schultan

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Grinder12000

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Well - I believe you are wrong actually but . . . . .I have no proof - was not there.

Perhaps common knowledge is false. Perhaps man DID walk with dinosaurs. :-)

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Grinders Island

Carboys = I can't believe I'm empty - waiting for ingredients - bad timing.
In Bottle = Allagash Grand Cru, Bavarian Hefeweizen (awesome), Skanky Porter, Fantastic Indian Brown, Wonderful Coffee Stout
on deck - Bavarian Hefeweizen #2

McKBrew

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It looks like the OP's claim has some merit. I always thought IPA's were specially developed for the trip, but some quick googling mentions other strong beers that survived as well. Depends on what site you go to, some say IPA's were developed specifically for the market. Probably it's another one of those beers like porter that doesn't have a clear story.

India Pale Ale - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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brrman

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keep in mind Wikipedia (while I do use it on occasion) is not always the most accurate source of fact.

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Secondary:
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Warpig75

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it's my understanding that due to hops perservative nature, beer (namely english pale ales) shipped to India was strongly hopped for the long voyage.

whether it's true or not I dont know - although I do feel this is the general concensus among beer drinkers.

the statement from wikipedia: "The October beer of George Hodgson's Bow Brewery was the world's first India Pale Ale." is rather pretentious IMHO - beer has been around far too long for an 18th century brewer to claim any sort of "first".

Strongly hopped pale ales are called IPA's due to their reknown demand in India and the East India Company and whether it was done for perservation's sake or simply a trend is just a moot point.

Jesse17

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I'm not an expert by any means, but I understood it that when the Brits started sending beer to the Indian stationed troops, they used extra hops as a preservative (because it would 'sour' before it got there otherwise) and the flavor actually caught on. Hence, it became it's own style.

Just my .02 dollars worth.

schultan

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here are a couple websites that concur with the myth theory...however, you guys are right in that probably no one can really know. most sites reference George Watson's The Compleat English Brewer to support their claims.

Beervana: The IPA Myth

Myth 4: George Hodgson invented IPA to survive the long trip to India « Zythophile
From the above site:
"No, Hodgson didn’t “invent” India Pale Ale, and 18th century brewers before Hodgson were making beers that could survive a journey to India, and further.

A myth has developed that Hodgson, who brewed at the Bow brewery to the east of London, close to the Middlesex-Essex border, “invented a new style of beer, brewing it to a high alcohol level and using more hops than any previous beers.” There is no evidence whatsoever that Hodgson “invented” or “developed” a new beer especially for the Indian market: no record that he did so, no 19th century commentator saying he did so. India Pale Ale was not even, in fact, a particularly strong beer for the time, being about 6.5 or seven per cent alcohol, around the same strength as porter.

Despite some modern commentators’ declaration that India Pale Ale needed to be invented because the big-selling beer in the late 18th century in Britain, porter, would not survive the four-month journey to the East, porter was perfectly capable of lasting on board a ship much longer than that, as this passage from the journal of Joseph Banks on August 25 1769, when he was on board the Endeavour with Captain Cook in the South Pacific, shows:
If a cask of porter could be “excellently good” after a year at sea, there is no reason to suppose any other sort of similar-strength beer would have to be specially invented to last the four-month journey from Britain to India. Brewers before Hodgson knew how to make strong, highly hopped beers that would keep for an extended period: the anonymous Every Man His Own Brewer of 1768 gives a recipe for two hogsheads of October “malt wine” made from the first two mashes off 22 bushels of malt, with six and a half pounds of hops per eight bushels of malt to ensure “a year’s keeping”.

George Watkins, author of The Compleat English Brewer, first published in 1767, said that October ale was brewed at a substantial 16 to 20 bushels to the hogshead, though “those with 20 bushels are too heady and some go as low as 10 to 12 bushels.” Even at 10 bushels per hogshead, or 6 2/3rd bushels a barrel, this would still give an OG of 1140 or more. October beer would be ready for bottling after 12 months, Watkins said, and should be kept in bottle for a further year, making it two years old before it was fit to drink.

Hodgson’s involvement in the India trade seems to be based on two lucky chances. The first was that the docks for the merchant ships that went to and from India, the East Indiamen, were at Blackwall on the Thames, just a short distance via the River Lea from his brewery. When the captains of the East Indiamen went looking for beer to sell in Bombay, Calcutta and Madras, alongside a host of other goods from England including everything from china, to hams to furniture, they went to their nearest brewer, at Bow, rather than one of the big London concerns.

What evidence there is suggested that Hodgson made a number of beers, including porter, and an October-brewed “stock” bitter ale, of the kind described by Watkins, and that this stock ale was one of the beers the East Indiamen ships’ captains bought off him to sell in India. The Calcutta Gazette from January 20 1822, for example, contained an advertisement for the “select investment of prime London goods just landed from the HC [Honourable Company] ship Sir David Scott”, including “Hodgson’s warranted prime picked pale ale of the genuine October brewing, warranted fully equal, if not superior, to any ever before received in the settlement.”
The second lucky chance was that on the four-month voyage out to India via the Cape of Good Hope Hodgson’s October stock ale underwent the sort of maturity in cask that would have taken two years in a cellar, and arrived in the East in prime condition. There is no evidence Hodgson planned this from the start or knew it would happen: he was just lucky.

Another myth is that English brewers were eager to break into the Indian market. In fact at the start of the 19th century the market was extremely small, just 9,000 barrels a year, equal to less than half a per cent of the two million barrels brewed in London alone every year. Hodgson probably had around half of the Indian market, but that probably in large part because his brewery was close to where the East Indiamen docked, and because he was willing to allow the East Indiamen ship’s captains extended credit, up to 18 months, on the beer they bought from him."

Streblo

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Aside from the IPA issue that the speaker raised, did he have anything interesting to say about the chemistry of brewing beer? Any tips for improving things?

Bob

McNasty

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This was the story I was told while taking a brewery tour. Then when the troops returned, they requested the hoppy stuff so they started making it regularly.
Whatever the truth may be, the important thing is that IPA's are delicious.

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GilaMinumBeer

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Interesting. The late great Michael Jackson advocated in one of his books that the journey inspired the style. Forgot which book tho'.

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Yeah, I am a Muslim and I like beer.

No doubt you've heard of the Jihadist Muslims. Well, just think of me as a Jiahu'ist Muslim.

I may be wrong on this one but, I doubt Allah has as big an issue with me strapping on a sixer of Chateau Jiahu as he does with the other "good muslims" that prefer to strap on a sixer of C4.