Top region in the U.S for IPA/IIPA/APA

Iowa and Delaware are tied, I think.

 

Don't forget Town Hall, Masala Mama has long been a favorite of mine.

Gotta agree with your bigger point, though, for modern style hop masterpieces not much debate possible that USA is the world leader. Hell, I bet there are even some German and English folks who might grudgingly let those words slip out their mouths

 

For sheer quantity(and some great beer) California. For overall quality, Ohio is as good as anyone.

 

So, according to the threads responses, you'd pretty much have a hard time finding a dumpy IPA in most places in this country and one could probably just call it and declare that North Dakota makes the worst IPA's in the nation.

 

If we're talking 4 states, I'm going to lay down Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. You know the breweries - Floyds, Bells, Half Acre, Pipeworks, Fat Heads, etc. with some new ones like Rhinegeist and Mad Tree. I know I missed some breweries but the Midwest can be easily argued as one of the best.

 

To self - "Must. Not. Give. In. Stay. Strong. Do. Not. Agree. To. This. And. Lose. Dignity"

ok ok - I agree! (even though I'm Scottish, so neither of the above)

 

No matter how good TG beers may be, I don't think you can give a state the gold medal based on one brewery

Point is, that rather than being the domain of Cali (as it was a few years back), there's now awesome hoppy beers coming from all over the country.

Lucky us

 

Lordy, we STILL haven't reached a consensus!

Someone needs to group all of the super-awesome IPAs in their region, determine the average BA score, add 1 point for each time they've seen one of those IPAs on a store shelf in 2014, minus 1 point for each of those breweries that distribute out of their region, minus 1 point for each terrible IPA in their region... and we'll finally determine the most important thing - the supreme winner!

Whoops. I just realized we still haven't reached a consensus on what constitutes a "region." We're doomed.
Might as well move to Belgium.

 

Leave Southern Vermont out of that corridor as we are no less than and hour and forty minutes away from any of the above.

 

Beer isn't a competition people! But it is worth noting 6 of the top ten ipas and 7 of the top ten dipas (on this site) are all from new england..

 

IMHO, HF is ridiculously overrated (I've had a few...Abner, Double Galaxy, Susan, Edward, SoS 5, Citral, and Twilight of the Idols).

I'd go California over Vermont...and like GABF officials would take Colorado and probably Oregon and Illinois over Vermont as well.

 

You've never had Abrasive, Sosus or King Sue? All of those are way better than Heady or Gandhi for me. Midwest has the best IPAs for sure.

 

As much as the homer in me wants to say the PNW(Boneyard, Laurelwood, Fort George, Breakside, Barley Browns, Fremont, Bale Breaker...) I think my hands would go numb before I could type all the breweries out here who make at least a decent IPA. The answer is California, anything other than that is homerism.

 

I'd say either West Virginia...or South Dakota...

 

Honestly, i probably don't have a favorite section of the united states that i prefer. Great IPAs can be found everywhere (except GA And Utah).

Also, just because an area has more concetrated breweries that make good IPAs, doesn't mean that it's better than another area. I'd rather live next to a brewery that makes one amazing IPA than a bunch of breweries that make good IPAs.

On top of that! They all taste the same in 3 months anyway so who cares. Let's argue about stouts instead!

 

I don't live in any of these, but I don't know how you could not consider them the best:
Southern California (mainly the San Diego area), New England (mainly Vermont), Pacific Northwest (mainly Portland).
There are great IPA's almost everywhere these days, but those are the epicenters.

 

The folks from Uinta might disagree with your police work there.

 

The definitive word.

The answer is the west coast (4 of 9), followed by the midwest (3 of 9). Sorry, Northeast. Better luck next year!

Displaying All Medal Winners of the American-Style India Pale Ale Style from All States represented at the 2014 GABF. 3 Results found.

Gold Breakside IPA Breakside Brewery Milwaukie OR American-Style India Pale Ale 2014
Silver Heyoka Half Acre Beer Co. Chicago IL American-Style India Pale Ale 2014
Bronze Bodhi Columbus Brewing Co. Columbus OH American-Style India Pale Ale 2014

Displaying All Medal Winners of the Imperial India Pale Ale Style from All States represented at the 2014 GABF. 3 Results found.

Gold Creeper Columbus Brewing Co. Columbus OH Imperial India Pale Ale 2014
Silver Hop 15 Port Brewing Co. San Marcos CA Imperial India Pale Ale 2014
Bronze Pliny the Elder Russian River Brewing Co. Santa Rosa CA Imperial India Pale Ale 2014

Displaying All Medal Winners of the American-Style Pale Ale Style from All States represented at the 2014 GABF. 3 Results found.

Gold Grunion Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits - Scripps Ranch San Diego CA American-Style Pale Ale 2014
Silver NYPA Peekskill Brewery Peekskill NY American-Style Pale Ale 2014
Bronze Reef Donkey APA Tampa Bay Brewing Co. Tampa FL American-Style Pale Ale 2014

 

If you look at the Top 50 BA Most Popular DIPAs, you get this breakdown:

25 from New England (ME, VT, CT + MA)
12 from the Midwest (MI, IL, OH, IA)
10 from California
2 from Oregon
1 each from NY, NM + WY

 

I'd also add Wormtown Be Hoppy, Foley Bros. Fair Maiden and Tree House Green to the list of the best in New England.

 

Who cares if you believe the NE region is the best, only one of the breweries (MBC) makes enough beer that can be bought on the regular.

As a New Englander I would still give the nod to the west coast.

 

I stand by my statement, when Uinta makes something good i'll revisit the subject.

 

I know its not perfect, but take the BA top 250 iipa/ipa/apa's, pin it out on a map, and see who wins. You could weight for ranking, but for simplicities sake lets just keep it simple. For sheer volume, San Diego's beer triangle would win hands down, but I doubt it would win the quality war, coming from someone who frequents SD between deployments.

 

If a state has one beer in each category that I'd rather have than every other one in that category, then I'll count this as a win for the state. Why do I need to drink my second and third favorite IPAs when I can have ZeeLander. Or my 4th and 5th favorite APAs when I can have PseudoSue.

The truth is that while I like trying lots of new beers, there's nothing I'd choose over fresh ZeeLander or PseudoSue. While Heady, Enjoy By, Permanent Funeral, Hopslam, etc. are all better than King Sue in my eyes, that's a pretty solid consolation for having the other two.

Unfortunately I live in Florida. So Toppling Goliath only comes from generous trade partners.

 

I can tell you where is ISN'T, and that is Vermont: there is no good beer in Vermont, so don't bother travelling here

 

Hands down San Diego.

 

I get what you're saying. I guess it comes down to availability too.

e.g. Hill Farmstead is probably my favourite US brewery. But (hypothetically before anyone gets up in arms) if they were the only top tier brewery in VT, I'd have a hard time saying that VT is the best state/region for beer, as outside of a handful of bars, the only way to get HF stuff is to go to the brewery itself.

I'm less familiar with TG / Iowa, as I haven't visited. If you can get hold of their hoppy offerings fairly easily all over the state, then I agree. If it's more akin to a HF level of distribution, then I'm not convinced.

 

I think some beers are in that league. Square Grouper reminded me of a Hill Farmstead IIPA. TG King Sue is right up there with any of the best in the Northeast, but the average quality of stuff from Lawsons, Alchemist, and Hill Farmstead is so much higher than midwest brewers. I think the best midwest brewery lately has to be Toppling Goliath. Pipeworks puts out a few great beers, and a lot of weird experimental nonsense. FFF puts out even fewer good ones to the giant lot of mediocre beers it generally offers.

 

IMO, the northeast from Delaware to Maine is where its at. Beast Coast baby.

 

Just did the VT pilgrimage, and I was pretty darn impressed. It gets my vote. No doubt other places are doing great things, but having so many options in a 1 hour radius is just wild.

 

I'm sure other regions have world-class hops, but I'm perfectly content with Ohio's selection

 

Big-time "no" on the VT scene. Just too small availability to confirm whether or not the beers live up to the hype.

Gotta give it to California. Tried and true, widely distributed to those outside California and thus mitigating bias. My favorite regions are the WC and Midwest for beer.

 

gotta protect my trade value!!

 

mysteriously, I knew where you lived even before I checked your av

 

Wherever you go, there you are. Eveyone loves there home region. My vote goes to California.

 

IMO, Hill Farmstead and Toppling Goliath are the best breweries in the country thanks to their head brewers, who are full-blown geniuses.

A tip of the hat to the breweries in midwest who make great stuff at great prices - as well as the beer consumers there who aren't dumb enough to wait on line for hours to blow their entire paychecks on beer - like around here.

 

You know what this reminds me of? Remember the old Walmart commercials: "rollin' rollin' rollin', rollin' rollin' rollin', roll baaaaaack..." This thread is exactly like that except replace the word "rollin'" with "trollin'."

Also, honestly, is it still all about IPAs? It's really enough.

 

That's fair. It seems to hit shelves, though I know it goes quickly.