The Most Bitter IPAs You Can Drink

This story was originally published on the Daily Meal in 2011.

Back in the ’80s, Keystone Light commercials focused on a curious affliction: bitter-beer face. The faces of folks who sipped so-called “bitter beer” scrunched up like sideshow freaks. “Don’t grab a bitter beer…grab a better beer!” the announcer exclaimed, as a swig of innocuous Keystone made their normal mugs bounce back.

            But in this era of craft beer, drinkers are shunning simple brews like Keystone and Coors for coffee-seasoned stouts, burly Belgian ales and, most of all, bitter beers like the India pale ale, a.k.a. the IPA. According to lore, the IPA is so-called because eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sailors alighted from England to India with pale ales fortified with extra doses of hops—a climbing plant’s fragrant flowering cones that act as preservatives and impart bitterness.

            The “pale ale for India” eventually became the IPA. Now, the beer style has caught fire with American consumers craving bigger, bolder and ever more bitter beers. Brewers have responded by concocting potent imperial IPAs with IBUs—the international bitterness unit, a measurement of a beer’s perceived bitterness—that crest triple digits. (By comparison, Budweiser packs about 10 IBUs.)

            One of the hot spots of the hoppy-beer movement is Southern California, where Escondido’s Stone Brewing deliciously pummels palates with its aptly named Ruination IPA, which offers 100-plus bold, bitter IBUs matched by a sturdy malt backbone. Still, this trend isn’t confined to California. In Akron, Ohio, Hoppin’ Frog Brewery makes the massive Mean Manalishi Double IPA, a caramel monster boasting a dizzying 168 IBUs.

            Yet 168 IBUs is simply a stepping stone for Dutch brewery Mikkeller, which offers the eye-popping 1000 IBU—a theoretical number, given that the bitterness scale doesn’t sky that high. Despite the wishful thinking, this beer still “tasted like chewing a hop field,” wrote brewer Mikkel Borg Bjergsø. “I personally loved it.” Would you? Give these 11 bitter beers a taste.

Russian River Brewing Company
Pliny the Elder

Named after the Roman naturalist and philosopher, Pliny the Elder is a piney tour de force. Despite its 100 IBUs, golden-orange Pliny still drinks crisp and bright, with the spicy-sweet bitterness bathing your tongue.

Stone Brewing
Ruination IPA

The Californian beer makers call this turbocharged IPA “a liquid poem to the glory of the hop,” owing to its double-barreled blast of pine and grapefruit. Though Ruination will instantly shock your tongue, it’s surprisingly easy to drink—too easy.

Green Flash Brewing Company
Imperial IPA 

Based in San Diego, the brewery’s pungent masterpiece offers an intensely aromatic assault (those 101 IBUs aren’t messing around) that calls to mind a more illicit kind of funky green herb. The beer tastes illicitly delicious. 

Mikkeller
1000 IBU

Danish brewer Mikkel Borg Bjergsø never intended to create the world’s most bitter beer. Instead, 1000 is an experiment to see how hoppy you can make a brew that’s still balanced and super-drinkable—sort of.

Laguintas Brewing Company
Hop Stoopid Ale           

Tipping the scales at 102 IBUs, Hop Stoopid—hailing from Petaluma, California—offers a mouthwatering aroma of fresh-sliced pineapples, mangos and peaches. In the best way possible, Stoopid recalls pine resin rolled in sugar. 

Dogfish Head Craft Brewed Ales
120 Minute IPA 

To create this extreme elixir, the Delaware brewery (founder Sam Calagione was the star of the Discovery Channel’s Brew Masters) uses heaps of hops during the brewing process, then ages it for several more months with even more hops. The result: 120 IBUs and a head-spinning 18 percent ABV. 

Avery Brewing Co.
Maharaja

Taking its name for the Sanskrit words for “great king,” the Boulder brewery’s summer seasonal presents an intense scent of grapefruit and molasses. It slides down sweet and creamy, with 102 IBUs of tongue-coating bitterness.  

Port Brewing
Hop 15 

This San Diego brewery’s IPA is constructed with 15 distinct, hush-hush varieties of hops. From first sip to last, it’s a sticky, resinous symphony.

Moylan’s Brewing Co.
Hopsickle Imperial IPA 

Checking in somewhere north of 100 IBUs, the ludicrously bittered Hopsickle has a multifaceted floral profile and a bitterness that lingers like teenagers at a 7-Eleven. Though you might like to have two, be careful: Hopsickle has heavyweight strength.

Ninkasi Brewing Company
Tricerahops 

Tricerahops tips the scales at an even-steven 100 IBUs, offering a heavy load of citrus and floral aromatics. The bitterness hangs on your tongue, helped out by a smidgen of rich malt.

Hoppin’ Frog Brewery
Mean Manalishi Double IPA

The deeply copper creation is jam-packed with gobs of hops, which impart plenty of pine and grapefruit aromas and flavors. Caramel keeps this hugely bitter hop bomb—168 IBUs!—grounded.