Yesterday while I was waiting for Donna to return from her exercise class, our neighbor, Bud, stopped by. He said he would be running errands a little later in the morning and asked if I wanted to go along. He wanted company and it also would give me an opportunity to pick up a few things.

I called the insurance adjuster at Progressive. I told her about the police recovering my abandoned trailer. She told me to not do anything at this time. She would contact the impound yard and would inform me of next steps.

Donna returned later than usual. She stopped at Trader Joe’s on the way home from her class and bought some groceries. Around 11am, Bud and I headed out. We stopped at Home Depot where I bought a cordless drill/driver. From there we went to Walmart where Bud bought a new sewer hose for his RV.

After we returned and had lunch, Bud wanted to know where Trader Joe’s was. Donna told us how to find the Trader Joe’s on Garnet Avenue in Pacific Beach. I went there with Bud and bought a few beers. I bought a one-quart jug of black and tan called Mississippi Mud. This is a blend of porter and lager. I also bought a couple of India Pale Ales (IPAs). The Trader Joe’s house brand is called Boatswain (say bo’sun). One of the IPAs I bought is Boatswain American IPA. It’s typical of the style with 6.7% alcohol by volume (ABV). The other one is called Boatswain Twin Screw Steamer which is a double IPA with 8.4% ABV.

I mentioned drinking IPA in yesterday’s post. When I lived in Mesa, Arizona I brewed my own beer in five-gallon batches. Pale ale and IPA were styles I brewed frequently. I belonged to a homebrew beer club there – the Arizona Society of Homebrewers (ASH). I like IPA and I’d like to share a little background on this beer.

In the 18th and 19th century, beer played an important role in the British Empire. The British navy supplied beer to sailors aboard ships. The vitamin B in beer was conducive to good health. British Admiralty ships stationed in the English Channel issued one gallon of beer per day to each sailor.

As the British Empire grew, beer storage aboard ships became problematic. In cooler climates, they didn’t have problems. However, in warmer climates the beer often soured or spoiled. The British occupation of India and the commercial success of the East India Company meant many Brits were in India. They wanted beer. In the days before refrigeration and climate control, brewing in hot climates didn’t produce a desirable beer.

Ships sailing from London to India made the trip primarily to return with silks and spices. This was lucrative business. They also wanted to carry goods to India to earn money both ways. Beer was an obvious export product for two reasons – market demand and inexpensive shipping.

The problem with shipping beer to India was the rigorous journey. The beer casks were shaken in the hold. The trip took weeks. The surface temperature of the oceans would vary greatly, from the low 50s near England to more than 80 degrees near the equator. This temperature variation would continue as temperatures dropped around the Cape of Good Hope and then rose again in the Indian Ocean. Constantly agitating the beer and subjecting it to temperature swings often ruined the beer; i.e., it would arrive in India flat and sour.

An English brewer named Hodgson came up with a solution. He brewed a beer with higher sugar content (a higher original gravity) which resulted in higher alcohol content once fermented. The higher original gravity meant the beer was sweet and somewhat heavy. He offset the sweetness with additional hops, raising the bitterness of the beer. He also added more hops to the cask before shipping.

Without refrigeration, the alcohol content would prevent microbial action on the beer. The isohumulone content of the hops inhibited Lactobacillus growth. Hodgson also casked the beer before it was fully aged. Some fermentation occurred as the beer cask was sloshed around in the hold of the ship. The result was a lively, carbonated, high-alcohol and bitter beer arriving in India.

This style caught on. In Great Britain, the beers of the day were dark porters and stouts, or sweet brown ales. In the tropics, these beers couldn’t survive. The IPA style was suited for the tropics and people’s taste seemed to swing to the pale ales there.

There’s a legend regarding the introduction of IPA in the home market. In 1827, a ship carrying cargo to India wrecked in the Irish Sea. The contents recovered from the hold were auctioned off. The IPA in the hold was bottled and sold locally. With this introduction and demand from sailors and ex-pats returning from India, the local market for IPA was born.

There’s a Wikipedia article that poo-poos most of what I’ve written. They claim records showing porter shipped to India in the early 1800s proves that high alcohol and high hop content weren’t necessary. These shipping records only prove that some brewers took the chance of shipping their brew. It doesn’t document whether the brew was drinkable once it made the voyage. There are plenty of references supporting the story of the development of IPA. If you’re interested, you can read more here.

Today IPA has evolved into a few distinct styles. There’s the British IPA which tends to be somewhat malty. There’s American east coast IPA, which has higher alcohol content than the British IPAs and  more hoppy bitterness. Then there’s American west coast IPA, which is even hoppier and presents hints of citrus or floral flavorings depending on which finishing hops are used.

I think I’ll go for a bike ride now and enjoy the weather before it gets too warm. Later, in the heat of the day, I might enjoy an IPA.