BeerBorg

Kealia wrote:A highly hopped, low ABV beer would TECHNICALLY be an APA

Not necessarily. You could still have a lower ABV beer but with the IPA color and IBU ratings. Part of what really makes an IPA an IPA is the high IBU rating. A pale ale has a lesser IBU rating.

So, brew it to all the IPA stats except the OG, which would also bring down the ABV.

Stay tuned for said recipe!!!

Like a lot of the Borg . I brew to please myself and who ever I may be brewing a batch for. The family & friends that like beer get a case for a B-gift. I doubt if I will ever brew for a competition, just do not have the drive to compete in anything anymore. I like hoppy beers do not care about the name.

BlackDuck wrote:

Kealia wrote:A highly hopped, low ABV beer would TECHNICALLY be an APA

Not necessarily. You could still have a lower ABV beer but with the IPA color and IBU ratings. Part of what really makes an IPA an IPA is the high IBU rating. A pale ale has a lesser IBU rating.

Yeah, I guess you are right. Then I stand by my original statement of, "yes, you can brew a session IPA".

I straddle the fence when it comes to staying within style. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. Since I plan to enter competitions, I darn well better brew those to style. Otherwise, I don't much care as long as it tastes good. Those beers are brewed to the style of "good beer".

I say you can just create a new style. The Session IPA.

I say, if it tastes good, drink it! There is always the BJCP category of 23: Specialty Beer if you really want to be in "style."

absence of evidence

I really think that APA's and IPA's are both part of the same continuum and there is some overlap. For example, my favorite commercial APA is Three Floyd's Zombie Dust which has an IBU of 60 and ABV of 6.4%. Three Floyds labels this an APA despite the fact that the numbers fall into the IPA realm. It does have an amazing malt backbone with more hop aroma and flavor than real bitterness. Several of my brews straddle the fence between APA and IPA as well.

I tend to come down on the side of an IPA having a high enough gravity to balance the high hop usage. I've been trying to perfect a low gravity pale ale with a big hop presence, and when you get below a gravity of around 1.040, it's really easy to over hop the beer. It just doesn't sit right to have too much bitterness without the malt bill to back it up. That said, some people might consider a low gravity pale ale with a very high hop flavor and aroma from late hop additions to be an IPA intead of an APA, but it still doesn't fit the style definition. I'll be entering the last two bottles of the latest iteration of that low grav pale ale in the Milwaukee Beer Baron's Midwinter competition as a category 23 beer since the gravity is too low to even qualify as a pale ale (it scored a 37 as a pale ale in another competition that didn't accept cat. 23 beers, but was predictably criticized for not having enough body).