Re: My favourite IPA..

Unfortunately, it's that "dilution" clause that's being questioned.

consumption.

• Didn't somebody here say that that's what Coors does?

Best regards, Bill

PS: Sorry for that nasty 5 letter word. ;^)

It doesn't even make sense, given the quality of the water they'd have to work with. One of the benefits of beer as a general potable was that it had been boiled and you were unlikely to get sick from drinking beer. Water, on the other hand . . .

British sailors got a portion of rum which was usually cut with water; perhaps this is the source of the tale.

--Jeff Frane

I always figured it came from the origins of fortified wines with sherry and port which had alcohol (brandy, I guess) added to them to allow them to keep better during the long ocean shipping to the Americas and other colonial areas. Supposedly, one was *supposed* to dilute them upon when drinking them to bring them back to normal strength. "Yeah, right." was the response of many thirsty colonialists...

Not to mention what "watering down" would do to the relatively little carbonation in a wooden keg of "real" IPA.

I think that this story MAY be the result of British beer snobbery. UK beer for many years certainly was more "real", authentic and traditional that the stuff that came out of US breweries. (Well, except for their invention of "keg beer"- pasteurized draught beer.) So, when the micro boom happened and "our" IPA's started climbing in alcohol and in hop rate (supposedly following the traditional style), in defense of their IPA's (which started to compare similar to US Budweiser vs Czech Budweiser) there response was that the US IPA's weren't authentic. For the record, the last surviving US IPA from before the micro boom, Ballantine India Pale Ale, was certainly hoppier and higher in alcohol than most UK IPA's of the time.

So, nu, they don't know how to boil water in India? Come on, Jeff!

save the beer from spoiling during its long sea voyage to the far outposts of the British Empire. On its arrival it was then diluted with local water ready for consumption.

In many years of researching the history of beer and brewing in Britain I have never seen any evidence at all for the "water it down" theory of IPA. The drink that was watered down was rum, by the Royal Navy, to make "grog". As for the low alcohol levels of IPAs today in the UK, this is a relic of the "great gravity drop" of the period during and after the First World War, when shortages of raw materials and tax rises pushed all beer gravities down by some 20 to 25 per cent. The wholesale prices of IPAs in Victorian Britain suggest OGs of around 1065 or so. If I had to make a criticism of IPAs today, especially American ones, I would say even when they have the correct strength they lack the "age", which is necessary in a highly-hopped pale ale for the hoppiness to round down - two months as an absolute minimum, four for preference ...

Yes, this is probably true. I think that is why the Great American Beer Festival has two IPA categories, one American, one Brit. I believe Americans tend to prefer highly hopped IPA's. I know I do.

nb