Just like the style decisions handed down by Miranda Priestly, the editor-in-chief of Runway magazine in 'The Devil Wears Prada', the US have their own way of determining what's "in vogue" and "trendy"; but it involves a lot less runways and a lot more beer drinking.
To understand the creation and definition of a lot of these beer styles we see in the market (especially the hoppy ones) we must look at the evolution of the beer industry in the USA, the OG hop fiends.
The Great American Beer Festival (or GABF) has been held since 1982, born from the rise of home-brewing in the 1970s, and it's only open for American breweries to participate. It's organised by the Brewers Association (or BA) and it's the biggest beer competition in the US outside the World Beer Cup. What makes this competition special is that every single year of the GABF is basically a snapshot of the beer industry at that specific time.
Groundbreaking moments include the IPA winning medals both in 1990 and 1991; the American Amber Ale separating from the American Pale Ale category in 1994, and then a game changer in 2000 when the IPA was separated as different styles (English and American) while the popularity of the US-centric one was growing, finally taking over as the largest category in 2003. The Double IPA went from not even having a category in 2000 to being the second most popular in 2013. And it wasn't until 2018 that a new style would take over: the ‘Hazy or Juicy IPA’.
It's not hard to connect the dots with how these styles shaped the market and trends of the whole American industry, and subsequently influencing basically every craft beer movement across the globe. And this influence hasn’t stopped! Just as we’re writing this text, the BA has announced in the past week that they’ve included for this year's GABF yet another hop-forward treat that seems to please the beer fiends; the thirst-quenching ‘West Coast Pils’. What will the next few years bring? Whatever it is we’re here for it.