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India Pale Ales - Steven Segletes, Vice President (March 1998)
Greetings and palpitations! This month's beer style, India Pale Ale (IPA), will always hold a special place in my heart. After all, it was through this style that I, while in college, took my first tentative step beyond American Light Lagers. Sure, I had been to Germany while in high school, but my palate was too young and inexperienced at that time to appreciate the intrinsic quality of those fine German lagers. And yes, I recall sharing a Coors in the late '70's, when it was still a highly prized, mythical beverage to us on the east coast (but face it, it was still a Coors). But it wasn't until college, when my taste buds were trying to draw distinctions between the Schlitz Bull, Schmidt's, Genesee Cream Ale and the like, that my roommate, Phil, entreated me to visit a local Philadelphia restaurant/pub which featured Bass Ale on tap. I remember being nearly overwhelmed with the taste sensation, so unlike the swill to which I had grown accustomed, that was being served up at Drexel frat parties. It is testimony to the quality of Bass that, on a college budget, we splurged for a second pitcher of Bass, rather than return to the more economically priced domestic alternatives.It is intriguing to note that Bass' red-triangle logo was Britain's (and perhaps the world's) first registered trademark, having been granted on 25 July 1890. Even prior to that, bottles of Bass Ale, conspicuously sporting the red triangle, appear in the 1882 Manet painting, "The Bar at the Folies- Bergeres."
The super-premium, high-gravity (compared to Bitter), highly-hopped qualities of India Pale Ale were intended to further age and preserve the beer on its long, hot journey to that far-off market in Britain's southern Asian colony of India. Burton on Trent, the town from which the Bass brewery hails, is acknowledged as the home of IPA, though credit for the origins of the style, according to Michael Jackson, goes to the Allsopp brewery in 1822--a brewery which later merged with Ind Coope as a major component of today's Allied breweries.
The classic Burton brewing method employed a system of linked wooden barrels known as "Burton Unions." With this method, the turbulence of the fermentation process expelled beer from the barrels through swan-necked (airlocked??) tubes into a common, open-air trough. As the blow-off settled, the liquid was allowed to flow back into the barrels. It is through this fermentation system, by way of a complicated organic means not fully understood (sound like Lambic?) that Burton Ales acquired their distinctive fruitiness. Sadly, Bass abandoned this traditional, but labor-intensive, brewing practice in the early 1980's. Britain's Marsten brewery remains one of the few, if not the only, remaining brewery to still employ the "Burton Unions" brewing apparatus.
In addition to the Burton Unions, the water from Burton, high in gypsum, played a pivotal role in the British Pale Ale style, from which IPA derives. These salts make the water well suited for the robust character of IPA's and, as homebrewers know, are often added to the brewing water in an effort to achieve a similar effect with otherwise softer water.
I'm not sure if those pitchers of Draught Bass that I had around 1982 were still brewed in Unions or not, but I'd like to think that I had a chance to savor Bass Ale at its best. I certainly owe them and my friend Phil adebt of eternal gratitude, which I try to repay... every time a tip a pint of Bass. Cheers!
