Pale Ale Part 1: The IPA

If there is one style that captures the spirit of the craft beer industry, it is the many and varied styles of Pale Ale. Pale ales are, by definition, light-colored beers that are brewed with generous amounts of top-fermenting hops and ale yeasts.

This part here is important because there is an extremely popular commercial beer on the market that markets itself as a type of pale ale and does not meet any of these requirements: it is sweet (which is not hopped), brown, and lager.

This week we are going to see the style that generated the pale ale genre; the IPA!

IPA stands for India Pale Ale; a style of beer that originated in the English town of Burton on Thames and was brewed specifically for export to India in the 18th century. Without refrigeration, exporting beer from the UK to India was dangerous at best and, apart from the sturdiest dark beers, very few survived the voyage in any potable state.

And who the hell wants to drink dark beer in 30+ degree temperatures?

And so the IPA was born; to create a lighter beer they dried the malt over burning coke (a derivative of coal) and to preserve it they hopped it with gleeful 18th-century abandon.

Today we use hops in beer for its flavor, but traditionally it was used as a preservative as it has powerful antibacterial and antifungal properties.

Hops’ closest relative is the cannabis plant (just like cannabis, hops are a soporific, it helps you sleep), and depending on where you use it in the brewing process, it offers different flavor profiles.

If you boil the hops with the wort, you get bitter flavors and preservative qualities.

If you add them during or after fermentation, you tend to get more vibrant herbaceous and fruity flavors; this is what brewers call dry hopping. And just like wine grapes, different varieties of hops grown in different locations show unique flavor differentiation.

Because the hops were used primarily as a preservative, we can assume that the hop flowers were added to the boil, resulting in an extremely bitter beer, but also to the casks as an additional preservative, suggesting that some of the flavors The fruitiness of the hops would also be present in the beer. beer.

These days, IPAs tend to be relatively strong (5% – 7%), with a malty body and distinctive hop bitterness and some hop aromas. Here are a couple of my favorite IPAs made with kiwi!

The Twisted Hop IPA

This beer is hands down my favorite IPA made with kiwi; it has a beautiful rich malt/biscuit body with some malt sweetness juxtaposed against a wall of refreshing bitterness with some citrus hop aroma and sweetness.

It’s great out of the bottle, but even better poured with a traditional hand pump, just like they do in England. Not warm or flat, but cellar temperature (lovely cool 12 degrees) and frothy with just the natural fermentation yeast to give it its zing rather than carbonation.

Three Guys IPA

This is a more refined and elegant example of the IPA; It has clean, almost hay-like notes with malty notes with refreshing bitterness and distinctive but subdued hop flavors that weave between spicy, fruity and savory aspects.

Next time I will continue to discuss variations on the Pale Ale theme: APA, Belgian Pale Ales, Imperial or Double IPA, and uniquely named Black IPA.