There was a momentous occasion in beer culture a few weeks back, and your humble narrator certainly made the most of it.
Yes gentle reader, August 3 was the seventh annual International IPA Day, which brought hop-filled happiness to craft beer fans the world over. The blogosphere was all abuzz, and the twits were tweeting it up on #IPAday.
For those not in the know, IPA (India Pale Ale) is a particularly bitter and hoppy beer, first brewed in 18th century England.
As the name implies, India Pale Ale is an offshoot of the Pale Ale style of beer. Back when India was part of the British Empire, all their beer was imported from England or other British Colonies.
Tragically, in those days before pasteurization and refrigeration, a significant amount of the beer would spoil during the long and hot voyage by sea to India.
English brewers found that hops were a natural antibacterial agent, so cranking up the level of hops in a brew would help prevent spoilage. The sharp and bitter taste provided by extra hops are either an added bonus or a nasty side effect, depending on your particular palate.
The IPA beer style, and indeed the Pale Ale beer style from which it is descended, are so named because they are brewed using pale malt. This means that the malted barley is dried at a lower temperature than for other beer styles, and produces a pale coloured beer. Due to the low temperature the barley is dried at, very little of the enzymes in the barley are lost in the kiln.
Different beer styles will use different types of malted barley as their base ingredient. While Pale Ales use almost exclusively pale malt, something like a Guinness would use a combination of several malts, including pale malt as a base, and others such as chocolate, dark, and stout malts in different ratios.
Over the past decade, the IPA style has diverged into two distinct varieties, namely the old British style, and the new American style, championed by craft brewers in the United States.
Normally, your beer snob of a liquor reporter is the last one to say anything nice about an American beer, but the American IPA is a notable exception. These beers have more hop bitterness and floral aroma than their British counterparts, and are generally a bit higher in alcohol content as well.
The biggest difference is from the use of native American hop varietals such as Cascade and Amarillo, which are more aromatic than their European cousins. This results in a clean and light bodied beer with a sharp and tangy mouthfeel, and lots of bitterness and citrusy aromas.
Luckily, our fair province is blessed with an abundance of craft brewers that are churning out IPA by the hectolitre, so you can whet your whistle on more fine local brews than you can drink in a week!
Your intrepid liquor reporter spent #IPAday sampling a small fraction of some of the finest locally produced IPA beers brewed right here in Alberta.
Calgary-based Tool Shed Brewing produces Star Cheek IPA, which weighs in at 6.2%ABV, and boasts a full and floral hop aroma on the nose, followed by a well-balanced hop bitterness and subtle malt backbone.
Just down the street from Tool Shed is one of Calgary’s newest breweries, namely Common Crown Brewing. Your humble narrator discovered their Journeyman IPA at the annual Calgary International Beerfest this spring, and I keep going back for more. This brew has plenty of caramel malt on the tongue, followed with a spicy hop finish.
Moving to Calgary’s hip Inglewood neighbourhood, the Cold Garden Beverage Company brews This Must Be The IPA, with a citrusy punch from the hops, and a bitterness that is enough for the hopheads, but not overwhelming for the novice boozers of the world. The brewery tasting room is even dog-friendly, so you can bring you four-legged friends along while you are sipping suds!
Just down the street from Cold Garden is High Line Brewing, right on the main drag in Inglewood, where you can find the aptly named Inglewood IPA. Plenty of resinous pine aromas on the nose, with a spicy hop finish on the tongue makes this an entirely sessionable IPA.
So, put aside that bland and tasteless macrobrew, and try an IPA today. You’ll be hoppy that you did!
