The actual difference between APA and IPA?

[davidabcd]

@davidabcd
Let's pull back that curtain!
And is that bike in your profile pic on Woodward?
If you're in Detroit, make sure you grab some Short's Brewing.

Close enough--Michigan Ave near old Tiger Stadium. I do live in Detroit and I see Soft Parade around a lot.

 

[AlexTurnbull]

My understanding (from reading Ron Pattisons Shut Up About BArclay Perkins site) is India Pale Ale got it's name because it was brewed under contract to the East India Company - think Wall-Mart Pale Ale type of thing.

During the period porters and stouts well also successfully exported to India. Guinness has even resurrected its Guinness West Indies Porter.

 

[Stormcrow]

Yeah. That makes sense actually.
I originally got those amounts from Brewer's Friend IBU calculator.

Last night I grabbed one of those recipe apps, entered everything in and it gave me is predictions. It seemed accurate about everything else. View attachment 677842

My app looks a lot like that. Part of the fun is making up a recipe from scratch, then selecting all the different styles for comparison to see what in the world I might be making.

 

[Stormcrow]

The difference? More hops and alcohol to the British soldiers serving in India where high heat would skunk a beer.

I'll take some heat for this but I'll say it anyway. Some of the commercial IPA's I've had have a whole lot of hops to cover up for a poorly made product. No mystery, just add hops until bad flavors aren't detectable anymore. Make it 9% and all the better.

Truth bomb here. Anyone can make a hop salad and call it an IPA. (That's obviously not meant to imply there aren't really good IPAs that are works of art. Just wanted to head off any angry responses. )

 

[dnr]

My app looks a lot like that. Part of the fun is making up a recipe from scratch, then selecting all the different styles for comparison to see what in the world I might be making.

What app are you using?
I'm not thrilled with my app now that it's given me an extra 30 IBU with my ingredients. It's also not very intuitive.

Thanks.

And again...I like many styles of beer, but I went out and grabbed a mixed 6 pack yesterday and grabbed 5 IPAs and a winter ale. Everything local except a limited edition IPA.
It's just my favorite style. Pale Ales of most kinds, but it came down to labeling in that app. Which am I making based on ingredients and what would I need to change to get a different style? Would it really just be an extra lb or two of malt? Another 6oz of hops?
That line is very nebulous and I am a curious person.

Pabst Blue Ribbon started making a "Bourbon" by literally adding their whiskey for a few seconds in a barrel because it is legally required to be called a "Bourbon". I think that's amazing and a bit funny. Stand on the shoulders oh goodness, because they knew what they were doing. But occasionally "take the piss" down their backs because you have now reached the necessary height.

 

[Stormcrow]

I use Wort Homebrew Calculator for android. Pretty good luck with it so far. I did have a similar problem with it one time though. The starting gravity for one of my recipes on there read twenty points higher than it should. I think I had been playing around with it and changing amounts (or even batch size) to see what it would do, but the numbers stayed high even after I changed all the ingredients back to their starting amounts. I double checked, restarted the app, and reset several times to no avail. Finally I deleted that recipe altogether and added it again like a new recipe. The numbers were back where they should be.