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Around the year 1800, the appellation "export ale" referred to a specific style of beer invented by the brewer George Hodgson. It was designed to survive a journey around the Horn of Africa and moisten the chapped lips of parched English colonialists. Previous efforts had arrived musty, sour and undrinkable; Hodgson combated this by brewing a high-alcohol, very hoppy pale ale. Today, we know it as India Pale Ale (IPA). Inspired by the summer release of Full Sail IPA, I decided to take a closer look at what arguably has become, in the Northwest anyway, the most popular style of craft-brewed beer. Nearly every brewery makes an IPA, from brewpubs to large craft brewers like Oregon Ales. However, in the 200 years since Hodgson's beer went into production, the style has gone through quite a few incarnations, and now breweries produce fairly different kinds of beer, all under the name IPA. I found that the beers fell into three rough categories: huge, hoppy ales in the direct lineage of the originals, brewed with English malt and hops; similarly big, hoppy beers that feature a Northwest spin; and lower alcohol, less hoppy beers. English IPA I started by turning to the source, the UK, and discovered that there aren't many examples of a true IPA. Blame the tax man: With the current tax codes penalizing high-alcohol beers, brewers have tended to scale back on the alcohol-producing malt (and sugar, which a good many English breweries add) in the past decades. But I found a classic example and a magnificent beer in Samuel Smith's India Ale, a beer readily available in Portland and comparatively new to the Smith stable. It is a dark golden, cloudy ale that pours out a luxurious white head. The smell is hoppy, as one would expect, and has a curiously English smell--fresh and wholesome--common in other British beers I've had (most recently Fuller's London Porter). The hop bitterness hits the tongue hard, seemingly to promise a very bitter beer. As the beer travels around the mouth, though, one tastes the rush of a mighty maltiness that lifts up the beer and balances out the hops. Trust those old Yorkshire stone squares. A couple of local breweries, Full Sail and Fish Brewing, also have versions that are as close a stab at Hodgson's recipe as we're likely to find in these parts. Full Sail, bringing its IPA back for a fourth year, offers a very big, very intense beer. This recipe, using only English East Kent Goldings and Challenger hops, has none of the signature citrus of Northwest hopping. Pale and clear in the glass, it looks deceptively mild. The strong hop smell gives a clue, and the first sip is bracingly bitter. The English hops here come across in a sharp, clean bitterness. The final note is malty, like the Samuel Smith, a toasty complement to the hops. Fish Tail IPA is cut from the same cloth as Full Sail, though the brewer showed a bit more restraint. The effect is a very bitter, malty IPA, though packing not quite the lethal force of Full Sail. American IPA Long after IPAs began to get weak and pallid in England, American brewers came along and started brewing the style, reinterpreting it slightly. Not worried about the possible degradation of unfermented malt, American brewers made a murkier, heavier ale. Of course, they used local hops--for the most part, anyway--which changed the flavor profile. Although it's a fairly recent beer, BridgePort's IPA may one day typify the American (some might say "West Coast") style. Already it's been recognized as a classic, garnering last year's gold medal at the Great American Beer Fest. BridgePort pours out cloudy, with a zesty, rocky head. The nose is floral and citrusy, exposing the Northwest-grown Cascade and Chinook hops. It's a full-bodied, rich and refreshing beer. Portland Brewing resurrects a style made popular at the beginning of this century by the New Jersey-based Ballantine, which incorporated oak flavor in the beer. This tradition came from the idea that when the IPA made its 3- to 5-month journey to India, the flavor of the oak casks in which it was shipped seeped into the beer. Even though the majority of historians think that oak probably wasn't flavoring the beer, it has so long been used as an additive that it's become a historical style. Portland does a fine job with its version, adding enough oak flavor that the savvy drinker can detect it (especially when the beer is warmed to 55 degrees), but not so much that it overwhelms this well-rounded, smooth beer. Other Variations Other brewers also make IPAs, but, although fine ales, they seem comparatively undernourished for the category. When Bert Grant brewed his first batch of IPA, Michael Jackson called it "the hoppiest IPA I had ever tasted." Since then, the already low-alcohol beer has also gotten less hoppy. At 50 BUs (bittering units), it's still quite bitter, but it just doesn't seem like an IPA. Similarly, Redhook IPA (formerly Ballard Bitter) also tastes a shade less malty and not as bitter as I would have liked. I suspect that while, on a sizzling afternoon in May just before the monsoons arrived, Cornwallis wouldn't have turned down either of these beers, he might have wished for a BridgePort or Full Sail instead. |
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