IPA Styles Guide: What’s the Difference Between Hazy, West Coast, & Double?

The hazy IPA: New England’s home style

This one belongs to us. The Hazy IPA, also called the New England IPA, traces directly back to The Alchemist in Vermont, where John and Jen Kimmich opened their Waterbury brewpub in late 2003 and put Heady Topper on tap within its first months.^[1] It’s now one of the most imitated beer styles in the world, and New England breweries are still where you find the best examples.

What makes it hazy? The cloudiness comes from suspended proteins, starches, and yeast that stay in solution rather than dropping out during brewing.^[2] That’s not sloppiness; it’s intentional. Brewers use specific yeast strains, high proportions of flaked oats and wheat, and water high in calcium chloride to create that soft, pillowy texture.^[3] The result should look like fruit juice, not murky pond water.

Bitterness is low to moderate (25–60 IBUs^[4]), and that’s by design. The flavor is driven by aroma, not bite. That tropical fruit punch (mango, pineapple, ripe citrus) comes partly from dry hopping, where hops are added after the boil to extract oils without adding bitterness.^[5] It also comes from something called biotransformation: the yeast actually chemically alters hop compounds during fermentation, creating those intense fruit notes.^[6]

One thing to know about hazies: drink them fresh. Hop aroma degrades fast. Most craft brewers say 30–60 days from canning is the sweet spot; past 90 days, what was tropical starts tasting flat.^[7] When you see a can date, check it. If a beer smells like wet cardboard instead of fruit, oxidation got to it.^[8] New to picking apart aroma from bitterness? Our guide to how to taste craft beer like a pro walks through the whole framework.

The West Coast IPA: clarity and bite

If a hazy is a smoothie, a West Coast IPA is a dry martini. Crystal clear, sharp, assertively bitter. The style came out of California in the late 1990s and early 2000s, built on kettle finings and filtration to achieve that bright, translucent appearance.^[10] The hop additions go in early, during the boil, which thermally converts alpha acids into the compounds that deliver clean, lasting bitterness.^[11] That conversion has a name: isomerization. The heat of the boil rearranges the alpha acids into iso-alpha-acids, a more soluble form that actually dissolves into the wort, and those iso-alpha-acids are what your palate registers as bitterness.^[11]

Water chemistry matters here too. West Coast brewers favor calcium sulfate (gypsum) in their water to sharpen that crispness and accentuate hop bite, the opposite of what hazies need.^[3] ABV runs 5.5–7.5%, bitterness from 40–70 IBUs.^[4] It’s drier, leaner, and more aggressive than a hazy.

New England breweries make good West Coasts too, though you’ll see fewer of them. NEBCO’s Sea Hag is a solid example that sits closer to the middle, clear and traditional-leaning without going full San Diego bitter.

What about Cold IPAs? A Cold IPA is the other style you’ll see appearing on New England tap lists. The name was coined in 2018 by Kevin Davey, then brewmaster at Wayfinder Beer in Portland, Oregon, who designed it as a West Coast–leaning style taken to its logical extreme: fermented with lager yeast and a grain bill of 20–40% rice or corn adjuncts, then filtered to crystal clarity.^[17] The result is drier, crisper, and even more hop-forward than a standard West Coast IPA, “the antithesis of New England-style IPA,” in Davey’s own words. New England breweries have picked up the style, so if you see it on a draft list, expect maximum hop clarity and none of the soft texture you’d get from a hazy.

The double IPA: more of everything

A Double IPA (also called Imperial IPA) is not just a bigger version of a regular IPA. The style was invented in 1994 by Vinnie Cilurzo at Blind Pig Brewing in Temecula, California. Working with antiquated equipment prone to off-flavors, Cilurzo loaded his very first commercial batch (brewed on June 23, 1994) with extra hops and a higher malt bill to compensate. What came out is now regarded as the first commercially brewed Double IPA.^[13][16] It was a new category. The “Imperial” label follows a long brewing convention for extra-strong beers, borrowed from the same tradition as Russian Imperial Stouts.

ABV sits between 7.5% and 10.5%+ in commercial practice,^[4][13] and bitterness can reach 100 IBUs. But here’s the thing: a well-made Double IPA doesn’t taste like bitterness overload. It requires a substantial malt backbone to balance all that hop intensity; without the malt, the high alcohol reads as harsh and hot.^[14] When it works, you get something rich and complex, not just more aggressive.

Many hazy-focused breweries in New England also make double hazies, which take the soft fruit character of a NEIPA and push everything up. Spyglass in Nashua is worth checking out for their take on the style.

Side by side: the numbers

Source: BJCP 2021 Style Guidelines^[4] and Brewers Association commercial style guidelines.^[13]

A few things people get wrong

Hazies don’t need lactose to be creamy. That’s Milkshake IPAs. Real NEIPAs get their soft mouthfeel from yeast, oats, wheat, and water chemistry, with no milk sugar involved.^[15]

Cloudier doesn’t mean better. See the callout above. Good haze is stable and smooth. Gritty chunks are a quality issue.

Double IPAs aren’t just “twice as strong.” The math isn’t literal. The whole recipe scales (more malt, more hops, more nuance), and balance is what separates a great DIPA from a hot, harsh mess.^[14]