Joe Sixpack: Brewers create pale ales with a twist

BLACK IPAs are so 2011.

Last year's hot new style, which exploded in popularity before beer gurus could even settle on a proper name (Cascadian Dark Ale? American Black Ale?), is already getting shoved to the side by a new crop of India pale ales.

Would you believe white IPA?

OK, you saw that one coming - so, how about Baltic IPA?

Those are two of the new styles that found their way into my fridge before I even turned the first calendar page of 2012. And I won't be surprised if there are more newfangled IPAs to come.

That India pale ale - a strongly hopped, 200-year-old British style named for its colonial exportation to India - has become the darling of small brewers in the United States is remarkable enough. Thirty years ago, you could count the number of American-made IPAs on one paw. Today, it is the single most popular judging category at the annual Great American Beer Festival.

Maybe there's one or two out there among America's nearly 2,000 microbreweries, but I can't think of a single one that doesn't make an IPA.

What's fascinating is how these brewers - inspired by either creativity or sheer boredom - have been tweaking this fairly conventional beer style.

First came American-style IPAs, in which Northwestern-grown hops stepped forward. Then there were imperial or double IPAs, super strong ales with even more distinctively aromatic hops.

Then came the single-hop IPAs, fresh-hop IPAs and Belgian-style IPAs with fruity yeast strains.

We've seen honey IPAs and oak-aged IPAs and brown IPAs and, in a collaboration between the Stone, Ninkasi and Alchemist breweries, More Brown Than Black IPA.

What a mouthful!

Recipe adaptations are hardly new in brewing. Over the centuries, brewers have added fruit and spices and herbs to create all manner of new styles. Yet traditionalists cringe when rule-breaking brewers fool with IPA's fairly well-defined and historic recipe. Don't call it an India pale ale, they gripe, if it's sour or sweet or black.

Which brings us to the inevitable white IPA. And, no, that's not a joke.

F.X. Matt of New York just released Saranac White IPA, and Boston Beer stuck bottles of Whitewater IPA into its Brewer's Choice Variety 12-pack. Both are hybrids of traditional IPA and Belgian witbier, made with wheat malt and oats, coriander and orange, and then hopped out the wazoo.

They're hazy and white and aromatic and very refreshing. Think Hoegaarden crossed with Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA.