I feel like it was the original tryhard beer. "Look at all their posers drinking generic piss-water. I'm a real man and drink the 'strongest' stuff."
I find that attitude funny as hell because if you look at what the old hands in any trade profession drink its piss water (or maybe a standard bitter ale or something) and not IPA. These guys just want to have a cold one and talk about women and cars, not discuss fragrant aromas in their fucking drink
IPA became a 'bro' drink mostly because it's necessarilly strong to balance out the bitterness, whereas other styles can be ~5% abv
but the reason they're made at all is despite this they're still cheaper to make than those since their signature ingredient is cheap and the extra abv can come from the cheapest form of malt, pale malt. to make stouts you need a lot of extra kilned malts which are much pricier and you have to order it in bulk despite it being a small portion of the grain bill. to make a hefe or abbey ale you need specialized yeasts which you often can't maintain cultures of easily.
So how did IPAs become a hipster's wetdream luxury drink? I smell a marketing conspiracy. ---
