It must be my age. As with beer, so it is with technology. I’m an old school journalist, you know, pens, notebooks (made from dead trees) and all that. But I straddle that generation where I could go either way, technology wise. I could just throw my hands up in the air and refuse to embrace all this new stuff that changes, seemingly, every day. Dust off my typewriter and press on. But instead I try to (just) keep up with all the new social media, publishing platforms, SEO techniques, Google’s many diversification routes…

I’ve just been watching Real Ale Craft Beer’s review of Siren’s Liquid Mistress Red IPA. Red IPA? I though black IPA was mad enough? Where next? Green IPA a la Stonehenge Ales’ Sign of Spring?

I’m now looking back upon my first two tutored tastings sessions (ever) and thinking that maybe I was lacking adventure. The subject was IPA and I took what I thought was a logical route from traditional and British to extreme hoppy and American. In the end was I too ‘old school’ and not enough ‘craft geek’?

pzipa0114Still, we had a good a time. On respective weeks we started with Penzance Brewing Co IPA then Marston’s Old Empire, two beers which I considered to be benchmark British IPA. Curiously, the room loved the Penzance (pictured) but weren’t too fussed about the Old Empire. It did look a little lighter than I remembered it and maybe the recipe has changed. The Penzance IPA had been taken from the last cask of the current brew so unfortunately I only had it for one week.

Still, lots of other fine drops which pleased my drinkers. Thumbs up for St Austell Proper Job, which many had tried on draught at 4.5%, but this was the fuller, bigger flavoured 5.5% version. The Willamette, Chinook and Cascade hops do their job well and served to show how American hops have transformed a traditional British style. We had, thanks to St Austell Brewery’s generosity, some of the last bottles of the most recent batch of Big Job, Proper Job ramped up several notches, with Citra introduced to the hop mix. Now we were getting that big US style bitterness, resinous, zesty hop flavour.

Harbour Brewing Co IPA, from Bodmin, was interesting, again American hopped but with more malt sweetness, which some appreciated. Perhaps more transatlantic than American style, it went down very well, and all this proves that Cornwall certainly has plenty going on when it comes to IPA diversity. It’s a public winner, too, doing well in last year’s Sainsbury’s Great British Beer Hunt and now gaining a listing on the superstore’s shelves nationwide.

Moving away from Cornwall but staying on this side of the Atlantic, we tried Wild Beer Co’s Madness IPA. Wild yeast adds a slightly sour note to this vivaciously fruity, tropical flavoured IPA, with lots of late hops and dry hops, very much in the American West Coast style. Likewise, big, juicy, fruity, hoppy flavours from Tiny Rebel’s Urban IPA. We could have chosen other Tiny Rebel IPA style beers, but this one served to show that the British really can take the IPA baton and run with it in new, exciting directions. Although, as far as I’m aware, Tiny Rebel haven’t gone red yet…

We had American IPAs, of course we did, and the stand outs here were Victory Hop Devil IPA, from Pennsylvania, coming in at 6.7%, and Sly Fox 113 IPA, so named because of its 113 International Bitterness Units. Both full flavoured and remarkbly well balanced given their enamel-scraping bitterness quotient, and certainly the beers to end on, with the tastebuds holding their metaphorical hands up in surrender.

It would be wrong to say there were no let-downs. I’d expected more of Rogue Yellow Snow IPA – it didn’t quite have the smack around the chops I’d expected. Barney’s Volcano IPA, from Edinburgh, was a perfectly good pale ale but not an IPA and certainly not worthy of a volcanic epithet. Piddle Black Hole IPA, again, nothing wrong with the beer, but seemed to have too much roast malt character to be classed as a black IPA.

On the second evening, we finished off with some halves of Penpont Brewery’s new Graffiti IPA, on keg, a 5.2% ABV, grapefruit noted, zesty brew that was well received and which freshened up the palate nicely. Is there anything better than a session on good beer with some lovely people? Not much. I started the evenings as a nervous performer, and ended it a little more confident in my ability to convey the joy of beer, and with some great new friends who, hopefully, knew a little bit more about IPA than when they walked through the door.

Perhaps IPA night III is next. The reds, the doubles, the imperials, and any other way brewers have chosen to adapt the style. I’ll start the research now.

•Declaration of interest: because I like talking to people about beer, I potter around for two days a week in the Beer Cellar, Truro. Beer was supplied free for the tasting by St Austell Brewery, Harbour Brewing Co and Penzance Brewing Co, the last two of whom I do occasional PR for.