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ORIGINS OF INDIA PALE ALE:

"...By saying that IPA was the first ever ‘export’ beer we are not saying that it was the first beer to be exported. London Porter was exported in considerable quantities in the eighteenth century. IPA was, however, the first beer designed for export, and in that respect it shared some of the characteristics of Porter. It was high in alcohol and it was heavily hopped.

Both these attributes were necessary to give the beer some protection against spoilage on the long sea journey to India, which, in the days before the Suez Canal, meant sailing the length of both sides of Africa and traversing the Cape of Good Hope. This journey took the beer from England’s temperate shores and into the tropics and across the equator not once, but twice, and it wasn’t exactly going to be chilly in India when it arrived either. The beer had to survive, arrive and survive some more if it was to be worth the trouble to put aboard ship at all. This called for a beer of considerable robusteness. Robustness was achieved by means of the combined preservative and antiseptic qualities of alcohol and hops.

A beer of 3.8% ABV would have about as much chance of surviving to India as a snowman. Consequently no beer of 3.8% or thereabouts should designate itself an IPA. Also modern IPAs are running beers, and true IPA was emphatically not a running beer.

By ‘running beers’ we mean beers that were swiftly ready to drink, unlike Porter and other strong ales that required aging. They were what brewers everywhere chose to produce once science had permitted the replication of the brewing liquor of Burton-on-Trent by the addition of the necessary minerals – notably calcium sulphate (gypsum). They require short maturation to clarify and will drop bright within a day or two of reaching a pub cellar: in short, modern cask conditioned ale...*

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  • 5 years later...

Abbot is brewed in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk hardly local.

These posts were split from an old topic.

nottstalgia.com/forums/index .php?showtopic=9328&&page=2, copied from The Drinker has two spaces which stop it resolving

But it resolves with http://nottstalgia.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=9328&&page=2

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Abbot is brewed in Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk hardly local.

How about Castle Rock?

I think this was split away from another topic/thread, 'cause I'm damned sure I wouldn't start a thread without some sort reasoning behind my argument !

Anyway , my new favourite is Doombar, brewed in Rock in Cornwall.

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