IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of India Pale Ale

405 Pages·2012·14.07 MB·English

by  Mitch Steele

IPA
Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of INDIA PALE
ALE
MITCH STEELE
Brewers Publications A Division of the Brewers Association PO Box 1679,
Boulder, Colorado 80306-1679
BrewersAssociation.org
© Copyright 2012 by Brewers Association All rights reserved. No portion of this
book may be reproduced in any form without written permission of the
publisher. Neither the author, the editor, nor the publisher assume any
responsibility for the use or misuse of information contained in this book.
Printed in the United States of America.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN: 978-1-938469-00-8
ISBN (epub edition): 978-1-93846902-2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Steele, Mitch.
IPA : brewing techniques, recipes, and the evolution of India pale ale / by Mitch
Steele.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-938469-00-8 (alk. paper) 1. Ale. 2. Brewing. I. Title. II. Title: India
pale ale.
TP578.S74 2012
663’.42-dc23
2012014552
Publisher: Kristi Switzer
Technical Editors: Steve Parkes, Matt Brynildson Copy Editing: Daria Labinsky,
Theresa van Zante Index: Doug Easton
Production and Design Management: Stephanie Johnson Martin Cover and
Interior Design: Julie White Cover Photography: John Edwards Photography
CONTENTS
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. English Beer and Ale Prior to 1700
2. The 1700s and the Birth of IPA
Beers of the 1700s
Beer on Boats
East India Company and Hodgson’s Bow Brewery
Ingredients in the 1700s
The Pale Ale Brewing Process
Hodgson’s Bow Pale Ale Recipe
3. The Burton IPA: 1800–1900
Burton’s Entry into the Indian Market
What’s in a Name? Becoming India Pale Ale
A Changing World
4. Brewing the Burton IPA
Ingredients
Beer Specifications
Domestic IPA
The Burton IPA Brewing Process
5. IPA Brewing around the World: 1800–1900
England: London and Other Areas
Scotland
United States
Canada
Australia
India
IPA in Decline
6. IPA Post–World War I
England
United States
7. The Craft-Beer IPA Revolution
8. IPA Variations
Double/Imperial IPA
Brewing Double IPA
Black IPA
The Story of Stone Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale
Belgian IPA
Session IPA
Triple IPA
White IPA
9. IPA Ingredients and Brewing Techniques
Malt
Specialty Malt
Brewing Sugars
Water
Milling Your Grain
Mashing
Hops
Hop Products
Developing the Hop Recipe and Calculating Bitterness
Hopping Techniques in the Brewhouse
Final Thoughts on Formulating a Hop Recipe
Fermenting Techniques for IPAs
Factors That Impact Yeast Performance and Flavor Development
Commercial Dry-Hopping Procedures
Brewing Tips by Style
10. IPA Recipes
Recipe Specifics
Historical Recipes
Early Craft-Brewing Recipes
Contemporary U.S. Craft-Brewing Recipes
Contemporary British Recipes
Double IPA Recipes
Black IPA Recipes
Appendix A: Analysis of Various IPAs from the 1800s
Appendix B: 1900s English IPA Analytical Profiles
Appendix C: Reading Historical Brewing Records
Appendix D: Conducting Your Own IPA Hunt
Notes
Bibliography
Recipe Index
Index
FOREWORD
When I was a young technician in the hops lab at Kalamazoo Spice Extraction
Company (now Kalsec Inc.), I read a news brief in a beer industry magazine
about a craft brewer from California taking a job with Anheuser-Busch. For
some reason this story intrigued me. Was this craft brewer going on a mission?
Was he on a quest for greater knowledge? Or was he selling out? I myself am a
curious brewer who has always been interested in visiting larger breweries to
learn about cutting-edge brewing technology. I have hundreds—actually,
thousands—of pictures of lauter tuns, beer pumps, gearboxes, valve sets, pipe
fences, fermenters, yeast brinks, and the like, which I have captured at breweries
all over the world. Hoping to glean gems of information that might lead me
closer to making a better beer, at Master Brewers Association of the Americas
(MBAA) or American Society of Brewing Chemists meetings I’m always keen
to strike up conversations with brewers, engineers, and scientists who work in
the major brewing leagues. I especially like conversing with the old guard—the
brewers who have been in the industry for decades and have seen it all go down.
It’s often said that one of the most difficult beers in the world to perfect is an
American-style light lager, because there is nothing at all to hide potential
defects. This is a beer that has evolved by losing all its fur and fangs. Everything
the brewer does is left naked in the glass with nothing to cover it up except
carbonation, sweetness, and light yeast character. No hop aroma, no chewy,
smoky malt middle, and no bitter hop finish. It must be brewed consistently,
centering on balance and drinkability, and be executed without a flaw.
In the hops lab back in Kalamazoo, we would analyze these light lager beers
with gas chromatographs and high-pressure liquid chromatography machines.
We were not only able to measure the IBUs of these beers, but we could break
down, evaluate, and report the individual isomers of iso-alpha acid present. We
looked at the hop oil profiles and reported to the brewers exactly what their
hopping recipes had produced to the finest detail. Most of the time these beers
were created using downstream bittering extracts, so that hop aroma wouldn’t
get in the way of drinkability and all hop notes could be controlled.
The brewers of these light lagers have the greatest resources and technology
ever applied to beer at their disposal. They hold the technology to create any
beer style imaginable. If anyone in the world could replicate a classic stout,
Pilsner, or India pale ale (IPA), they could. They are the brewing equivalent of
Microsoft, BMW, and NASA, but for some reason they choose not to brew New-
World IPAs in their own breweries. Maybe the world of beer has changed too
much since the 1800s to come full circle? Maybe something was lost in the
massive brewing vats and the vast lager cellars of these breweries that pushed
them to a point of no return? Maybe the majority of the world’s beer drinkers are
not ready to turn back time? Possibly, for the large modern breweries,
acquisitions are an easier way to test the viability of new styles than brewing
these risky beers themselves? Only time will tell, but for now the greater
brewing world has been distracted from what beer once was. The Industrial
Revolution, Prohibition, two world wars, and Depression-era economics,
followed by brand consolidation, all played a part in the world’s changing tastes
in beer. The quest for the ultimate balance and drinkability filtered away the
distinctiveness and character that once was. Light lagers took over and changed
the definition of beer and ale for the average consumer.
In the mid-1990s I was fortunate to work with Greg Hall at the Goose Island
Beer Company and to help formulate Goose Island IPA. Being a great beer
formulator, Hall knew exactly what he wanted in an IPA. Together we traveled to
the West Coast and experienced firsthand what brewers were doing with this
beer style at that time. Of course, Hall had some specific requests based on his
additional travels in England and his understanding of Old-World IPAs. He
wanted to brew the beer with no specialty malt, only pale ale malt; Burtonized
water; English ale yeast; and a sturdy hopping regime.
I helped design the hopping program and figured out how to run a beer with
an excessive amount of hops through the brewery. I also insisted on adding
Centennial hops from Yakima, Washington, to the recipe, thereby lending a
New-World hop aroma to the beer. We experimented with dry hopping by using
T90 pellets, and realized that adding the hops to green beer, just at the end of
primary fermentation, greatly accentuated the hop character and afforded a
bright beer that could be turned over in a reasonable amount of time. A blend of
English and American hops helped us refine the flavor and create something that
was very unique. From the moment Goose Island IPA was released, it drew
considerable attention. Today it continues to grow in sales and in popularity at an
astounding rate. We found ourselves on the leading edge of a revolution by
simply re-creating a modern version of what was a popular style 150 years
earlier. IPA is currently the fastest-growing style in the craft-brewing segment.
Reading this book reminds me that beer history is repeating itself. What has
developed into a real craft-brewing business started when a brewer decided to
market a beer with distinct flavor and character. This is hardly an original idea,
but with modern technology and new raw materials, our craft-brewing
movement is carving a permanent and unique mark into beer history! Two
hundred years from now, someone just like Mitch Steele will retell the story
from yet another perspective—one that discusses how American IPA resurfaced
and stormed a nation of light lager drinkers. How does this new chapter end? We
will have to wait and see.
As Mitch tells us, the raw materials that truly define craft brewing are
American hops—more specifically, the “4 Cs” of hoppy brewing: Cascade,
Centennial, Chinook, and Columbus. Their citrusy, fruity American character
has become one of the defining notes that differentiate American craft-brewed
ales from all other beers. It is difficult to imagine modern craft brewing without
them. Thanks to Charles Zimmerman, Al Haunold, Stan Brooks and their U.S.
hop-breeding programs, we are able to create beers with a bold, defining
character, which we can truly call our own—American style. At no time or place
has this been more evident to me than in my recent travels throughout Europe,
lecturing for Hop Growers of America.
Tasting American IPAs and rubbing American hops with European brewing
students is an experience I wish I could share with every brewer back home. I
can’t tell you how many times I have heard “This is crazy,” “This is not beer,” or
“This would never sell in Germany,” as I see these brewers’ eyes light up with
excitement.
Each year the curiosity for these beers increases, and the demand for
American aroma hops expands into new markets. Jean De Clerk, in his 1957
book, A Textbook of Brewing, states that “American hops are characterized by a
rather fruity flavor which is unsuitable for European beers.” And yet now, 55
years later, beers are surfacing throughout Europe that showcase new American
hop varieties. The seeds of the revolution have taken root. What we don’t know
is how widespread this trend will become. Are we sure that we want it to spread
throughout the world? Do we really dream of the day when large, shareholder-
driven companies take hold of a style like IPA and turn it into a product for the
masses? Maybe we do, maybe we don’t. But at this point we can be proud that
our New-World IPAs have found a serious audience, and at the same time we
can hope that our hard work and passion don’t meet the same fate that IPA met
during its last historical run.
I owe Mitch a great deal of gratitude for introducing me to Ian Jeffery and
helping me land a collaborative brewing gig at Marston’s Beer Company in
Burton-on-Trent, which is, as you will read, a key city in the history of IPAs. At
Marston’s I was able to see the last active Burton Union fermentation program
left in the world and to brew hoppy American-style pale ale. The casks that we
produced were served at pubs all over England.
Mitch is correct when he says that every brewer owes him-or herself a
pilgrimage to Burton-on-Trent to absorb the brewing history of that place.
Although it may not be a tourist destination, Burton-on-Trent is the true
epicenter of modern pale ale brewing. Mitch spent some quality time in this
brewing mecca, meeting with brewing historians, publicans, and brewers, so he
could collect firsthand information for this book. Now he has taken what he has
learned and neatly woven it into an engaging and eye-opening history of IPA
blended with immensely technical brewing information. Mitch not only debunks
the classic story of what the first IPAs really were and how they were made, but
also chronicles the tragic account of ale’s rise and fall over the last three
centuries. Then he goes on to include a serious volume of recipes and techniques
from classic old-world IPAs to modern craft-style double IPAs. This book should
sit on every brewer’s bookshelf.
I have known Mitch for more than a decade, and yet I can’t exactly say when
or where I first met him. Quite possibly it was at the Anheuser-Busch booth at
the Great American Beer Festival® while tasting his pilot batch of IPA, or
maybe it was at an MBAA meeting on the East Coast, where I listened to him
lecture on brewing techniques. Even more likely it was after a session at a Craft
Brewers Conference, where several of us sat at a pub and discussed the
intricacies of brewing hoppy beers. (Likeminded brewers seem to always find
each other and share information.) Whenever or wherever it was, since that time
I have admired his noble name, his brewing knowledge, and his beers.
It was a wonderful day when I heard that Mitch was leaving Anheuser-Busch
and coming back to craft brewing to head up production at Stone Brewing Co.
Perhaps he is an American brewing prodigal son? For sure he is a curious brewer
who took a serious walk on the other side. He has studied abroad, learned from
the best, and taken some time to share his passion with us. It is an honor to say
that I have brewed with Mitch and can call him a friend.
Cheers to one of the great brewers of our time and to his epic book on India
pale ales.
Matt Brynildson
Brewmaster
Firestone Walker Brewing Company
Brewer of Union Jack and Double Jack IPA