The real IPAs

If we are talking about "real IPAs" meaning historical versions, can we please dispel some some misconceptions? The historical IPAs were not necessarily higher in alcohol content, in fact they were often lower in abv than a pale.

 

No.the only voyage my IPA'S take are fresh from the store to my fridge and then to my belly

 

Pete Brown did it. Hops and Glory.

 

I had a few IPA's on my cruise around the Caribbean!

 

"Hops and Glory" is entertaining and gives one feel for what a beer goes through on the boat journey. We got our cop through alibris.com as it is not published in the US as far as I know.

 

brewdog made an IPA that fermented at sea, or something like that.

 

Historical IPA's.

Not sure the one is more or less REAL.

 

Celebration Ale takes a long journey in many BA's cellars and survives......

 

Except that isn't true. The original IPA's were standard strength for the time. Bass's IPA was the second weakest beer they brewed.

 

stopped reading at this.
hops do not have any effect on alcohol content

 

Read it again. He wrote, hops AND increased alcohol acted as a preservative. He did not say hops increased alcohol.

 

/end thread...........

 

Brewdog Atlantic IPA was put in a cask, traveled at sea for a couple months, was then bottled, had awesome artwork by johanna basford, and cost $20.

 

I read somewhere a while back that increased hop levels in IPAs had nothing to do with extra preservation for the long trip to India. I can't find what I read, but here's something similar. I can't vouch for the veracity of either story.

EDIT: Here's another article about it from the blog of a guy who I think posts in this forum. And the executive summary link at the bottom of that page leads to another longer article about it. Dispels a few myths about IPAs.

 

I tend to take all information given about historical ipa's with a grain of salt, no matter the source. With so much conflicting info out there, I think its a waste of my time to even try, and its not going to change a damn thing about the ipa's available to me today.

 

The way Bass wanted you to drink their bottled Pale Ale was at least 12 months old. Even the beer sold in Britain was more than a year old. It had 6 to 9 months in a cask stacked up in the brewery yard, another month or two in the cask at the bottlers, then a few more months to mature after bottling.

Pale Ales were originally brewed as Stock Ales, i.e. beers that weren'yt meant to be drunk young.

 

Ron, out of curiosity, how did a new brewer survive financially back then if so much stock was aged for an extended time before being sold?

 

Tried 3 IPAS brewed by "L'Albion" here in quebec, based on a 19th century recipe. They were aged differently, one was pretty much regular stuff, refermented in bottle, another one was aged at varying temperatures between 30 and 40 celsius, and was shaked on a regular basis. The last one was aged and served in wooden cask for some time. All three beers were produced at same time. Result? The original beer was the best, and their regular bitter (3,7% alc) was, as usual, the best in my opinion. Bad conditions only gave more dried leafs characteristics to the product, and cask was a bit too vanilla oriented for my tastes (for an IPA)

 

Town Hall makes a ‘historical’ IPA: Town Hall 1800 Historic English IPA.

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/1177/19041

For those of you are homebrewers, Northern Brewer sells a kit which is a clone of this beer.

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/recipe-kits/all-grain-kits/all-grain-ale-kits/1800-historic-english-ipa-pro-series-all-grain-kit.html

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/brewing/recipe-kits/extract-kits/extract-ale-kits/1800-historic-english-ipa-pro-series-extract-kit.html

Cheers!