don't know whether the posters were homebrewers or not but just look at some past threads such as the difference between porter and stout or between two other brews and it isn't long before somebody cuts and pastes the BJCP definitions.

Modern taste wouldn't handle the bitterness of those IPAs. Fermented to dryness and then Brett did its work too.Massive bittering hop additions would take it off the scale for bitterness.
But it illustrates the difficulty of framing style guides.I've described 19th century IPA , in contrast over the last century IPA just became another word for bitter and these days it's a hop competition.All are valid and accepted versions of IPA but how do you write a script for it?

 

Kinda like a Ruination IPA that's over the hill...I gotta admit though...the Brett sounds nice

 

Exactly - extreme attenuation, mind blowing bitterness and probably lots of oxidation. Brett would be the redeeming character. Lawson's here in VT has had success (IMO) combining hops and brett in their Brettzilla 'double IPA'. I love it but it seems that I'm a small minority. It seldom gets brewed anymore.

 

One important missing ingredient from anachronistic IPAs were hybrid hops (post 1975).