IPA (India Pale Ale) | Craft Beer

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IPAs came about when the English brewers were beginning to sen their pale ales over to the English people that were colonizing India, and what happened is that they knew that hops was a preservative and they thought maybe the beer would last longer and actually make the voyage all the way to India, if they threw in more hops. So by, you know, English people in India wanted some of you know, beer that was made the way that they're use to. They came up with this whole new style that wound up being called the India Pale Ale.

So it was specifically made for that purpose but it gradually became more and more popular in England itself, and I guess you could say it really took off in America and the American crowd you have seen, right now you know there are many brewers all over the world that are trying to duplicate, you know what is called the American IPA or more specifically sometimes the West Coast IPA. And again those are styles of pale ales that have been extremely high hot. And you know there are still English IPAs and you know, they just tend to take on the flavor profiles of England hops which tend to be you know less, kind of less overall than the American hops and specifically the West Coast hops.

So there's also you know then of course the American IPA which is the very popular style of brew right now. And in addition to the American IPA there's also the imperial IPA which is a much more highly hop version of either the English or the American IPA so you're gonna get a lot more hops, and sometimes you'll get malt to come and support it as it's backbone, so you;re not just, you know, drinking straight hops. You know you'll always have some balancing malt in there.

Although there is some discussion about you know do we like a balanced IPA or an unbalanced IPA? And again this is one of the fun things about craft beers that you'll find a lot of people who can follow on many different sides of an issue.  So those are some thoughts about how IPAs came into being and thoughts about where they are now. And perhaps even where they're going with brewers all over the world trying to come up with their own version of the IPA