Traditional IPA

[SteveD]

You don't get more of a hop monster than a traditional IPA...


Re Hop Monster....some of the recipes for Original IPA were even hoppier than James's 12.5oz per 5 gal recipe

OG 1065 - 15oz goldings alpha 4.5 /5 UK gal

Here's the most extreme beer recipe I've seen. Early Victorian..

OG: Unknown

for 5UK Gallons :- 50.2lb pale malt, 13oz 5% Goldings + 2.2 oz dry hops
for 25L :- 24.8kg, 400g hops + 66g dry

24.8KG! ..........hell, just chuck the whole sack in!

Apparently three beers were made from from three mashes. The first apparently kept for 8-10 years, the weaker 2nd mash beer was thought to be coming off at 1060...

Journey to India?? You're trying to get rid of me, aren't you!

Ahh yes DaaB, traditional IPA does have a lot of hops, but when you compare the AA of the hops today and the assumption that the AA was lower in hops back when the traditional brews were made, then one would assume the IBU of todays would be higher. Now mind you, these are all assumptions that I am going on. Either way, they are all "hop monsters" so I do stand corrected. I will say that the beer I was thinking of when I said hop monster, has 12.75 oz of hops, most are high alpha, then another 3.75 oz for dry hopping, totaling 16 oz in all. Not bad for a modern brew, eh!!

You're right to be careful about assumptions. The modern view is to assume hops were less bitter then. It is true that new varieties have been developed with higher levels of a-acid, but these is no evidence at all to suggest the older traditional varieties (Fuggles, Goldings, etc) were less bittering then than that are now. This "well, the hops were less bittering then" argument is convenient for commercial brewers who want to put less in to save money.

[onlooker]

This "well, the hops were less bittering then" argument is convenient for commercial brewers who want to put less in to save money.

Absolutly , I think the hops are different now argument has been taken far to readily without any real evidence to back it up. Although in todays commercial brewers defence , the contemporary beers dont need to survive months through hot and cold in wooden hogheads to be stored and drunk in excessivly hot conditions anymore. The brewers of old were commercial brewers as well, and they wouldnt have been sinking money into large amounts of hops if they had a means to transport their beer to market unspoilt without them.

[SteveD]

This "well, the hops were less bittering then" argument is convenient for commercial brewers who want to put less in to save money.

Absolutly , I think the hops are different now argument has been taken far to readily without any real evidence to back it up. Although in todays commercial brewers defence , the contemporary beers dont need to survive months through hot and cold in wooden hogheads to be stored and drunk in excessivly hot conditions anymore. The brewers of old were commercial brewers as well, and they wouldnt have been sinking money into large amounts of hops if they had a means to transport their beer to market unspoilt without them.

Yep. Bang on. Brewers had to fight for survival then as they do now. If you look at old brewery records, you'll see that on many of them each penny is accounted for. They wouldn't have used that ammount of hops unless they felt it absolutely necessary. With IPA, it was done for keeping qualities, not for flavour. When they brewed IPA for the domestic market, they immediately reduced the hop content as it was no longer necessary to make the beer so robust.

If you look at the development of porter over its lifetime, you'll see that the changes are all driven by economics.

(1) It started as an All Brown malt beer to replace the mixtures of brown beers commonly drunk at that time.

(2) Then, they invented the hydrometer and discovered how much less extract they got compared to pale malt - which was becoming more cost effective to produce as well. so the pale/brown and pale/brown/amber porters appeared.

(3) Patent black malt arrives! Hey! We can use more pale, make it weaker, and still con the public that it's strong by adding more black malt. (until the hydrometer arrived brewers and public assumed that darker = stronger)

(4) Lose the brown malt - unecomomic - make it weaker, but add various chemicals and odd flavourings to try and keep it looking and tasting the same....liquorice, chilli, burnt caramel, you name it.

Porter loses popularity owing to economics driven lowering of quality, and to the popularity of Pale Ale.

[onlooker]

I had the first little taste of my IPA out of the fermentor, its tasting awsome, big aromas of tropical fruit vanilla and passionfruit, fruiit and sweet malt on the palet and then a big finish with big firm bitterness and a touch of warming alchohol.

[mysterio]

Sounds good onlooker - it's always a good sign if the beer tastes good out of the primary. Imagine how it will be in a few months.