So there has been a push as of late to create a new beer style definition for a brew that a lot of craft brewers have been playing around with.

Here is a example (Hopworks Secession Black IPA) and a bad cell phone pic… :

Essentially it is what a Black Bier is to a standard Pilsner… a black pils. Take that concept and use a hop foward floral west coast IPA as the base. Basically you take your normal IPA recipe and make it dark, it isn’t thick like a porter but its dark like one. You get a bit of roast, but the upfront american hop and aroma are there in a big way like a standard west coast IPA. My preference is towards the lower gravity versions of these… I find them more interesting… I don’t think bigger is always better.

Lately Widmer released it’s pitch black IPA which from what I know is the first really wide spread release of the style.

The biggest discussion I have heard surrounding the naming convention is where “it started” I first had offerings from Rogue with the mogul madness beers, skull splitter, captn’ sigs etc… John Maeir at rogue obviously likes it, was it first… probably not … does it matter? Probably not. There is a pretty interesting discussion with the San Diego contingent claiming this style as well, here is a snip from Jamie Floyd at ninkasi:

“This year’s collaboration brew in Eugene for KLCC beer festival is a
Belgian style Cascadian Dark Rye Ale. All of the Eugene brewer’s
agreed that it should be Cascadian Dark as well. Besides, if it isn’t
established as Cascadian, the guys in San Diego will take credit for
brewing it first like every other beer in the world. I have all ready
heard flack from some of the California brewers who want to call it
DPA : Dark Pale Ale which is even more oxymoronic.”

All in all great beer and interesting jockeying going on with what to call it.

There is another good discussion here at this blog:

hoppress

The guys at Oakshire have a lot to share on the subject as well as a offering of their own:

O’ dark:30