India Pale Ale
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India Pale Ale (IPA, also known as Imperial Pale Ale), is a distinct style of beer and is characterized as a sparkling pale ale with a high level of alcohol (5.5% to 6.3% by volume) and hops, thus having an increased bitterness (typically 35-48 on the IBU scale). The creation of India Pale Ale (IPA) during the early 1700's was the result of tremendous efforts by British brewers to overcome a difficult problem: during the 1700's beer did not keep well on long ocean voyages, especially into hot climates. These hot environments resulted in the arrival of flat, sour beer.
History
The East Indies market was a very tempting but difficult one to enter for English brewers. After the British East India Company had established itself in India by the early 1700s, it had a large number of troops and civilians demanding beer. However, the long hot journey proved a difficult one for the dark ales and porters of England. Ships typically left London, cruised south past the equator along the coast of Africa, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and then crossed the Indian Ocean to reach Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. The temperature fluctuations were huge, it was a very long trip (about 6 months) and the rough waters of southern Africa resulted in an extremely violent voyage.
Despite these obstacles, however, English brewers did try to establish exports to India. Early shipments to India contained bottled porters, the favorite beer in London, which generally arrived flat, musty, and sour. The answer to the great beer problem finally came from a recipe created by George Hodgson at the Bow Brewery in East London. Hodgson began shipping Hodgson's India Ale during the 1790s. India ale was a variation of his pale ale, which Londoners had been drinking since the mid-1750s.
Before refrigeration and pasteurization, the brewer's only weapons against spoilage were alcohol and hops. Alcohol provided an unfriendly environment for microbes and the hops prevented the growth of the bacteria which cause sourness. Therefore high alcohol content and high hopping rates could protect beer from the souring associated with long storage times. Hodgson took his pale ale recipe, increased the hop content considerably, and raised the alcohol content. The result was a very bitter, alcoholic, and sparkling pale ale that could survive the challenges of travel and shelf life in India. IPA reached India in an enjoyable condition and Hodgson's success became legendary.
In the same period, brewers that wanted to export pale ale from England to Russia were facing the same problem of avoiding the rotting of the beer, thus they increased the hop and the alcoholic strength of the beer, obtaining the so called Imperial Pale ale. Ultimately the exports to Russia had to be stopped for political reasons. Brewers exporting to Russia eventually switched to India, and so "Imperial Pale ale" and "India Pale ale" became synonymous.
Thanks in part to Hodgson's recipe, the Indian beer market expanded greatly. In 1750, about 1480 barrels left England for India -- in 1800, 9000 barrels were exported, an increase of over 500% in annual shipments. The success of IPA was soon copied by the Salt, Allsopp, and Bass breweries who all claim to have been the first to copy Hodgson's style. These and other English brewers later started selling IPA in England and Ireland. Although these beers were called India Pale Ales, the recipe was different due to the inability to mature for as long as the trip to India. The national IPA was less hopped compared to the export version, in order to speed up the fermentation. The final beer was more bitter than the simple pale ale, but not as bitter as the export version. American brewers also began brewing IPA for the export and home markets. Ballantine's IPA dates back to the early part of the 20th century when IPAs were still strong in both popularity and alcohol content.
The expansion of the Indian beer market caused by Hodgson's IPA ultimately led to the building of Asia's first breweries. In the late 1820s Edward Dyer moved from England to set up the first brewery in India at Kasauli (later incorporated as Dyer Breweries in 1855) in the Himalaya mountains, producing Asia's first beer brand Lion Beer. Dyer set up more breweries at Solan, Shimla, Murree, Rawalpindi and Mandalay. Another entrepreneur, H G Meakin, moved to India and bought the old Shimla and Solan Breweries from Edward Dyer and added more at Ranikhet, Dalhousie, Chakrata, Darjeeling and Kirkee.
In 1937, when Burma was separated from India, the company was restructured with its Indian assets as Dyer Meakin Breweries, a public company on the London Stock Exchange. Following independence, in 1949 N.N. Mohan took over management of the company and the name was changed to Mohan Meakin. The company continues to produce beer across India to this day and Lion is still available in northern India.
Today
The IPA style has virtually died out in the United Kingdom, most beers called IPA in the UK are indistinguishable from ordinary session bitters. One of the few traditional examples still brewed is Freeminer Trafalgar IPA
However, the IPA style has become very popular with American microbreweries, where it has evolved into a distinct variant sometimes called American India Pale Ale (One example is Victory Brewing Company's HopDevil Ale). Although some are made to traditional recipes, American IPAs are generally brewed with citric American hop varieties such as Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, and Columbus. American brewers have also altered the style to increase the bitterness of the beer to well over 100 IBUs and the alcohol levels up to 10 or even more than 20 % alcohol by volume. These beers are referred to as American Double India Pale Ales or Imperial India Pale Ales. (However, the former is sometimes considered more accurate, since the word "imperial" originally referred exclusively to the Imperial stout style that was invented in England for export to Imperial Russia).
In Canada, Alexander Keith's India Pale Ale has become popular across Canada as the microbrewery fad has taken off since the 1990s. However, like its American cousins, it is not a true IPA but a more palatable one for modern tastes. The beer is available across the nation, but is usually sold as an Import or Exotic beer compared to more standard domestic offerings from the likes of Molson and Labatt. The Mill Street Brewery in Toronto’s Historic Distillery District brews its award winning IPA: Tankhouse Ale. It is an excellent representation of a true India Pale Ale.es:Indian Pale Ale