The History of Indian Pale Ales (IPA)

Gary Arndt: 00:00:05

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:07

My name is Gary Arndt and with me again as usual is the man that Astronomy Magazine named as Brewer of the Year and Brewing Magazine named as Astronomer of the Year, Mr.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:16

Bobby Fleshman.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:18

Good morning.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:19

And we also have back on the show the Sage of Suds and the Historian of Hops, Joel Hermanson.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:25

Good morning.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:26

Glad to be here.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:28

Now, if there was a beer aficionado magazine at the end of the millennium, I bet if they took a vote as to what the beer of the 20th century was, it probably would have been a lager.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:39

Lagers were huge, but if the editors of beer enthusiast magazine were to take a quarter century vote as to what the beer of the 21st century was, I would be willing to bet that they would say it would probably be the IPA.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:52

IPAs have become very, very popular, but a lot of people who drink IPAs might not even know what the letters IPA mean, or which is India Pale Ale, or why it's named after India.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:08

And so we got Joel here.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:10

We're just going to talk about IPAs in the show, which I know is your favorite topic.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:14

so where, where do IPAs come from?

Gary Arndt: 00:01:16

What's, what's the origin story?

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:18

So just backing up one second.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:20

You mentioned that a lot of people don't know what that acronym means.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:25

I probably in the eight hours that I spend behind the bar here a week, I probably explain that to people at least three times a week.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:37

So I don't think you're wrong, and nor do I think that you're wrong about the assertion that the IPA is the beer of the 21st century.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:45

Century.

Gary Arndt: 00:01:45

No, I think that you're seeing with, especially with the explosion of craft brewing could you have even found an IPA 50 years ago, realistically, I mean, maybe somebody would've made it would

Bobby Fleshman: 00:01:56

be a dying breed.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:01:58

There's a couple from new England that were surviving at that time and a couple from England, but yeah, not a lot, but now they're kind of everywhere.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:06

Almost.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:07

Yeah, yeah, and it's such a broad category, you know, to call it the beer of this century would be like saying The car is the best vehicle of the century.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:16

Well, it was very broad, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:18

Yeah, and it was

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:19

Anyway, so back to your question.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:21

So to provide this beer a bit of historical context We 1750s Which is when the style was utilized out of necessity.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:35

The British had conquered India in 1757.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:39

And India was different from a number of, the British colonies in that it was a settler colony.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:46

So a lot of British people migrated to India.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:50

You know, to fulfill roles in the British military, in the administration of the Indian state under the British, to take a leadership role in the British East India Company, etc.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:01

So there were literally tens of thousands, if not Hundreds of thousands by their high point of British people living in India.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:11

I don't think we need to explain that British people love beer.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:16

So they were trying to bring beer to India because brewing beer in India in a tropical environment of which most of India is That's just not an option.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:27

So they had to bring it 12, 000 miles.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:28

We should say this

Gary Arndt: 00:03:29

is pre refrigeration, pre mechanization, all that stuff.

Gary Arndt: 00:03:33

Yes.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:33

So brewing beer, not a candidate for the, for the geography of India.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:38

So We're talking early 1700s?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:40

Yep,

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:40

1750s.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:41

Yeah, not, not, just not, not an option.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:44

So, they started to bring beer to the people of India the British living in India.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:50

And this is tw more than 12, 000 miles.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:53

This is before the Suez Canal, so if you're envisioning a map, you have to start all the way up in the northern reaches of Europe, you have to go th down through the Atlantic.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:03

You know, down around the, the Cape and Africa, into the Indian Ocean, and then, hopefully, you caught the trade wind at the right time, otherwise, you're gonna be stuck there for a while because of the monsoon trade winds.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:15

Then you arrive in India.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:18

So this journey would take anywhere from six to nine months to do this, and would've been very difficult for a person.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:26

But to bring beer there, and I'm just going to describe the conditions a little bit, and then I'm going to turn it over to Bobby to see what he thinks this beer would have tasted like.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:38

So the beer is put in what's called a hog's head, which is an enormous cask, and it would be about 50 to 60 gallon in size.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:47

Okay, and it's probably a porter perhaps a pale ale over our shoulders.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:51

We're looking at barrels that are

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:52

of that size.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:53

Yep Yep.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:54

Yep, so it's put in this enormous barrel and It is experiencing, you know, a lot of temperature changes because when it leaves England, the water in the North Atlantic is 50 some degrees.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:09

As you move into the equatorial region, obviously the water temperature is getting into the 70s, if not into the 80s.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:16

The Indian Ocean is really warm.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:19

the Atlantic is going to jostle the beer quite a bit.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:24

barrels in the middle of the 18th century aren't going to be completely anaerobic.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:28

So after a nine month journey, Bobby, take it over.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:32

What, what, what are we looking at as far as the taste?

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:36

What did like, is this?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:38

I think right off the bat, there's a, there's something we have to say that they learned very quickly that through those conditions that a beer would, would recarbonate in barrel that they would think it was otherwise completed.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:49

They would put it into an oak barrel, send it on its way, and then it would explode mid journey because it's fermenting and becoming more carbonated than the staves and the hoops would, would be able to hold back and they'd have explosions.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:01

So what they learned was they would actually have six month old beer going into barrel before it ever left England.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:08

That was a lesson they learned way back.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:11

And the other thing was that they, they couldn't, they didn't have the science of microbiology at their disposal.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:19

And so they, they didn't have what we modern hygienic techniques.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:23

So they, they were re propagating natural yeast, which we now call brettanomyces.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:30

And if anyone knows how to break down those words, Brett refers to the British and myses refers to fungus, which a yeast is.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:38

So we, we, we work with brettanomyces these days, deliberately, but in those times, it made it into everything and wines and beer alike.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:48

And the, the bread, the cool thing about bread is or not cool thing, depending on your intention, the bread will consume all of the sugar available to it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:58

And that's a good thing because if there are other Like say acid, more acetic acid producing bacteria downstream, they won't have anything, anything to consume.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:07

So they were sort of inadvertently making something that was stable, whether, even before we get into the conversation on hops.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:15

So, so that was, that's, that was how they prepped their beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:18

They fermented with brett intentionally or otherwise, and then they let it completely age out before they threw it on the ship.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:25

That said, yes, these barrels were not airtight.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:28

Oxygen made its way in, and in nature, things tend to oxidize.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:33

And when they do, they can be pleasant or not, depending on how our olfactory and our own memory system has taught us to react.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:41

So when it would make it to the islands, I'm expecting a couple of things.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:46

The, the grain that they use was all smoked at this time because they direct fire kiln to all of the malts.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:53

So it would have carried with it a smoky note, but that's irrelevant of the journey.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:57

But what it would have picked up on the journey would have been so papery aspects could show up from oxidation.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:03

Again, high attenuation and that word means dryness.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:07

Very highly dried out because it would have been dried out before.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:10

Prior to avoid the explosion, but even furthermore throughout the journey because you're continuing to jostle and bring in oxygen to keep the bread, whatever viability is remaining with these bread, they're able to consume whatever is left and they get the driest version of what we would call an IPA at those in modern times.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:32

I'll back up a little bit and say that some of the ingredients they were using were potentially sort of candied.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:38

So you might have had a little bit of a caramel or candied component, and that's, that was a food source for those breads on those long journeys.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:45

They would consume that over the course of 6 to 8 to 12 months.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:49

So at the end of the day, I assume They were, they were traveling, they were, they were bringing these IPAs this way from England.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:55

They were also bringing a lot of Porter this way at this time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:59

And I expect maybe Joel can answer this, that people were consuming this native, natives were consuming this unless there were religious reasons that they didn't.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:08

I don't.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:09

Even know the history there, but that they weren't just supplying their own colonists to their own people in India.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:15

Well, I think initially they they were probably just providing for the british but over time.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:20

Yeah, I think it extended to the people of india as well

Gary Arndt: 00:09:23

just as a side note I think this is the reason why the british navy relied on rum as their primary drink is that it was much easier to store and then they would just mix it with water to create grog and a lot less hassle to deal with and dealing with beer.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:38

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:09:38

Makes

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:38

sense.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:39

So I, and I think to, to conclude the scientific analysis of what you mentioned, the beer that they experienced went after that nine month journey was probably not particularly good.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:50

I think that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:51

If you went back and tried it, you probably would say so.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:54

But if you live in their time, I'm, I'm not sure you'd have the same response to it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:00

You have context.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:01

They, you have something to compare it against.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:04

I bet they thought it was pretty good.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:05

I bet in all things considered, I don't know if that's going to happen again in 300 years that people look back at this time, but I would expect it was pretty good to the people that were.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:14

They were there.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:14

I mean, we've talked about this in previous episodes, that if we were to go back and taste beer from two to 300 years ago, we probably wouldn't like it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:22

It would be hard to maybe recognize it too.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:24

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:24

Whether

Gary Arndt: 00:10:25

we like it or not.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:25

And, and from a personal note, I've sailed from Cape town to Morocco.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:30

So I've gone up the West coast of Africa through the Gulf of Guinea and the temperature change in the water is enormous.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:37

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:37

That along the.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:39

From say Namibia up through there, the water's very cold.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:42

It's coming up from Antarctica.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:43

And then as you go through the Gulf of Guinea, it becomes very, very warm.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:47

And the ship we were on was designed for polar regions and it was doing its annual or biannual move from North to South.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:55

And when we were in West Africa.

Gary Arndt: 00:10:57

The ship became incredibly hot.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:00

And I could just imagine, like it was, it would be, I'm guessing the below deck on a, even on a wooden ship, it would be in the nineties.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:05

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:06

And that wood is breathing.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:08

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:08

And so you're going from cold temperatures to very warm temperatures.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:13

Then as you're going down the west coast of Africa, cold temperatures again, then you go back up the east coast of Africa.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:19

That's when you hit the warm waters coming down, that warms up again.

Gary Arndt: 00:11:23

And so, yeah, I can totally see how you're going to have problems with, with temperature.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:27

Well, and, and when you consider, you know, the, the, the modern brewing process, we want an anaerobic environment.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:35

We want a consistent temperature.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:37

We want, you know, all of these things that are required to keep the yeast stable and, and doing their work.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:45

And this journey.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:48

you know, is something that was very, very hard on beer.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:51

So they ultimately made a decision in the 1760s to, to really increase the alcohol that was available to the beer and to increase the hops because the, by driving up the ABVs and increasing the IBUs.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:10

It's the International Bitterness Unit.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:11

Now they didn't, I don't think they used the phrase IBU.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:14

That's a 20th century phenomenon, but they knew pounds of hops

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:17

per barrel, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:18

And they correlated that too,

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:19

right?

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:19

And as we've talked about on this show, hops had been used as a preservative agent really since the 12th century with Hildegard Bingham.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:28

so the decision was made to kind of.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:31

amp up the hops to amp up the alcohol so that the beer would have a better chance of arriving in India, you know,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:41

staving off the bacteria, right?

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:42

Being more and being more pleasant.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:44

Cause the other thing you have to realize the people that are moving to India are executives within the British East India company.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:52

They are high ranking military officials within the British, the British Navy.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:57

you know, we're not, You know, moving, you know, people from industrial England at that point, you know, who are maybe living at the bottom of the English universe.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:07

These are significant people.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:10

They're gentry and they have, you know, significant taste palates and they have, you know, desires to have the best things.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:19

And

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:20

for better, for worse, this is a, this is a food safe version of water, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:24

I mean, you can, it's not contaminated with anything that might Kill you.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:29

Right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:29

So people were able as a luxury to drink beer for that reason too.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:33

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:34

And then this kind of coincided with something in the 1770s when the British started to use a particular style of coke.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:41

To heat the malt in the malting process that didn't produce smoke.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:47

So you're, that smoky flavor that you're talking about, you know, a smoke, and I'll just be very honest.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:56

I do not like rauk beers at all.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:58

I, the, the idea of smoke to me is an off flavor in beer but if I were to have a rauk style, a porter would probably be more appropriate.

Joel Hermensen: 00:14:11

If you added that to a pale ale or an IPA, to me, that would, yeah, they're just really not,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:17

phenols from the smoke that can very much clash.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:21

Right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:14:21

So when they started to use that type of Coke and they cleaned up the malting process, making, you know, the, the malts crisper, lighter.

Joel Hermensen: 00:14:31

This is the introduction of these hops, the introduction of a higher ABV environment made a great deal of sense.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:39

And this is the introduction of the marketing term, pale ale, pale ale, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:44

We call it, we talk about hazy IPA today, and if you're, if you haven't heard of hazy, you haven't come out of your house in the last 10 years, but hazy today, it has circled the globe.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:55

So quickly, it probably circled the globe in two weeks, but back in those times, it took a few years, but eventually IPA pale ale became the, the standard of brewing.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:05

If you could have a beer that was see through able, it said something about the brewer and your choice.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:12

Now, you brewed two beers in this style, and I want to kind of pivot to touch on We probably brewed

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:18

20 different Right, but Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:20

Two, I know where we're going.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:21

Two primary,

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:22

beers that, you know, really hit on this Before we get too

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:25

far, I did want to say one thing about the ABV of these beers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:27

They would go into barrel at such ABV, and then en route, en route, they would actually evaporate the water off and become stronger at the end of the journey.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:36

I don't know the numbers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:37

Probably a couple percent higher than when they science nerds out there will know something, chemistry nerds will know a term azeotrope.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:44

And if Allison were sitting to my right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:46

She would explain it, but the phenomenon refers to if you have a glass of water and a glass of alcohol on the table the waters will not evaporate as fast as will the alcohol.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:56

But if you combine the two at a certain percentage, there's an interaction between the alcohol and the water molecules that prevents the alcohol from, from evaporating away.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:04

And that's what happens in those barrels.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:05

So that's a side note left, left for Allison to explain at some point.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:09

But there you have

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:10

to have an episode on.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:12

that chemical phenomenon.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:14

Right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:14

It's pretty fascinating.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:15

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:15

All right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:16

So here we go.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:16

I didn't mean to interrupt.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:17

No.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:18

So you brew in a, in a, a number of these styles.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:22

But you have two flagships here that kind of Look back to that 19th century style and this feels like a good opportunity to talk a little bit about your work and the the the You know the products that we have here at mcfleshman's Can you talk really quickly about the msb and tall mass which seem to?

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:44

Harken back to that 19th You know, late 18th, early 19th century in British brewing.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:50

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:51

So they, they, they are admittedly, as you said, they're like late 18th, early 19th century inspired, you know, whereas we've been talking a little bit about mid 17th, I guess, mid 1750s.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:02

So I'm talking literally 1900s and late 1800s.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:06

So late 19th century is what I'm thinking about when I'm, when we build MSB and tall mass.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:12

The reason I say that is because there's absolutely no, no thought of adding smoked malts into it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:18

Number one, and we are adding some modern kiln, the malts into those modern incense that they're 150 years old in their, in their origins.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:26

We're adding some caramel malts, crystal malts, actually, like the British use.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:31

Those are some candy kind of flavors.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:33

You can coax out if you have a control over your Kilning process.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:36

I don't know how much we've talked about the malting process and the kilning process, but, just a quick review is that you take a grain out of the field and if it is not dormant, you can add water to it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:49

It'll go undergo germination.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:51

And then through that, you can, you can arrest that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:55

Germination process whereby it's been softening and becoming more able to turn into beer your rest the process mid stride.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:03

Otherwise, it'll consume all of its sugar and grow a plant and then then what you do after that is what really makes your signature flavors.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:10

If you're a monster.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:11

So you can take it and just dry it lightly.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:14

You can make what's what I know it's Pilsner malts, pale malts, two row malts, or you can increase the temperature on that throughout that process.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:21

You can make a higher kiln, what they're called kiln malts, where you're adding heat, more and more heat at higher and higher temperatures for longer amounts of time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:29

You can make all kinds of stuff with that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:31

So my point being is a lot of technology didn't exist until somewhere around 1870, 1880.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:38

And certainly you didn't see black malt appear on the scene like you would an Irish stout, Mattel, I want to say like 1920 or so, that's when you start to see like your Guinness type beers being able to be produced because you're, you're working with 480 degrees and you're incinerated, potentially incinerating the grain and causing a fire every time you run it through your drum roaster.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:58

So MSB tall masks are built from that time forward.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:02

I have been thinking, and that one of them is an English bidder, one's an English IPA.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:07

And, and the context is what I'm trying to do there is balance that malt sweetness with these earthy hops that you find grown in England, not like your, your West Coast, IPAs, which will have a tremendous amount of oils and, and citrus and tropical components.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:24

These are just very drinkable beers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:26

They're, they're often served more like 50 degrees, less carbonation there.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:31

They come from the, the culture of England, as we know it in the last 150 years.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:36

But I have been thinking a lot about prior to that, I've been thinking about brewing an old, what I'm going to call an old world IPA, and that fits right into this scheme.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:44

Back in those times you would have sort of a commodity pale malt that would not have been maybe well modified, well germinated, well kilned, and all the things that we know how to do much better today.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:54

I've been thinking about how does one build a beer with that?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:58

And you don't just go to the shelf and buy 15 different spices like we can today, all these different malts that we play with.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:04

You have a base malt.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:06

And if you're lucky, I bet you would have maybe a, some kind of a higher kiln, maybe even a caramel malt, but I think that's more modern as well, where the kernels actually taste like little candies.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:17

That's a whole other conversation, but.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:19

So you have to work with maybe one, if maybe two ingredients on the malt side and then you're definitely just working with one hop and

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:26

Gary is delighted about this because Gary has been clamoring for us to brew historical beers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:34

Oh yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:35

It's right there.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:36

It might be in the next three batches.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:37

Ranging from

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:38

the amber that you wanted us to brew with the 2 million year old amber or whatever that you had.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:43

I don't know if that'll work, but I think it's a good idea.

Gary Arndt: 00:20:47

But the

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:47

guy to do it's the guy sitting in my lap.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:50

Absolutely.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:51

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:52

So yeah, this is, I think, To everyone out there.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:55

It's just really exciting to hear you talk

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:57

and I've been waiting until we got to the point where we could, we would be allowed to brew something so historical.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:02

Now, now people literally are clamoring for us to do it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:06

We have a QR code on the bar downstairs asking people what they want us to brew next.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:10

And on that list, there are two beers rising to the top.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:14

One is our West Coast red IPA.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:16

And the other one is this Old World English IP that hasn't been invented, we haven't brewed yet.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:22

So, yeah, I'm definitely in that mind space right now, for sure.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:25

Right, and Tall Mast, for those who have not had it I think really is maybe the best beer that I've ever had that tries to capture, you know, this, Pre American IPA, the one that's not going to, you know, be this hop forward.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:44

It's malt forward.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:45

It's earthy.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:46

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:47

it's, it's absolutely, it definitely surprises people

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:51

that expect both, whether they come from the camp of expecting a lot of IBUs and bitterness or the hazy camp, or they expect a ton of juicy flavors.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:59

Neither of those people.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:00

Will be expecting what they get when they get a tallmast.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:04

It's a different beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:04

Yeah,

Joel Hermensen: 00:22:05

and you know 99 times out of 100 They're also not going to be disappointed either

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:09

right it but there is that okay?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:11

I got to just take take my my preconceptions and put them aside,

Joel Hermensen: 00:22:14

right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:15

The

Joel Hermensen: 00:22:17

other thing that I wanted to talk a little bit about because this does change the dynamic a little bit And I think we would we would be making a mistake if we didn't mention the fact that in the 1850s You In sixties, kind of around this time of some of these innovations that are happening, the rotating drum using coke to produce paler malts, at that time is also when the Suez Canal is completed.

Joel Hermensen: 00:22:44

And I think just even looking at the statistics 12, 000 miles and a six to nine month journey is all of a sudden now being shortened to just under 7000 miles.

Joel Hermensen: 00:22:58

And about three and a half to five months.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:01

So, I, I think that that probably increased the quality of the beer.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:06

And you're staying

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:07

in one zone.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:08

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:09

Effectively.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:10

Right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:10

Of the climate.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:10

Right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:11

So, you're cutting into the, for those that don't know where the Suez Canal would be, you're, you're still starting in the North Atlantic, but then you're cutting across You know, from the Mediterranean side, and then you're going down through the canal, through the Red Sea and out into the Indian Ocean.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:26

So it's, you're, it's, so you're

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:28

covering quite a few latitudes.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:29

You're just not going down and back, you know, giving it that, right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:32

It's not going cold, warm, cold.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:34

Yeah, yeah,

Gary Arndt: 00:23:35

yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:23:35

It's just kind of a, more of a gradual warming up.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:39

And we should also point out that , our friend, the IPA was interrupted.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:45

For a time period during that period of time in which Napoleon had been, you know, creating all of that turmoil, in Europe, there was a number of blockades that had been put in that had prevented some of the shipment, and at one point, I think it was, the year was 1810, I thought I read that the, amount of beer that was being sent to India had dropped to only 4, 000 barrels.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:10

Which, for that amount of population of people working for the British East India Company, that, that's a, that's a significant drop.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:18

And I think the people of India that were British living there that were British, were probably suffering, without their, without their beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:29

So I look down, did you say what replaced it?

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:32

No, I, I don't, I don't actually know what replaced it, to be totally honest.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:37

Okay.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:38

That would, I don't think, I would imagine wine.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:42

I'd say gin.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:43

Gin?

Gary Arndt: 00:24:44

That'd be my guess.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:45

Or something to that extent that would be more compact in terms of alcohol.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:50

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:50

And possibly something they could make there.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:53

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:53

so a distillery would probably go for better.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:55

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:56

Now, and fortunately this isn't a very long period of time.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:00

This is only a two or three shipping years.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:02

And I'm not,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:02

I'm not sure distilling technologies were.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:05

Available yet at that point in history,

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:08

right?

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:09

So the IPA is, successful.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:11

It's a popular beer in the 19th century.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:14

The English started to drink it as well.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:17

Not just, I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact that, you know, this isn't just being jettisoned to India.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:23

People in England are drinking this style as well.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:26

They're appreciating this style.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:28

Again, I think, and this is also where glass see through glassware becomes more popular because you have a, you know, Pale drink and it signifies your, your status on some level before it hits the full mainstream.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:40

Right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:41

And everything I think in the IPA world is moving forward until the 1830s.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:48

And in the 1830s, this is when the British parliament had instituted several policies to try and rein in the use of grain.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:59

the English corn laws that were grain laws that were put into effect in part because of the problems that England was having with feeding an industrial population.

Joel Hermensen: 00:26:11

So they were really kind of getting after breweries in general to limit the amount of grain that they're using.

Joel Hermensen: 00:26:20

Well, that's obviously not compatible with this style.

Joel Hermensen: 00:26:23

Right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:26:24

Because they're putting grain in there to drive up the ABVs for this journey, and they're, you know, they're adding hops to it.

Joel Hermensen: 00:26:31

And this is where I'm going to ask for your wisdom on this, because as a home brewer, I know I've done it, where I've, I've, you know, tried to brew something that's going to come across as, you know, Super hoppy and I don't have a balance with the malts and it it it comes out very very poorly So the style suffered as a result of that.

Joel Hermensen: 00:26:53

Can you talk about why that you know, that balance is so key

Bobby Fleshman: 00:26:57

Well, first of all, so they were They were forcing brewers to use adjuncts like corn?

Joel Hermensen: 00:27:02

No, they were forcing brewers to use less grain because they needed to divert some of that grain into, into the industrial European.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:12

Well, yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:13

So, right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:15

I will say ethanol hits a perceivable body at 6 percent alcohol.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:19

So once you drop Below that you lose body and it, and it has something to do with why we don't like, a lot of us don't like non alcoholic beers is because there's a, there's a body that's missing.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:31

And how do you replace that?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:33

So actually we have a, an IPA, a non alcoholic IPA that's done really well for us.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:38

And I've been thinking about this malt hop balance in the context of lower alcohol, zero alcohol, and you have to, you got to replace it and you don't want it to be a sweet, bombs.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:50

So you have to figure out where that line is.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:27:52

They may not have had, like I said, that control because if they have bacteria and yeast that are running rampant until microbiology and cleaning techniques were developed it's all going to dry out and it's not, it's not gonna have any body.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:04

You're going to have whatever hops were in there.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:07

And now you're talking about 5 percent alcohol, I assume somewhere.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:10

That's probably where they were pushing them in England.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:13

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:14

alcohol itself isn't necessary, but it does give you that body.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:17

And I, and I belabor that point because I think that is a key balancing attribute of a, of a, an IPA to balance against those hops.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:25

So that's interesting.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:26

I, I don't know how they would have managed that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:27

I guess they would have brought their IPA or their hopping levels down to might've become a quite a watery example.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:35

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:28:35

Well, and

Joel Hermensen: 00:28:35

this is where I'll tell a personal narrative.

Joel Hermensen: 00:28:39

I travel for beer periodically.

Joel Hermensen: 00:28:42

I like to go to breweries and things as much as the next person, but Bobby's actually ruined beer for me because when I go somewhere and I, I, those of you that know me, I'm 99 percent of the beer that I drink is an IPA and I drink an IPA.

Joel Hermensen: 00:28:59

And I'll be like, nope, nope, this is out of balance, you know, it's not 5.

Joel Hermensen: 00:29:03

47 and I have a really hard time appreciating these other beers because of the masterful work you do.

Joel Hermensen: 00:29:13

And then it has kind of impacted my, the rest of my beer experience.

Joel Hermensen: 00:29:18

I've

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:18

given Vinny Chlerzov of Russian River a lot of credit for this.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:22

I, I know him only through emails and reputation.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:25

I missed my chance to meet him in the past, but he's, he's inspired my career in a lot of ways.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:30

Well, while I was sitting in his pub at Russian River, going through basically everything on the menu, at least in just sample glass.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:37

I would say never do that, but I was only in town for so long, but I had to try them all.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:41

And I thought, what is it about?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:42

What, why is every beer on the table?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:44

Perfect.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:45

And it wasn't maybe objectively perfect.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:48

Maybe someone would, would take this ingredient and change it in some way, but what was it?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:53

What was that thread between all of them?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:56

And fermentation.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:29:58

He had such a handle on fermentation.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:00

It was so clean and everything was so dry and I thought that's it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:05

That's how you make whatever you put in it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:08

That's the signature of any good I.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:10

P.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:11

A.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:11

Or otherwise is you have to ferment it out because if you don't, It's not that it's not fermented out that's the problem, it's that what caused it not to ferment out, you know, the health of the yeast is what caused it not to ferment out.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:26

And how did that manifest downstream?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:28

And I think that's when it clicked for me.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:30

So yeah, I am thinking about balance, but I'm also thinking about health of the yeast.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:35

And so if anyone wants a tip, that's where I put my focus if I were opening a brewery or even if I were a home brewer and it's how I did do both of those things.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:43

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:30:44

Thanks a lot.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:45

That's going to have to wrap up this episode, but we will be back more to talk about IPA and the IPA story.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:53

And just on a personal note, I just wish that one day someone looks at me the way Joel looks at a IPA.

Gary Arndt: 00:30:58

that's my goal in life.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:31:00

Does his wife listen to this?

Gary Arndt: 00:31:02

So until next time, make sure you subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast players.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:06

So you'll never miss an episode and feel free to join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and support the show over on Patrion.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:12

Links to both of these are in the show notes.

Gary Arndt: 00:31:14

And until next time, please remember to respect the beer.

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