UKIPA

An IPA at the Civil Life? The third, in fact. We have brewed an English IPA and last year’s collaboration beer, Merchant Ship IPA. We have always resisted the easy path of brewing the “popular” beer just for the sake of sales. But we are a traditional brewery, strongly informed by English beer styles, and IPA is one of England’s great contributions to world beer.
 
American craft breweries have popularized a particular take on this venerable style, generally marked by a huge load of American hops with big citrus flavors. These beers aren’t a lot like the original English IPAs.
 
There is a longstanding myth that IPA, with its higher alcohol content and big hop presence, was designed to withstand the long hot sea journey to India, where it would be consumed by thirsty British expatriates. The fact is, English brewers had been shipping pale ales, porters, and stouts to India for many years with no difficulties whatsoever.
 
The real story, according to Martyn Cornell, is that the Bow Brewery owned by George Hodgson happened to be a stone’s throw form where the East India Company docked its ships. Hodgson’s beers were the easiest to load on the ships. They brewed a fine, well-hopped stock bitter. These stock ales required one to two years to mature in cask before they achieved optimal drinking condition.
 
English merchant ships made many stops on their long, rough sea journey to India, and what that process inadvertently did was to considerably speed up maturation. When these barrels of beer arrived in India, they were crystal clear, crisp, and delicious. Thus was India Pale Ale born.
 
Our brewer Seymour, always a stickler for historical authenticity, personally loaded our UK IPA on a ship and sailed to India and back (this statement has not been fact-checked #fakenews). What Seymour did do was scour the historical records and peruse scores of authentic recipes.
 
It turns out that many British brewers in the late nineteenth century were adding sugar to the mash when making IPAs. Sucrose is highly fermentable and adds some caramel complexity to beer. It can also help achieve dry, light colored beers.
 
Our UK IPA starts with a very lightly kilned base malt and some English specialty malts, as well as dark brown cane sugar. We add some torrified wheat for body and head retention. The finished product is dry-hopped with three English hop varieties: Progress, Challenger, and East Kent Goldings.
 
The final product is light colored and crisp with a hint of caramel sweetness. Look for floral, woodsy, and slightly fruity (think stone fruit, rather than citrus) hop character. At just over 6% alcohol and a modest 48 IBUs, the beer is well-balanced and elegant.
 
Come down and quaff a UK IPA while supplies last. We think you’ll find it doesn’t taste quite like any IPA you’ve ever had.