12 Popular IPAs Ranked Worst To Best

Three letters spell so much about the different varieties, flavors, cultures, and craftsmanship that go into the creation of popular beers. The India pale ale, better known as the IPA, is a wildly popular form of beer that is flavorful, aromatic, and not for the faint of heart. 

All beers are made with two main flavor-creating ingredients — hops and malts. Hops are tiny, green, pine cone-shaped flowers that are brewed with beer. These are the ingredients that give your beer the bitter, piney, citrusy flavor and pungent aroma. Malts are a type of cereal grain that give your beer a sweeter, bready, chocolatey, or more coffee-type flavor.

IPAs are beers that are made with more hops, making them the bitterest variety that you will find. The story is that sailors in Great Britain long ago loaded up the beer that they brewed with hops to preserve it as they traveled on voyages. This preservation method, like most inventions, inadvertently led to one of the most popular styles of beer in the world.

Today, there are a variety of IPAs that are made with impeccable taste and craftsmanship. It's a combination of art and science with a dash of love, and the end result is a marvelous brew enjoyed by people all over. 

When judging these beers, you must study the qualitative characteristics while also checking the International Bitterness Units, IBU, and alcohol by volume, ABV. In this guide, you'll learn about some of the most popular IPAs, ranked from the bottom to the top.

If you see the flying dog in your local grocery store, the first thing you notice is unique abstract art on every package, can, and bottle. This brewery puts out a lot of different selections, and the Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA is the flagship offering from this brewery. It's a beer that is another suitable entry-level IPA that you'll appreciate if you're new to IPAs, but may choose to move on once you have developed your palate and want to appreciate more complex and unique flavors.

The Flying Dog Snake Dog IPA has a 7.1% ABV, along with 60 IBUs. This is a West Coast IPA that gets circulation all over the country in grocery stores and craft brew shops. The West Coast style IPA is known for having a higher hop content and plenty of bold flavors, as reflected by the higher IBUs. Some of the hops included in Snake Dog include Warrior, Columbus, and Simcoe. 

It's a quality beer with a golden pour and has a combination of grapefruit hoppiness and sweet, bready malts. This beer is both sweet and pungent and features a light, foamy head when poured into a clean glass. Snake Dog tends to retain its head, giving you a pleasant aroma with every sip. The Snake Dog is a good choice when you're just getting into IPAs, hence its popularity, but there are some other higher-quality choices on the market that are worth exploring first.

This Sierra Nevada IPA offering is its flagship IPA and can stand toe to toe with virtually any other in its category. While the Big Little Thing IPA is more of an entry-level IPA, the Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA has more hops and flavor for people who gravitate toward these types of IPAs.

The concept for this beer began when the brewers brainstormed ideas on a napkin to create a beer that is loaded with hops but isn't so bitter that it becomes offputting. What came about is an IPA that has plenty of balance, a high hop profile, and lots of complex flavor and aroma. 

The Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA features a 7.2% ABV and 65 IBUs. It's a torpedo of flavor in a glass that pours a solid amber color with a virtually clear body. Taste notes in this IPA include oranges, pineapples, and lots of bitter hops. 

The malt flavor that you'll pick up includes toasted bread and caramel. After a neat pour with a long-lasting head, you will take in the aromas of flowers, pine, and a variety of citrus fruits. The "extra" in the title isn't a mistake, as this IPA features a double dose of flavor. It's a popular IPA that you'll commonly find sold right alongside Sierra Nevada pale ales and seasonal variety packs. 

Firestone Walker is a brewery situated in Paso Robles, California, that offers one of the all-around best IPAs that you'll find in grocery stores all over. As a family-owned brewery, the company focuses on delivering authentic, quality beers for its customers, and it shows with the IPA. This is one of the best West Coast IPAs you'll find on the market, and it's widely available in stores all over.

The Union Jack IPA features a decent blend of malts and hops, combining for a beer that is palatable, yet challenging. Union Jack has a 7% ABV with 60 IBUs and a 10 on the beer color scale. It's a pale to medium amber-colored pour that leaves a thick, foamy head in the glass. When you take your first sip of the Union Jack IPA, you're quickly engulfed in a sea of grapefruit and tangerine flavor that is long-lasting and satisfying. Since the Union Jack is loaded with hops, the beer has a dry finish, along with hints of sweet and honey bread-like malts.

Even though this beer is found in numerous places, it's one that makes you have to elevate your palate rather than watering down the flavor to appease the masses. It has enough kick to challenge your palate but isn't so overbearing that new IPA drinkers can't enjoy it. While there are certainly other IPAs that rank higher on our list, this is a decent option to keep on your list of beers to try if you're looking to round out your experience.

Central City Brewers + Distillers is a company based in British Columbia, Canada, that specializes in IPAs. Red Racer IPA is a highly-ranked IPA for hop lovers and budding hop lovers. The carton and packaging are one of the most recognizable when you're shopping for IPAs, and you'll find this offering in beer aisles all over. Though it's easy to find on store shelves, you still get plenty of beer aficionado credit for drinking this one since it is beloved and respected by brewmasters far and wide.

If you love hops, you're off to the races when you pick up this American IPA. In addition to a 6.5% ABV, Red Racer IPA features a whopping 80 IBUs. This is enough to make you scrunch for your face if you're brand new to the IPA game, but it can be just right if you already love them. When you pour Red Racer into a glass, you'll find a copper oasis with a frothy thin head. Due to the hop content, this beer will hit you with its piney, pungent aromatic qualities.

The taste matches the smell — upon the first sip, you'll experience the juicy flavor of grapefruit, pine needles, orange peel, and other fruits. It's followed by the malty taste of biscuits, caramel, and nuts. This beer gets high marks among beer lovers, and you will appreciate its qualities whether you pick it up from the store or find it on tap.

Stone is another brewery headquartered in California, and the company's IPA is another flavorful take that beer lovers revere. This American IPA is medium-bodied, full of flavor, and great for the whole crowd. Though Stone's beers are found all over, these offerings still provide the taste and quality that will please people with even the most refined palates.

This beer was founded by Greg Koch and Steve Wagner in San Marcos, California, in 1996 and has topped the list of people's favorite IPAs ever since. It mixes popularity with quality, as it's long been among the best-selling IPAs in the United States. In fact, it's Stone's IPA that created many of today's IPA lovers and is responsible for helping to launch the craft beer revolution that we're living through today. Stone's IPA has 6.9% ABV and 71 IBUs. If you already love Stone's pale ale, the IPA is a natural graduation with more complex flavors.

When you crack open a can or twist a bottle cap and pour this lovely IPA, it fills your glass with rich, amber fluid that is tasty and aromatic. Your palate will pick up flavor notes of mango, grapefruit, and orange hops mixed with caramel, bready, and sweet malts. The beer leaves a frothy white head and has plenty of balance and complexity. 

If you had to try just one popular IPA, it needs to be the Ballast Point Sculpin. Ballast Point Brewing Company is another California-based brewery that takes its time with each creation, and the results are in each glass. This offering is considered by many the greatest IPA of all time and has collected 34 awards to back it.

This IPA has 7% ABV and 70 IBUs. The lower ABV makes it drinkable, while the hop content lets you enjoy so many different flavor notes in this versatile offering. It pours a bold and golden color, and the glass transforms into a bouquet of hops that open up with a variety of rich aromas. Taking a whiff of this IPA reveals notes of lemon, pine, grass, and apricot. Once you enjoy your first drink, your palate will experience flavors like grapefruit, pineapple, and peaches mixed with a dark, malty finish.

Though this beer is the epitome of complexity, the IBU content is low enough that it won't scare off people new to the IPA. It's a stimulating experience that makes you appreciate the IPA and how it has developed over the years.