Yes, I’m quite sure that American IPAs are designed to be served with a CO2 hit, and also served pretty cold, too. I don’t think that negates anything I’ve said though.

How would an American IPA be poured in a bar in the US? I would assume from a keg, so wouldn’t it be designed to be at its best with an artificial CO2 hit?

I know someone was once ridiculed for seeming to say there were different types of CO2. I think what he meant was the texture and mouthfeel from the gas in a bottle conditioned beer (Duvel, for example) is rather different from that in a beer (bottled or otherwise) that has been force carbonated. He was quite right about that in my view.

There is, I know, a body of opinion that says big IPAs are usually better on keg as the CO2 lifts the hops. I don’t agree that is a given across the board (although it certainly helps the heavy going crystal malt laden American jobs) but over-carbonate and the hops are drowned by the CO2 bite and fizz on the palate. Too many micros dipping their toes in the keg field seem to make a pigs ear of that in my opinion.

Isn’t the ‘over’ bit a matter of taste? We certainly think this beer would have taken carbonation at the top end of the scale, Duvel-style.

But why would anyone in their right minds want to do that? Just as flat, warm beer is the downside of cask, the dowsnide to some (most?) “craft keg” is over-carbonation and chilling. While the underlying beer may be many times better, in terms of taste and mouthfeel that doesn’t get us very much further from where we were with keg beers 40 years ago.

However, done right (and heads up to the likes of Summer Wine Brewery and Port Street Beer House), with noticeable but restrained carbonation and chilled, but not freezing, beers then “craft keg” can be hugely enjoyable (but then I assume you knew that).