The cloud of mosquitos outside kept me pinned down in the taproom. The buzz was incessant. So were the mosquitos. I stared at the black liquid in my glass, but my mind was stuck on a different case. A case of identity theft. The purists call it a lie. They sit in their high towers, barking that an India Pale Ale can’t wear a coat of midnight. “An oxymoron,” they sneer. “Black IPA makes no sense, detective.” Some guys up in the Pacific Northwest – Cascadia, they call it – tried to give the kid a new name. Cascadian Dark Ale. Elegant. Classy. But in the Northwoods, nobody uses aliases that soft. The public wanted a name that hit them straight in the jaw. So, Black IPA stuck. It tells you the whole story in four syllables: it’s an IPA, but it runs with a dark crowd. But brewing one? That’s a high-wire act over a sharp drop. You want the shadows, but you don’t want the filth. It’s a dangerous game, balancing the bright slap of hops against the heavy weight of the dark. But when it’s done right? It’s a beautiful thing. It goes down smooth until the end, when that roasty hop finish bites you just enough to draw a little blood.