"But I'm happy it found us and we found it when we did. "I don't know what took so long for people to catch up to us," he said. While Harpoon has kept the original IPA recipe the same, it has continued to experiment with the IPA style throughout the years, releasing a Black IPA, a White IPA, Rye IPA and an Imperial IPA.ĭecades later, Harpoon's Doyle said he isn't surprised that IPA has become the dominate style of beer in his industry. Originally our summer seasonal in 1993, it is now available year round and is our best selling beer. Harpoon IPA (India pale ale): In the tradition of IPAs, this copper colored ale is floral, medium bodied, with a distinct hop finish. "It's just kind of the natural progression as people's tastes get more extreme." Six different beer styles, two bottles of each. That beer was so out there when it first came out and now people look at it as just kind of a normal style of beer," he said. "Sierra Nevada saw it with their Pale Ale. It's a reflection, Steele said, of the change in people's palettes and taste preferences. In comparison to many IPAs on the marketplace today, Harpoon's once "extreme" IPA now seems more approachable to the mainstream beer drinker. ( Read more: The booming beer brand trying to be the next Corona) Steele now brews and formulates some of the most popular IPAs in the industry at Stone Brewing Co., the leader in West Coast-style IPAs, which are known for their extreme hop character and higher alcohol content. "It was a first for me, seeing a craft-brewed IPA being as popular as it was," said Steele. in San Diego and the author of "IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale." Prior to working at Stone, Steele lived in New England and was brewing at Anheuser-Busch's Merrimack, N.H., facility. Someone who remembers the early impact of Harpoon IPA is Mitch Steele, a brewer with Stone Brewing Co. "But it became the growth engine of the company." "I never thought it would be popular and we didn't make it to be popular," said Doyle. As a result of needing a beer that could withstand the trip from England to India via unrefrigerated.
Twenty years after its debut, Harpoon IPA remains the brewery's best-selling beer, making up more than half of its sales. The origins of India Pale Ale (IPA) dictate its flavor profile. By the next summer, we had to keep it year 'round due to popular demand," Kenary added. ( Read more: First tulips, then housing.Is beer bubble next?) It just worked."Ĭonsumers may have been confused by the style at first, but once they tried it, they were hooked. "Much more bitter than what people were used to, but still really balanced. "It was a pretty extreme beer for its day," said co-founder Rich Doyle.