Yes, it’s August 2nd and in case your lame calendar didn’t say so, it’s IPA Day! For the uninitiated, IPA is India Pale Ale, a style of beer originally brewed by the Brits back in the 19th century, adding extra hops to the ale to preserve its voyage on ships headed around the Cape of Good Hope to colonial India. More recently, west coast U.S. brewers have taken this beer style to a new level, amping up the hops and daring your taste buds to engage in the resulting bodacious bitterness. It’s what’s made San Diego famous for its beer.

So today I salute you, coming at ya from Downtown Johnny Brown’s with an IPA from Manzanita Brewing Company (who just celebrated their 2nd anniversary), to be followed by the newest double IPA (“Hop Therapy”) from newcomer Rough Draft Brewing.  Now I should mention that double or imperial IPAs are what you get when a bunch of insane west coast beer geeks decide that “regular” IPA recipes need to be tweaked, adding even more hops–sometimes at different stages in the brewing process–resulting in the kind of bitterness that is sure to baffle and offend drinkers of cheap domestic light “beer” swill, as it should!  In fact, while I don’t know how long the popularity of Double/Imperial IPAs will last, I will declare this as the reigning beer style for 2012.

Here are some more local San Diego County IPAs I can recommend; let me know what your favorite is or what you’re having!*

• Stone IPA
• Alpine Nelson IPA
• Green Flash West Coast IPA
  
• Pizza Port (Ocean Beach) Jetty IPA
• AleSmith IPA
• Hess Intrepidus IPA
• Mission IPA
• Ballast Point Big Eye IPA
• Karl Strauss Tower 20 (double) IPA
• Coronado Idiot (double) IPA
• Stone Ruination (double IPA)
• Ballast Point Sculpin (double) IPA

(*these are in no particular order nor is this list meant to be exhaustive)

Get your hops on!!!!