As it turns out, the heat is the key, but not for the reasons you might think. Since it was difficult to brew beer in the hot weather of much of India, a beer was needed which travelled well and held up to the heat. After all, beers brewed in the UK travelled almost six months around the horn of Africa and back up, through a broad range of weathers and temperatures. As both hops and alcohol are preservatives, the India Pale Ale ended up with a high hop content and a slightly higher alcohol content than many other British ales just to survive the journey in drinkable shape.

Interestingly enough, given the technology to brew whatever beers they wanted to, the brewers of India, like much of the world, have chosen to brew lagers rather than ales. Equally interesting, the IPA has been embraced by beer lovers here in the US, which had converted almost wholly to light lagers. If you’re interested, Wikipedia has more on the history of IPAs.

Thanks to beer smarts, the beer trivia game, for the short answer and the inspiration for this post.

Creative commons, from Wikipedia

Post from: EveryJoe

Pale ale from India?

As a follow up to my post on beers of the World Series, our little beer group (more on that later) decided to tackle some Colorado brews this month. And so it was, with a selection of 13 different beers from 4 different breweries across the state.

As a group we were very impressed with the beers of Avery, particularly the big bottle products (such as the The Reverend Quadrupel and the Czar Imperial Stout). That said, the beers were uniformly good. The Old Jubilation, a winter ale, didn’t strike us as particularly wintery, and I found the Out of Bounds a bit thin for a stout, if still tasty.

I’ve said enough about Left Hand of late, but the consensus was that the Milk Stout is an excellent beer. The Polestar Pilsner wasn’t as clean and hoppy as I’d like, but the Dark Cover Brown Ale represented that style well. All of the Left Hand products have a certain smoothness to them which I enjoy in the ales, but not so much in the Pilsner.

Flying Dog also did well, although I’m not sure any of their beers stood out as much. It was interesting to note that they brew in Maryland as well as Colorado (go Orioles?!?), and some tasters who had tried the beers out West felt there was a difference. Maybe there is something to that Rocky Mountain water after all? The consensus seemed to be that the Snake Dog was the best of our batch, and the label artwork is certainly in a different class than most.

Great Divide was the least impressive of the lot, although in fairness the only beer we could drum up was the Samurai. I don’t know that an unfiltered rice beer was going to do well in this group of beers no matter what.

image from flyingdogales.com

Post from: EveryJoe

That Rocky Mountain water