This week, we’re profiling the Final Four beers in Paste’s Top of the Hops IPA Challenge. Today we look at the Northeast bracket, where Bell’s Two Hearted Ale defeated Lakefront IPA 5-2. (For the rest of our IPA Challenge coverage, click here.)
We talked to Laura Bell—co-owner/director of marketing for the Kalamazoo, Mich. brewery and daughter of founder Larry Bell, about the history of the beer. “Two Hearted was a beer my dad experimented with in the ‘90s with English grain and Wisconsin hops, but those aren’t particularly good so he stopped making it. When the brewers experimented with the Centennial hops, we decided to keep the name.”
When Bell’s released Two Hearted Ale commercially in 2000, “a 7% dry-hopped IPA was not a common beer.” Using one single style of hops, Centennial, Bell’s quickly became the standard by which many other new IPAs strove to follow and proved that you could make a great IPA east of the Mississippi.
