Black IPA by Athletic Brewing Co.

A renaissance of dark brewing craft

My first-ever Black IPA is a nonalcoholic brew. 🖤🖤

Hard to believe that in my 25 (!) years of beer drinking, I had never come across a Black IPA —until just now. And black IPA drinkers tell me that “this brew is an excellent representation of a full-strength black IPA.” I love everything about it.

Athletic’s Black IPA is a cross between a roasty stout and a hopped black lager. This brew provides a bold flavor experience.

The flavors are roasty, hoppy, and malty in a medium-body brew, topped of with a thick, creamy head. You can really taste the malts which impart a nice lingering flavor. Athletic describes it as a “bold and bizarrely beautiful drinking experience,” and they’re spot on.

Because I enjoyed this brew so tremendously, I began to wonder how it is that I had never come across a black IPA before. I’ve drank many porters, stouts, and German dark and black beers, and had never even heard of black IPA.

So I did a little digging on the history of black IPAs and came across “Darkest Before the Dawn — The Unlikely Return of Black IPA” by Jonny Garrett in Good Beer Hunting. Here are some key excerpts:

…You could argue that the first Black IPA was brewed sometime in the mid 1800s, when British breweries…were sending their highly hopped Porters to India.

…surprisingly, the first American example of the Black IPA…took inspiration from elsewhere: …rich, hoppy Scotch Ale. [Noonan’s Vermont Pub & Brewery’s] head brewer at the time, Glenn Walter, then brewed a darker version called Black and Bitter, apparently inspired by the divorce he was going through at the time.

…despite being common in brewery core ranges from roughly 2008 to 2014, the style had a persistent image problem. How can an India Pale Ale even be black, detractors wanted to know? Don’t roasted malts clash with fruity hops, or add excessive bitterness?

…after several years of plummeting sales volumes, Black IPAs started disappearing. Breweries faced increasing pressure to brew lighter and fruitier beers…[The Black IPA craze] was replaced in 2015…drowned out by a tide of juicy, Hazy IPA.

…If it’s a buzzword for a failed trend, Black IPA is also shorthand for experimentation and passion without the influence of commercialization. It’s an embodiment of that old craft cliche: that brewers brew what they like and are just delighted when it sells. To some, the disappearance of the style could be seen as the end of that era of innocence.

I applaud Athletic Brewing for making a non-alcoholic Black IPA that has me curious to learn more about this style of beer. With its rich and bold flavors, this is a brew I’d love for them to keep around. Cheers to a black craft brew renaissance!