As the world’s most popular craft-beer style—by a long shot—it’s no surprise that brewers view IPA through regional lenses.
The flagships of influential breweries become standard-bearers for a particular area, codifying their approach among a generation of brewers and drinkers like a mother hen imprints on her chicks. Slowly, successively, speciation occurs: A critical mass of these IPAs begins to look distinct enough from peers brewed in other areas and, ultimately, New England or West Coast or New Zealand IPAs are born.
But what of Midwest IPA? Some breweries use the phrase on packaging or even in their brand names, but its contours are far from clear. Is it a distinct substyle the way its coastal counterparts are? Should its recipe highlight Midwest-grown ingredients? Or is it simply any IPA brewed within the geographic confines of the Midwest?
C-Malts, C-Hops
In Hood River, Oregon, pFriem Family Brewers recently learned a lesson in how squishy the term can be. Last year, it released Midwest IPA, to “give a nod to how some of our friends over in the Midwest part of the country are making hop-forward IPAs.”
Brewmaster Josh Pfriem says he was particularly inspired by the IPAs from Fat Head’s, the Ohio brewery that also had a Portland, Oregon, outpost from 2014 to 2018. Pfriem describes those beers as “big, impactful, full, a little raw and generally intense, but good.” Combining that approach with some of his own preferences, pFriem’s Midwest IPA featured a malt bill of two-row barley and Carafoam plus clear invert sugar syrup, with a resinous-tropical combination of Citra, Mosaic, Galaxy, and Nelson Sauvin hops.
Unfortunately, the vision he had for a pFriem-ified Midwest IPA didn’t translate to drinkers. “This was lost on most folks,” Pfriem says. “Most of them in the Pacific Northwest hadn’t had an experience with [Fat Head’s beers] in this realm. On the other side, we had die-hard folks from the Midwest that were looking for a heavy caramel, C-hopped, and busted IPA, which is not what we want to brew, so they were disappointed.”
Pfriem didn’t brew that beer again, but Midwest IPA has thrived elsewhere. Breweries from Minnesota to Ohio to Missouri to Texas proudly label certain beers as Midwest IPA; for many, it’s a core, year-round offering. Its precise boundaries are open to interpretation, but consensus appears to have formed around the idea that they should contain a portion of caramel or crystal malts, some classic C-hops—Cascade, Columbus, Centennial, or Chinook—and a relatively even malt-hops balance.
If you’re thinking that sounds an awful lot like good old American IPA, you’re not wrong. As the hazy New England and bright West Coast styles drift toward opposite poles, Midwest IPA—like the region from which it hails—has proudly held the middle.
Divergent Histories
Regional IPAs are largely defined in contrast with each other.
The hazy IPAs that came out of New England and still dominate that region are instantly recognizable because of how different they are—visually, texturally, and in their flavor balance—from the American IPAs that came before.
Contemporary West Coast–style IPAs are much lighter and leaner in their base malts than they were even a decade ago. (Green Flash West Coast IPA, a beer that debuted in 2005 and inspired others, exemplifies this time warp, with a reddish-amber hue still driven by a dose of British crystal.) If many West Coast IPAs today get 100 percent pilsner or two-row, it’s partially a reaction to the brawny excesses of the chewiest New England bruisers.
Meanwhile, as those two substyles became more divergent, the middle space for Midwest IPAs became wider and more inclusive. For the average drinker—who has no need to discern particular beer-recipe nuances—today’s Midwest IPAs are probably nearest to what they’d call “regular IPAs.”
As the West Coast style shifted leaner and paler, the Fat Head’s team started to rethink how they describe their flagship, Head Hunter, says brewmaster Matt Cole. The brewery no longer refers to it as a West Coast–style IPA. (Last year, Cole says, he entered Head Hunter in the Great American Beer Festival competition as a West Coast IPA. The judges picked it apart—the darker color alone was enough to knock it out of contention.) The brewery now calls Head Hunter an American-style IPA, while many brewers and retailers cite it as a foundational Midwest IPA—alongside beers such as Bell’s Two Hearted, Surly Furious, Boulevard Single Wide, Founders Centennial, and others.
“There’s closer alignment of old-school American-style IPA to Midwest IPA than there is Midwest IPA to West Coast IPA,” Cole says. “We tend to run a little thicker mash profile, so you’ve got a little more color than what you’d find on the West Coast. We always still use Carapils to add body [to Head Hunter], and that doesn’t seem like a common West Coast thing.”
Where West Coast has become bone-dry and heavily late-hopped, Head Hunter and most other Fat Head’s IPAs are focused on layers of hop additions throughout the brewing process, from the beginning of the boil to mid-boil additions and on through the whirlpool and into the hopback. The goal of those mid-boil additions is to create a strong through-line across the palate, Cole says, and a consistently strong hop profile, from aroma to sip to swallow. That profile works best with a strong malt foundation. In contrast, today’s West Coast IPAs tend to focus more on later additions, and they can succeed with a less substantial grain bill.
“There’s definitely some overlap between West Coast and Midwest IPAs,” Cole says, “but I think the body, the terminal gravity, the color—Midwest IPA is going to set itself apart.” He says Midwest IPAs also should have a bit of minerality, owing to the hardness of Great Lakes water.
“We’re still brewing them pretty strong, too,” he says. “Head Hunter is a 7.5 percent [ABV] beer, whereas elsewhere there’s a trend to lower the alcohol a bit.
As today’s West Coast IPAs chase greater drinkability with a stripped-back malt bill, their Midwestern cousins are content to let you take a little more time with them—before you order seconds.
That Midwest Attitude
At Pryes Brewing in Minneapolis, Miraculum Midwest IPA is their best-selling beer. Director of sales Alex Jacoby half-jokingly describes it as “passive aggressive.
He’s referring to the beer’s punch of Simcoe, Centennial, and Cascade hops, delivered with a substantial enough malt bill to soften the blow.
“The goal with Miraculum was to craft an IPA that strikes the perfect balance—bright, citrus-hop bitterness complemented by a sturdy backbone of malty sweetness,” says founder and head brewer Jeremy Pryes.
Meanwhile, Cleveland’s Great Lakes Brewing debuted its new, year-round Midwest IPA in February with the tagline, “the unofficial IPA of Midwest nice.
There’s a nugget of truth within these slogans. Brewers are aiming for an IPA that has cushion to its bitterness—a friendly approachability that delivers classic hop flavors and comforting malts. For Great Lakes, that means a bit of honey malt alongside the two-row base.
“That honey malt, particularly for Midwest IPAs, I think it’s somewhat of a critical factor,” says Great Lakes co-CEO Steven Pauwels. “Our line is ‘it’s Midwest nice,’ and that’s what we’re trying to get to—an IPA that’s not going to knock your socks off, but you take a few sips and you say, ‘That’s nice, and I think I’ll have another.’”
It’s easy to see a similar line of thought when comparing Pryes Miraculum Midwest IPA to the brewery’s more recently debuted West Coast–style IPA, Glamorama. Miraculum has a base of Munich with some caramel malt added, delivering what Jacoby calls “nostalgic” flavors of bread and caramel. Thanks to its leaner malt bill, Glamorama packs a punchier bitterness than Miraculum, and it gets newer-school hops such as Citra and Strata.
Miraculum, meanwhile, features classic C-hops for their citrus character—but “Simcoe is the real star,” Pryes says, “bringing the beer across the finish line.
However, Simcoe isn’t what it used to be. “With the rise of Hazy IPAs, the breeding of Simcoe has shifted toward a more aggressive fruity profile,” Pryes says. “Because of this, hop selection has become crucial. Each year, I travel to Yakima for selection to ensure I get the classic Simcoe profile—one that leans more woodsy, dank, and catty rather than overtly fruity.” That’s the profile he wants to strike that balance with the malt.
Miraculum is a beer that avoids extremes and, in doing so, it’s become a Minneapolis fridge staple.
Brewers love to talk about drinkability, and there’s a dryness to modern West Coast IPAs that triggers another sip. In Midwest IPAs, meanwhile, the richer malt base rounds out what would otherwise be an aggressive bitterness, striking what can be an addictive balance. (Plus, we Americans tend to underestimate our collective preference for sweeter food and drink.)
Old-school or not, it’s a combination that sells. Tim Costello owned 8 Degrees Plato—a beer shop with locations in Ann Arbor and Detroit, Michigan—for 14 years. During that time, he saw the IPA pendulum swing from American IPA to West Coast to hazy and back, with blips such as brut and black IPA along the way. No matter the flavor of the week, though, Midwest IPA remained IPA’s true north for most customers.
“People still come in and they’ll try a can or a four-pack of the new stuff, which is usually hazy,” Costello says. “They’re buying individual cans of that, but they’re walking home with a 12-pack of Two Hearted. They’re still willing to try the new thing, but that American IPA is the standard you keep in the fridge.
Like generalizations about the region itself, Midwest IPAs are dependable, familiar, and maybe a little retro. They’re repositories for drinkers’ conceptions of what it means to be an American IPA—rooted in tradition but still evolving, subtly, with the times.
Evolving for the Future
If reverence for tradition is a part of Midwest IPA, that hasn’t translated to inertia. These beers are still evolving. That’s partially in response to the stylistic drifts of hazy and West Coast IPA, but it’s also in response to the shifting palates of drinkers and a new understanding of ingredients.
Fat Head’s Head Hunter offers a useful case study. In the early part of the 2010s, the beer was different from what it is today. Its balance was more malt-forward, sometimes using pale malt in place of two-row and even including Maris Otter in the mix. The beer’s IBUs were creeping into the 90s back then, necessitating a rich malt balance. Cole calls the Head Hunter of those years “an IPA and a half,” with all that malt contributing to a final gravity around 3.4°P (1.013).
That approach has evolved. Today, Head Hunter drinks much leaner, finishing around 2.8–2.9°P (1.011), getting lighter, glassy crystal malts such as Caramalt, Carared, or Crystal 15 to add body and mouthfeel but not much sweetness. “Those are the kind of malts that I think you wouldn’t find on the West Coast, and you probably wouldn’t find them on the East Coast, but you would find more of those in the Midwest,” Cole says. “The malt character is much more subdued, and it’s really just there to hold the rest of that hop profile together.”
While part of Midwest IPA’s identity is in its malt presence, its hop profile is the sensorial star. And here, too, brewers acknowledge contemporary drinkers’ preference for fruit-forward flavor while maintaining classic C-hop character. For that, many are turning to Midwest-grown varieties.
Rob Malad, Midwest regional sales manager for Michigan-based Hop Head Farms, says that while some breweries use the term Midwest IPA as a marketing tool, there is a tangible difference in Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, and other varieties grown in the Midwest versus the Pacific Northwest. Generally, many Michigan-grown hops lean more fruit-forward than Northwest-grown versions of the same varieties.
“Michigan-grown Chinook is the prime example for us,” Malad says. “It is a considerable pineapple bomb, with Juicy Fruit accents and light pine, compared to the PNW-grown version that is very pine-forward and resinous. Our Cascade and Centennial display more citrus meat and juice character, where the fruit character is more commonly citrus peel from Pacific Northwest-grown examples.
Those ingredients contribute to the heart of a true Midwest IPA built for 2025. The best examples of this substyle bridge the gap between the New England and West Coast approaches, but also between tradition and the future.
In doing so, they’ve created a lane within IPA that takes its inspiration from America’s heartland while extending a warm welcome to everyone else.
