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Cascadian Dark ale or India Dark Ale

anvilbrew

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This is an emerging style which is still under some scrutiny, I was just wanting to throw the subject out and see what other brewers think of it. I myself have tried several and brewed one myself. Is this a renaming of an existing style or the birth of a new style?
 
There seems to be a merging (at least semantically) of the Cascadian dark Ale and the Black IPA.

A real black IPA should use the huskless varieties of dark malts (carrafa special, etc) for their zero diastatic qualities without the bitterness that comes from scorched husks....whereas the Cascadian dark seems to be evolving, and only recently even given style guidelines, and anything seems to go.

I love the Cascadian dark ales being brewed up here in the NW, I brewed one with simcoe, chinook, citra, centennial and cascade that was outstanding!
 
I would like to get some better guidelines on the style, they are very hard to find. I finally moved back to the tacoma area and have been very excited about the amount of resources I now have to brew with. Far more than the southern states. I haven't revisited my cda (india dark ale) yet, hope soon.
 
Here is a screen clip from my copy of Beersmith's 2008 guidelines that I use .... interesting it is not there when I search for a style - but IS THERE when I look inside some of my recipes.

Anyway, hope this helps!
 

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Thanks, that actually adds a little more info to what I've found.
 
Are there any commercial examples of this style? I recall seeing a "Black IPA" on tap at a restaurant when I visited Cleveland, OH earlier this year, but I don't remember who made it. Maybe Stone?
 
The Brewer's Assoc, which represents commercial brewers, have their own style guides which are a lot more flexible than BJCP guides. This allows more creativness. Their guides can be downloaded in pdf and entered into BeerSmith. I found trying to fit commercial brews into BJCP guides was confusing, but after reading the BA guides, everything made sense.

Thanks
Ed
 
I just love all the arguments that people get into online over the terms CDA, black IPA etc... some of them are quite involved, and downright hilarious!  People take this subject very seriously!

I do not, however.  ::)

I do like CDAs, and have brewed one in the past, FWIW. 
 
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