The Incredible Edible IPA

From tacos to milkshakes, food flavors are being cooked into an unlikely beer style: the India pale ale.

- Zach Fowle

It’s late summer in Arizona and Jon Buford appears to be in his usual state: beard long and scraggly, eyes bright, one hand clasped firmly around a glass of beer. But this particular beer seems to have the Arizona Wilderness Brewing Co. founder especially excited.

“Look at this,” he says, lifting his glass so the butterscotch-hued liquid inside can catch the light. “That is waffle color to a T. And you can totally get the batter and the maple. I would drink that with breakfast.”

“I would pour that on my breakfast,” the patron next to him chimes in.

The beer they’re talking about is Leggo My Ego, a double IPA the Gilbert, Arizona-based brewery released that afternoon. It’s unlike anything Wilderness has previously done: First, it’s a New England IPA, a substyle known for its turbidity and juicy hop character. It’s also been double dry-hopped with Simcoe and Belma—the latter chosen, Buford says, for its distinct strawberry aroma, which the brewers felt would go well with the waffles. Oh, did I forget to mention the waffles?

Leggo My Ego is no random pun: More than 100 waffles, composed of a special egg-free batter and formed on a single waffle iron, joined the hoppy wort in the hop-back and dissolved inside the liquid on its way to the fermenter. Days later, grade B maple syrup joined the party, and a wholly new spin on IPA was born.

Not that we should be surprised: Of the hundred or so recognized beer styles, few have undergone as many evolutions as IPA. From earthy, woody English IPAs to brashly bitter West Coast IPAs and cloudy, juicy New England IPAs, with black and white and red and Belgian and fruit-infused varieties popping up all along the way, the style is constantly being shifted, updated and riffed upon.