IPA is the one modern style that got glassware designed specifically for it, and the reason is aroma. An IPA’s character lives in volatile hop oils: citrus, pine, resin, tropical fruit. Those compounds are fragile and they leave the beer quickly, so the job of an IPA glass is to catch them and put them under your nose before they drift off.

Two designs dominate. The Spiegelau IPA glass, developed with Sierra Nevada and Dogfish Head, has a thin-walled bowl that narrows toward the rim on top of a ridged, stacked base. The bowl concentrates aroma; the ridges are said to agitate the beer as you tilt it and release a fresh burst of hop aroma with each sip. Treat that as the maker’s claim, but the bowl shape does its job regardless. The Teku, designed in Italy as a beer equivalent of a wine tasting glass, takes a more angular route to the same end: a wide base, steep sides that pull in toward the top, and a slight flare at the lip, all on a tall stem.

Both are thin and light, which matters more than it sounds. A heavy pint glass sits between you and the beer; a thin rim makes a bright, bitter beer taste crisper.

Pour with some vigour to build a finger or two of head, and drink it fresh and reasonably soon. Hop aroma fades with time in the glass and, far more so, with time in the can.

Suits
– IPA
– Double IPA
– New England and hazy IPA
– Belgian IPA
– Pale ale
– Any hop-forward beer

A good tulip does the same job; see our tulip glasses.