Classroom
What is a West Coast IPA and What Makes Ours Stand Out?
October 1, 2026
If you’ve spent much time drinking craft beer in San Diego, you’ve probably had a West Coast IPA. The style is known for being hop-forward, crisp, and dry, with noticeable bitterness. Citrus and pine are common, but the exact flavor can vary quite a bit depending on the hops and how the beer is brewed. It’s also a style closely tied to California craft beer.
At Karl Strauss Brewing Company, we’ve been brewing in San Diego since 1989. During that time, we’ve watched IPA evolve in plenty of different directions. New hop varieties have been introduced, brewing techniques have changed, and styles like the hazy IPA have created entirely different ways for brewers to showcase hops.
But there’s a reason the West Coast IPA has stuck around. Its combination of hop flavor, bitterness, and a clean, dry finish gives the style a character that is easy to recognize but leaves plenty of room for brewers to make it their own.
A West Coast IPA puts the hops front and center. The Brewers Association Beer Style Guidelines describe the modern West Coast IPA as a light-colored, highly attenuated beer with prominent hop aroma and flavor, noticeable bitterness, and a dry finish.
In simpler terms, there isn’t much getting in the way of the hops. The malt provides enough structure to support the beer, but it usually isn’t the main flavor. Instead, the hops are given room to bring out notes of citrus, pine, resin, tropical fruit, stone fruit, or other characteristics depending on the varieties used. That dry finish is an important part of the equation. A beer with more residual sweetness can soften the way bitterness comes across. West Coast IPAs generally finish drier, allowing their hop character and bitterness to remain noticeable through the final sip.
Clarity has also traditionally been associated with the style. While appearance alone doesn’t define a West Coast IPA, these beers are generally much clearer than hazy IPAs.
And while bitterness is an important part of the style, a good West Coast IPA isn’t just about making the most bitter beer possible.
Balance still matters. The goal is to create enough bitterness to give the beer structure while allowing the aroma and flavor of the hops to remain the focus.
The West Coast IPA hasn’t stayed exactly the same over the years. Earlier examples of the style were often defined by assertive bitterness and strong pine, resin, grapefruit, and floral characteristics. Those flavors became closely associated with American hop varieties and helped establish the identity of the style. As new hop varieties became available, brewers gained access to a much broader range of flavors and aromas.
Modern hops can contribute everything from mango and passion fruit to peach, pineapple, berries, and other fruit characteristics. At the same time, brewing techniques have continued to evolve, allowing brewers to pull more aroma and flavor from hops without necessarily increasing bitterness at the same rate. That has helped create a more modern interpretation of the West Coast IPA.
The familiar bitterness and dry finish are still there, but they can now sit alongside brighter citrus and fruit characteristics. Instead of replacing what made the style popular in the first place, these newer approaches give brewers more ways to build on it.
The characteristics of a West Coast IPA become easier to understand when you compare it with another popular style: the hazy IPA. Both styles are built around hops, but they showcase them differently. Hazy IPAs tend to have a softer mouthfeel, lower perceived bitterness, and more emphasis on juicy or tropical hop flavors. They are also, as the name suggests, intentionally hazy.
West Coast IPAs take a different approach. They’re typically clearer, drier, and more bitter. The finish is crisp, which allows individual hop flavors to come through without as much sweetness or body surrounding them.
Neither approach is necessarily about using more or fewer hops. The difference is in how those hops are presented in the finished beer. Think of it as two different ways of putting hops at center stage. A hazy IPA might emphasize softness and ripe fruit character, while a West Coast IPA emphasizes definition, bitterness, and a clean finish.
For our take on the style, we brew Tower X West Coast IPA.
Tower X is brewed with Citra, Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, Simcoe, and Sultana hops. Together, they create a mix of pine, resin, citrus, and fruit.
There’s a reason for using that combination. Varieties like Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, and Simcoe have characteristics that feel closely connected to the West Coast IPA tradition. They can bring pine, citrus, resin, and other flavors that longtime IPA drinkers will immediately recognize.
Citra and Sultana help add another dimension, bringing brighter citrus and fruit character into the mix.
The result brings together two sides of the style. The pine and resin provide some of the familiar character associated with classic West Coast IPAs, while the brighter citrus and fruit notes give Tower X WCIPA a more modern side.
That balance was important to us. We wanted Tower X WCIPA to feel familiar to people who have been drinking West Coast IPAs for years without making a beer that feels stuck in the past. It keeps the bitterness and crisp finish that help define the style while using a combination of hops that brings plenty of aroma and flavor.
It’s our way of recognizing where the West Coast IPA came from while brewing it for where the style is today.
It’s difficult to talk about West Coast IPA without talking about California’s craft beer culture.
Over the past several decades, breweries throughout the West Coast helped push American hops into the spotlight. San Diego became an especially important part of that story as local breweries developed a reputation for hop-forward beers and experimentation.
For brewers, IPA offered an opportunity to explore what different hop varieties could do. Change one hop, adjust when it is added, or combine it with another variety, and the finished beer can take on an entirely different character. That ability to experiment is part of what has kept IPA relevant even as drinking preferences have changed.
The West Coast IPA has evolved with those changes, but its basic idea remains remarkably consistent: keep the beer dry and drinkable, give the hops room to speak, and don’t be afraid of a little bitterness.
The name Tower X also has a connection to Karl Strauss history.
In 1989, Lifeguard Tower 10 in Mission Beach was where the idea of starting Karl Strauss Brewing Company began to take shape.
The “X” in Tower X is also a nod to San Diego radio station 91X.
So while Tower X WCIPA is a newer beer, its name points back to where we started. It connects a modern West Coast IPA with a piece of our history in San Diego. That connection feels fitting for the beer itself.
West Coast IPA is a style built on brewing tradition, but it has never stopped changing. New hops, new techniques, and new interpretations continue to move it forward.
Tower X WCIPA follows that same idea.
It keeps the pine, citrus, bitterness, and crisp finish that made West Coast IPA such an important part of California craft beer while bringing in the brighter hop character that has helped shape the modern version of the style.
For us, it’s both a look back at where West Coast IPA came from and a reflection of where it is today.
Tower X is one part of a much longer history of brewing hop-forward beer at Karl Strauss.
Aurora Hoppyalis IPA is another example. Brewed with Simcoe, Mosaic, Amarillo, and Citra hops, Aurora leans into tropical fruit, pine, and tangerine before finishing dry and crisp.
The two beers aren't meant to taste the same. And that's part of what makes IPA interesting.
Different hop combinations, recipes, and brewing decisions can produce very different beers while still sharing some of the same characteristics.
Beer trends change quickly.
Over the years, IPA has branched into hazy IPAs, double IPAs, session IPAs, cold IPAs, and plenty of other variations. But West Coast IPA continues to have a place in San Diego beer.
For us, the appeal is pretty simple.
A West Coast IPA gives hops room to speak for themselves. It can be bitter without being harsh, aromatic without being sweet, and flavorful while still finishing crisp.
That's what we aim for with Tower X West Coast IPA.
It has some of the pine and bitterness that made us fans of West Coast IPA in the first place, along with the brighter hop character that has become part of the style today. And for a beer style with such strong roots on the West Coast, it feels right at home in San Diego.
Use our Beer Finder to see where you can stock up on Tower X West Coast IPA
