The Best IPAs of 2018
January 14, 2019
For us, the IPA is the pizza of the beer world. You can change the ingredients, you can make it simpler or heavier, you can make it crisper or softer… but as long as the basic formula is the same, we will love it no matter what. (Also, like pizza slices, it’s difficult to have just one IPA.) Below is a list of the best IPAs we had in 2018. Not all of them were introduced to the market last year, but just like with our lists of the best sour beers of 2018 and the best stouts of 2018, we’re basing our list on date of consumption, not on date of initial creation.
Also like our other lists, we’re only allowing ourselves to put one beer per brewery. It was difficult enough cutting down the hundreds of IPAs we had this year down to such a short list. We drank IPAs from places like Anchorage Brewing, The Answer, Green Cheek, Hoof Hearted, Monkish, Odd13, and The Veil, all of which could’ve easily been written up on this list. (In fact, the more we think, the more we consider changing things up… no, we’ve already done too much rewriting.) Yet while there are so many we’ve had that are worthy of being on the list, these fifteen IPAs stand out as the ones we simply can’t leave off.
Cellarmaker: Dollar Dollar Bill
Hubbard’s Cave: Fresh IIPA v5
Parish Brewing: Ghost in the Machine
The Alchemist: Crusher
We were fortunate to have several of the best hazy double IPAs in America this year. In the interest of making our jobs a lot easier, we narrowed it down to four. On the West Coast, Cellarmaker represents the Bay Area with the Dollar Dollar Bill, providing creamy mango dankness. Down South, Parish Brewing represents Cajun country with Ghost In The Machine, the answer to the question, “What if I drank a 100+ IBU glass of pineapple juice?” In the Northeast, The Alchemist Brewing’s classic haze bomb Crusher lives up to the hype, a remarkably and appropriately crushable 8% with the juice to balance but not cancel its citrusy hoppage. Finally, in the Midwest, Hubbard’s Cave in the Chicago suburbs, flaunting a mastery of juicy IPAs that’s grossly unfair for a brewery whose stouts are also masterful. America: the Land of the Free and the Home of the Haze.
Aslin Beer: Dunley Place (Double Dry Hopped)
Our most anticipated beer event of the coming year or two? Aslin Beer’s pending move to Alexandria. We find ourselves in DC usually once a year, and Emily’s last trip resulted in an expedition to Herndon and a massive can purchase. We have no idea how she fit all that beer into her checked luggage back to LA. Aslin’s hazy IPAs are exceptional, and while we could’ve picked any we had this year, the first— the double dry-hopped Dunley Place— is juicy, bitter, effervescent, and an ideal summer IPA.
The aptly named Begyle Brewing deserves to be mentioned in the very top tier of Chicago breweries. Their Megapixel is a Mosaic IPA that’s crisper than the skin on some Budlong Hot Chicken. You don’t always need the juice of a haze bomb or the boozy kick of a thunderous triple. Sometimes you need the simple pleasures of golden, citrus, old school hoppy bliss.
There are certain breweries where you taste a phenomenal sour, then a phenomenal stout, then a phenomenal IPA, and you think, “This is unfair.” Bottle Logic is one of those breweries. Their Berlinear Equation with Strawberry and Rhubarb and The Lost Colony could’ve both made our sour and stout lists, respectively, but there was no way our IPA list would be complete without Absolute Unit, their collaboration with Modern Times, a boozy citrusy wonder of a hazy triple IPA. Russell made multiple trips from Los Angeles to Anaheim to get more Absolute Unit— and for those unfamiliar, that’s a lot of highway hours.
Fiction Beer Co: The Recurrence
Recurrence is the notion that the universe will infinitely recur, so events that occur in this universe have already occured and will continue to occur throughout time and space into infinity. This theory pleases us, because that means we’ve had an infinite number of pints of The Recurrence, Fiction Beer’s monster of a quadruple-dry-hopped triple IPA. Its sweet papaya juice infusion means it drinks insanely smoothly for a 10+% ABV.
Fieldwork Brewing: Saint Thomas
We were grateful to be visiting Sacramento when we crossed our 1000th beer mark for 2018. We were even *more* grateful for that beer to be the Saint Thomas from Fieldwork Brewing, a hazy IPA that balances its Mosaic hops and its melon juice exceptionally well. Was it sheer coincidence that the best IPA we had in Sacramento city limits was also the one we selected as our 1000th? Or did the beer gods smile upon us for our copious beer consumption and reward us with a gem? We prefer to think the latter.
We could wax poetic about this Auburn-based beer, a true contender for the best hazy IPA in California. However, we can’t top this review from BeerAdvocate: “I find this beer more ripe than the day is long. Wake up and want it. I dream. Dream and believe. I can for as long as I can see. Believe, drink… Drink, believe… I take another sip, can I last in reality? Is reality more real than me? I drink. I believe. Yes, I believe.” Thank you, RaulMondesi, for putting it perfectly. Also, we love your work writing the voiceover narration for Terrence Malick films.
If you were to ask us where the best place to get a piney double IPA in Denver would be, we’d say, “Dude, it’s Odell.” References to personal computer ad campaigns in the early 2000s notwithstanding, Odell delivers classic hop bombs the whole family can enjoy (assuming the whole family is legal drinking age). Our favorite was the Myrcenary, a resinous, gently floral tongue-coater that is astonishingly smooth for a 9.3% ABV double.
Other Half: Double Dry Hopped Hop Showers
Russell here— look, gang, I’m going to be honest. I drank this Other Half at a bachelor party in Austin, Texas, courtesy of the inimitable Kevin Brightly. I wrote in my notes that DDH Hop Showers was fruity, bitter at the end, and a “slamma jamma.” I gave it the highest marks I can give a beer… but truthfully, my memory is a little hazy. Was my grade influenced by me being under the influence? Luckily, I’ll be traveling to Other Half at the end of January 2019, so I won’t have to wait to find out. I strongly suspect its inclusion is worthwhile.
Red Dragon gives residents of Fredericksburg their fix of Scottish/English/Irish style craft beer, so you may not expect them to be the usual candidate for one of the best IPAs of the year. However, their Oat Life takes the tropical juiciness of your typical imperial NEIPA and delivers it with absurdly smooth and creamy mouthfeel. We’ve praised The Answer and The Veil endlessly in our Best of 2018 lists… but Richmond beer drinkers owe it to themselves to take the hour drive north and experience Red Dragon as well.
Our trip to Lake Tahoe took us to some quality breweries— FiftyFifty Brewing, South Lake Brewing, Alibi Ale Works among them— but one of the highlights were the many cans of Revision Brewing from nearby Sparks. The brewers at Revision are the haze masters of Nevada, and while we could’ve gone with a few of their sweet, sweet cans (c) Homer Simpson, we’ll choose the Owyhee, their collaboration with Kahola Brewing, a potent combination of dry hoppiness and pineapple juiciness.
Russian River Brewing Company: Pliny the Younger
We visited Russian River in Santa Rosa in 2017, but we didn’t get our hands on Pliny’s little brother until 2018. We waited in line, made friends, went in, and enjoyed our respective pours. In a year when we’ve had a number of outstanding hazier, juicier IPAs, we reminisce upon this absolute pine grenade and our mouths water. We can’t wait for the cool February 2019 day when we’ll get our hands upon Pliny the Younger once again.
What were your favorite IPAs in 2018? What are you looking forward to trying in 2019? Please let us know in the comments below! Check out our list of our best brewery experiences of 2018, our list of the best sour beers of 2018, and our best stouts of 2018. We have one more Best of 2018 article coming soon, detailing our favorite beers in each of the fifty states– so keep your eyes peeled for that coming soon!
