India Pale Ales are definetely not for the faint hearted. The story goes that in order to ensure that beer shipped to India would be potable if not palatable you needed a high alcohol content and plenty of hops. The beer would mature on the long journey to India rather than go off, which was highly possible given the lack of refrigeration. Nowadays, the challenges that required such a specific brewing technique are gone, but that hasn’t stopped brewers around the world copying the style and making this very bitter style of beer. In the same way that there is a perverse competition to make the hottest sauce, micro brewers in particular trip to make the bitterest IPA, and now a new style – Double IPA has emerged.
Marstons, a brewer of some significance in the UK, has produced its version of an IPA called Old Empire. It’s nice and strong (5.7%) and whilst bitter – it is not squintingly so. Not a bad effort for a commercial brewer which looks like it takes great lengths to behave like a craft brewer. Marstons is the sponsor of the English cricket team – so maybe this beer and others in their stable will become more widespread in Australia next year.
back of the ferry 