India Pale Ale History

But yet your prior post sure has the tone of "conclusions": "In fact IPAs were very often the weakest beers in a brewery's range. Few were over 7% ABV...".

Cheers!

 

I'm a full time home brewer (6 currently on tap at the house, if you're ever in the upstate of SC come by and sample) as well as being a college biology/anatomy and physiology professor...I don't call it a preservative and haven't heard anyone else calling it that in the brewing world really. Now the food world may be different, but their definitions may hold different intrinsic meanings compared to a pure scientist's point of view, like myself. Its all semantics and this is all in fun though, that's for sure...maybe "pseudo-preservative" may be more appropriate.

 

My comment related to the whole topic of IPAs. Brewers at the time simply gave beers a name , the concept of style lay well into the future.Brewery records do support the "IPA was not a strong beer" idea.
http://barclayperkins.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/ipa-was-not-strong-beer.html

The 1800 brew is inconclusive , because of wartime (and immediate postwar) taxation beers got weaker.There wasn't a coin small enough to reflect the increased price so the strength was reduced. Beers in general increased in strength during the 19th century except perhaps IPA.Post 1800 IPAs weren't this strong so it would be surprising to find an 8%+ beer from 1800. But not of course impossible.

 

There is a beer historian in Williamsburg VA???? UNBELIEVABLE.

I've always wanted to visit, now I've got another reason to. Do they brew/serve "historical" beers on site? Are there colonial public houses there?

 

Thanks for the invitation, would love to sample your beers. Unfortunately, since my in-laws passed we don't get much further south than central VA any more, but if I've learned anything from life is that there are surpises around the next corner so possibly someday!

BTW, Here's a sample of some of the things I've seen calling hops a preservative.

http://realhomebrew.com/2013/06/12/the-preservative-quality-of-hops/
http://brewwiki.com/index.php/Hops
http://mendobrew.com/blog/376_a-brief-history-of-hops/

Edit: Upstate SC? Hmmm, I'd guess near Spartanburg, and an Arboretum. Think I was actually there once several years ago.

 

ISO: Home next to this guy!

 

Frank Clark does brew on-site (a brief glimpse at 0:45 of the below video). You can buy a commercialized Colonial Era beer called Old Stitch that is brewed by Aleworks.

Cheers!

 

Yea verily!

Cheers!

 

GOOGLE it

 

The best known and longest-lived post-Repeal, pre-Craft American IPA, Ballantine India Pale Ale, was reportedly 6.5-8% abv. Many other US IPAs (and Stock Ales) of that era were probably in the same range (but since the FAA and BATF generally prohibited listing alcohol content... not easy to research). That might not be consider "strong" today, but in the US they were the strongest beers available, at least until "malt liquor" became common. As late as 1981, when M. Jackson published his firs Pocket Guide, (by then Falstaff's) Ballantine IPA and Olde English ML were tied as the strongest US beers at
7.5% abv.

 

I know of a store that has been aging Green Flash WCIPA about that long. No oak on those babies. Turn one upside down and it "snows" like those Santa toys.

 

Only problem is sometimes when he comes home lots of people are sitting around eating nachos, waiting for table service!

 

I guess I was thinking of UK beers but good call on the US IPAs, I forget about them entirely.

 

I think there are two "consumers" to consider. British troops in India and British pub drinkers who frequented a pub that may have served the style....which may have been rare then.

 

Even if the beer was consumed domestically (Great Britain) it would not have been a freshly served beer:

In Mitch Steele’s IPA book he mentioned: “IPA was aged in wood casks at least nine months before it was shipped to India…”

Nine months is a long conditioning time.

Cheers!

 

Right about Brettanomyces, wrong about the pitch lining. British brewers didn't do that. They used unlined casks which is why they couldn't use American oak for their barrels. It added too much flavour. An IPA wasn't aged in vats, but in trade casks.

 

True, around trwice as much Porter as Pale Ale was shipped to India.

 

The troops in India drank Porter and rum not IPA.There was twice as much Porter as IPA shipped to India at the time and like IPA it was massively hopped. It was the administrators who drank IPA. (Edit, @patto1ro just beat me to this)
Domestic IPA (bearing in mind that beer was called whatever the brewer termed it) appears to have been stronger and less hopped than the exports.

 

If you'd bought my book or read my BeerAdvocate Magazine article on the topic (called Stock Pale Ale, published in 2011) you'd know the answer.

Bass, a major Burton brewer, racked their IPA into trade casks at the end of primary fermentaion and stacked them up in the brewery yard, open to the elements. Beer meant for India was left there for 12 months. What with transport time and a period to condition after bottling in India, it was a minimum of 18 months old before it got into the sweaty hand of an East India Company official. When sold in the UK, Bass was 12 to 15 months old.

 

That does seem excessive and would have surely lead to a sour beer especially without climate control.

I would like to see the context from where he got that quote. After all, a main reason there were so many breweries in the US before prohibition was to supply the local markets with fresh beer. I know a number of older Britsh breweries only serviced local areas at that time.