Sierra Nevada had been making hoppy ales since 1980. And I bring it up, because it was the first West Coast import ale you could find in Texas, and it formed the prototypical ideal of what a West Coast beer was going to be like. Sure, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale wasn't as brutally over-hopped and bitter as beers that followed it, but neither was Arrogant Bastard. Still, both were far more over-hopped than the typical domestics or imports available at the time. Anything using c-hops was going to have that characteristic.
Of course there's a lot of nuance to the history.
SNPA isn't even an IPA, by alcohol content or by IBUs. But its tradition was different. The use of crystal malts to provide sweetness to balance the hops was the characteristic that defined American Pale Ale. The amber hues are something you won't find in a modern "West Coast IPA". The characteristic Cascade hop character, providing both bitterness and aroma, I'll agree was completely different than most of what you'd see at the time. And I'll agree that to an extent, it was ONE of the beers that kicked off the American (and West Coast) trend towards a lot of hops. But in SNPA, the malt character is as big a part of the story as the hops.
Even for their bigger beer, Bigfoot Ale, they assuredly had plenty of hops in there, but they amped up the sweetness to, into what's called a barleywine.
But that doesn't mean that what happened later was "typical" just because SNPA existed and was popular.
The tradition down in San Diego, which IMHO is what ends up defining the "West Coast IPA", is different. They not only amped up the hops, but they dialed back the malt to be the bare minimum needed to support the hops. The level of crystal malt in SNPA won't be found in anything labeled "West Coast IPA" today. The beers are much more pale, dry, and crisp. The beers are much more bitter. The level of dry-hopping for aroma is much more pronounced. West Coast IPAs are not about malt and hops--they're about hops. You can of course screw them up if you don't get enough of a malt foundation to support the beer--but the malt is supposed to be secondary to the hops.
And to an extent, the same was true with Arrogant Bastard. It was a very unique beer. Some people might have thought the intent was to be similar to a barleywine with the darker color, higher ABV, and hoppiness, but it sure as hell didn't drink like one. Much like the West Coast IPA, malt wasn't intended to bring in much sweetness in that beer. You certainly get the malt flavor coming through, but it
intentionally drinks much more "dry" than a barleywine.
The mere existence of SNPA as a "hoppy West Coast ale" prior to some of these beers doesn't change the fact that many of them were different and groundbreaking in their own way.
