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What is a "White IPA" and can it actually be considered an IPA?

I'm asking in general but specifically I'm having a Deschutes Chainbreaker White IPA.

Andrew Cheong
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2 Answers2

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WHITE IPA

A basic definition would be:

  1. strong hop character - similar to ipa
  2. wheat / wit grainbill-
  3. essentially a mashup (beer pun) of wit and ipa, lighter malts with strong hops

As far as the is it an IPA question: as long as its fairly high alcohol, most of the ingredients would point to being almost the same as an IPA. but like noted above, there are different malts and probably a different yeast.

Jeff Wurz
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YES. Deschutes Chainbreaker White IPA is in fact made with ale yeast using pilsner, malted wheat, wheat, and a large quantity of hops. A pale ale is an ale (a beer made with ale yeast) and lightly malted barley and adjuncts. An IPA is a pale ale that has been hopped greatly. Your particular white IPA is light in color and has 55 IBUs, qualifying it for the IPA class of beer.

In case you are curious: The reason IPAs were established is because the English brewers receiving spices from India made a habit of sending the would be empty ship back loaded with beer. At the time pale ales were the staple beer. At first the beer developed a bad flavor during the long voyage. English brewers learned to cover the negative flavor of their pale ales with more bittering hops.

IBUs stands for International Bitterness Units, it is an approximation of how much bitterness you will taste.

Answered by: The GastroGraph Team

Gastrograph
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  • "English brewers learned to cover the negative flavor of their pale ales with more bittering hops." Also, hops keep beer from going bad in general. – PieBie Apr 07 '16 at 12:38