My latest article for The Bulletin is out this week (bumped from last week), wherein I examine Bend Brewing Company‘s Urgent Fury IRA. You may recall that the beer is the first of the 2021 BBC lineup, and I touch on the India red ale (or red IPA) style while reviewing it.

American brewers love to tinker with the IPA style, and India red ale (IRA), sometimes also simply referred to as “red IPA,” is one of the older variations. As you might guess from the name, it is essentially based on IPA with the coloring and malt flavors of a red or amber ale. The key is in the hops and malt balance, bringing more of the caramel malt flavors of an amber ale forward while still maintaining the drying finish and hoppiness of an IPA.

It can be tricky to get that balance just right, and in the case of Urgent Fury, it was the “culmination of over a year’s development to craft a beer showcasing malt and hops equally,” according to the press release. I contacted head brewer Zach Beckwith to learn more about this process.

“We did probably six different iterations before settling on what the beer currently is,” he wrote via email. “I always look at a new beer as a minimum of four batches to get the beer close to where we want it and then make slight tweaks from there.”