Here’s one we don’t get very often on these shores, and a great opportunity to share this with all the IPA drinkers and hop-heads out there.
It’s great going back to the roots of the IPA movement. In the US, IPA’s have really taken hold of the craft brew market. I had lunch at a nice restaurant - they had about 15 IPAs on the menu, maybe one Schwarzbier and not a Pilsner or Amber Ale to be had! What gives? I later found out this fella was a competition IPA brewer and we were drinking off his test batches! Still…. That might be an extreme example, but a lot of brew and chow houses really do lean heavily on the IPA offerings these days.
Samuel Smith’s 5% ABV “India Ale” is an 1896 Gold Medal Award Winner! Still brewed! That’s what I call stick-to-it-ness! This is a delicious beer, brewed at the old Tadcaster Brewery. The brewing technique there is open fermentation in Yorkshire Squares. How they keep that together with an IPA is beyond be.
So how does it taste? Well, if you are completely doped up in US IPA trends, you’ll be a bit perplexed, as this beer lacks the double-whammy of all the “C” hops you might be used to. I’d say this beer is very “Samuel Smith-ish” – meaning it still is like a pub ale with fruity esters not usually encountered in regular US IPA versions. It is a touch more bitter than their standard Ale offerings, but in comparison to a US IPA, you might even think this is a regular fruity Amber Ale - with maybe 5-10 points higher IBU. It is REALLY slight, if you aren’t looking for it, it might go missing.
Anyway, we need to give plenty of respect here, this is one of the early IPA brews, and very much a prototype of which later made brewing industries out of San Diego, Portland and half a hundred other locations throughout the West, moving Eastward. Cheers!
It’s great going back to the roots of the IPA movement. In the US, IPA’s have really taken hold of the craft brew market. I had lunch at a nice restaurant - they had about 15 IPAs on the menu, maybe one Schwarzbier and not a Pilsner or Amber Ale to be had! What gives? I later found out this fella was a competition IPA brewer and we were drinking off his test batches! Still…. That might be an extreme example, but a lot of brew and chow houses really do lean heavily on the IPA offerings these days.
Samuel Smith’s 5% ABV “India Ale” is an 1896 Gold Medal Award Winner! Still brewed! That’s what I call stick-to-it-ness! This is a delicious beer, brewed at the old Tadcaster Brewery. The brewing technique there is open fermentation in Yorkshire Squares. How they keep that together with an IPA is beyond be.
So how does it taste? Well, if you are completely doped up in US IPA trends, you’ll be a bit perplexed, as this beer lacks the double-whammy of all the “C” hops you might be used to. I’d say this beer is very “Samuel Smith-ish” – meaning it still is like a pub ale with fruity esters not usually encountered in regular US IPA versions. It is a touch more bitter than their standard Ale offerings, but in comparison to a US IPA, you might even think this is a regular fruity Amber Ale - with maybe 5-10 points higher IBU. It is REALLY slight, if you aren’t looking for it, it might go missing.
Anyway, we need to give plenty of respect here, this is one of the early IPA brews, and very much a prototype of which later made brewing industries out of San Diego, Portland and half a hundred other locations throughout the West, moving Eastward. Cheers!
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