What's with the "India" in India Pale Ale?

I like beer, and my favorite beer is IPA, short for India Pale Ale. When I first started drinking it about ten years ago I thought, huh, interesting, so this beer is from India, hey?

I don't remember who I blurted that out to one night after a few bottles, but I'm sure they had a good laugh at my expense. It's actually the opposite. IPA doesn't get its name because it's FROM India, it gets its name because it was intended FOR India.

The story I gathered from various bar stool sessions goes like this: In the 1700s, England had a colonial presence in India, and one of the things they exported there was beer. But beer would often spoil during the long sea voyages between England and India. To keep the beer from spoiling, brewers began to add extra hops to their ale. The hops would act as a preservative, ensuring that the beer was still unspoiled and ready to intoxicate people halfway around the world. The extra hops also give it that bitter flavor that is the distinctive taste of IPA. Many sources, including Wikipedia, connect George Hodgson of Box Brewery to the origins of the practice.

On further investigation, however, some ingredients of that legendary story about the invention of "India Pale Ale" are more legend than true story. Beer Connoisseur has a great breakdown on the particulars of the story and which parts are "facts."

First of all, the process of adding hops to a pale ale bound for a warmer climate was already common practice in the 1700s, so the process wasn't invented to send beer to India. George Hodgson's name got attached to the story because his brewery was close to the port where exporters headed to India would dock, and because he was willing to extend a line of credit to East India Company traders.

And there's another wrinkle that crops up. Chow.com says that while the hops may have done a little to help as a preservative, what really happened is that it covered up the bad tastes from spoiling that a normal pale ale would get. For that reason, the British troops stationed in India came to love the taste and extra alcohol content that having extra hops in the recipe brought.

So what's with the "India" in India Pale Ale? What seems to be certain is that the addition of hops to pale ale happened because that beer was headed to India based around a common recommendation among 18th century English brewers. Whether as a preservative or a taste masker, the concoction was higher in alcohol, distinctive and caught on.

Whatever the origin, I'm passing this on so you can win yourself a free round of your favorite IPA at your next bar trivia night.

Cheers, everyone!

Image courtesy of sashafatcat via flickr