“I hate IPAs. They’re bitter.”

“I love IPAs. They have so much alcohol in them.”

Those are the two most common things I hear people say about IPAs, and neither of them are really true. Not all IPAs are bitter, and not all IPAs have a ton of booze in them. You can’t throw a blanket statement over an extremely broad style of beer. It’s an unfair simplification. But whether you fall on the love or the hate (check yourself) side of this relationship, there’s one thing we can’t deny: IPAs are here to stay.

But what do you actually know about IPAs? IPAs come in a range of styles, and the modern approach to hoppy beer isn’t a declaration of bitterness, but a beer that explores the world of fruity flavors that can also come from hops. Here’s everything you need to know about the IPA, from vocabulary to style breakdowns to the breweries doing them right.

The IPA Vocabulary

These are terms that can applied to any style of beer, not just IPAs. For instance, you can have a session West Coast IPA and a session Belgian IPA.

Session: Less alcohol! Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on your lifestyle. Modern session IPAs usually fall below 5% ABV (although historically, the style is 4% and below). With lower alcohol comes a thinner body, so these are the types of beers you can drink on repeat.

Double/Imperial: Double and imperial IPAs are essentially the same thing: IPAs with a higher hop concentration. To balance all that hop flavor, the brewer uses more malt, which results in a higher ABV (usually over 7%). It’s an IPA on steroids, and in the stoic words of Dave Chappelle (as Samuel L. Jackson), “This shit’ll getcha drunk!”