The Modern IPA
Move beyond generic bitterness to decode hop varieties, compare iconic sub-styles, and spot the freshest pours on any tap list.
Like Duolingo, but for The Modern IPA. Tomo turns the whole topic into a game you play five minutes a day, until it actually sticks.
A short one: 11 levels across 2 sections, about 22 minutes end to end, roughly 4 days at five minutes a day. It moves through Decoding Styles on the Tap Wall and Serving, Sourcing, and Style Frontiers. It assumes you already know the basics.
Free forever · No credit card · iPhone & Android
Key ideas in The Modern IPA
- Sustained boiling isomerizes alpha acids into bitter compounds
- Heat rapidly boils off delicate aromatic essential oils in the kettle
- Cold-side dry hopping extracts pure hop aromatics without adding bitterness
- Classic American C-hops like Cascade and Centennial provide resinous pine and grapefruit pith
- Modern Southern Hemisphere and US varieties like Galaxy, Citra, and Mosaic deliver ripe tropical fruit
- Hop variety selection dictates the primary fruit spectrum in an IPA
- Dank, pungent aromas in beer arise from volatile sulfur-containing thiols and mercaptans
- Standard hop terpenes like myrcene produce bright citrus, pine, and floral notes rather than dankness
- Minute concentrations of polyfunctional thiols dramatically shift hop aroma profiles
- Unfermented residual malt sugars mask and cushion sharp hop bitterness on the tongue
- High sulfate mineral levels in brewing water accentuate and sharpen hop bite
- High alcohol content adds perceptual warmth and body that balances intense IBUs
- High mash attenuation consumes nearly all residual sugar for a bone-dry finish.
- Sulfate-heavy brewing water sharpens hop bitterness and makes it linger.
- Chloride-heavy water creates a rounded, pillowy body instead of a crisp bite.
- Boiling hops extracts alpha acids that isomerize into sharp, tongue-scraping bitterness.
You've tried the other tabs
Thirty open tabs. Four facts you actually kept.
You watched. You nodded. By Sunday it was gone.
One answer, then back to scrolling.
Eight weeks. You meant to finish. You didn't.
Tomo gives The Modern IPA the Duolingo treatment: levels, streaks, and quick quizzes that test what you just learned. That game loop is what the tabs above never had, so it's the one you actually finish.
Here's what playing it feels like
A real question from this course. Take your best guess.
Why do brewers add hops on the cold side during dry hopping?
Get it right to open this lesson and 10 more in the app.
Where The Modern IPA takes you
- 1
Decoding Styles on the Tap Wall
- Reading the Hop Flavor Wheel
- West Coast vs. Hazy Architectures
- 2
Serving, Sourcing, and Style Frontiers
- The Freshness Race and Hop Fading
- Doubles, Sessions, and Cold IPAs
2 sections · 4 units · 11 levels. Built to play, not to enroll.
Tomo is in ChatGPT
Tomo is also a ChatGPT plugin: the same playable courses, built and played inside your chat.
Add Tomo to ChatGPT- What to ask
- “Make me a Tomo course on black holes.” “Turn this chat into a Tomo course.”
- What you get
- Quick questions with instant feedback, hearts and stars, ready to play in about a minute.
- Where it goes
- No sign-up to start. Connect your Tomo account and your streak carries on in the app.
You pick the voice
The Modern IPA is taught in the The Pirate style: arr, learning be an adventure!. Want a different feel? In the app you can spin up the same topic in any of Tomo's teaching styles. Same facts, totally different vibe.
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Start The Modern IPA today.
Download Tomo, search The Modern IPA, and play your first lesson in under a minute.