The first thing I discovered about the IPA was that many people were under the impression that a man named George Hodgson created the IPA’s characteristic hoppiness in the mid-1700s. But while he was in fact the face of the brewery that became the number one seller of IPAs of his age, his success wasn’t due to his beer’s incredible ABV (alcohol by volume) or ground-breaking recipe. The second thing I heard was that the concept of adding extra hops to beer was introduced in the 1760s to help keep it from spoiling in the shipping process from England to India. But even this was debunked, as ales were being successfully shipped with minimal spoilage from at least the start of the 18th century, and the variety of beer that has grown into what we call an IPA was originally only 6.5% ABV, which “was, if anything, weaker than average for the time,” according to Martyn Cornell, from The Beer Connoisseur.”
It turns out Hodgson’s success was due largely to the fact that his brewery was located right near the dock that the East India Company’s ships were tied. He would also give extended credit to the ships’ commanders who would regularly take beer with them on their voyage to trade and sell to their companions in India. It sounds to me like Hodgson was a smart businessman more than anything else. Though his popularity can be explained, how he came to be credited for creating the signature flavor of the IPA continues to remain a mystery.
The IPA is the choice drink in today’s booming craft beer scene. As a native Richmonder, where breweries are popping up all over the place, I kept wondering what it was about the IPA. The first time I accidentally tasted a beer I thought it tasted like soap, and later found out it was my brother’s poorly placed IPA. Based on my passionate opinions about food, I’m the kind of person who should like the IPA. I just don’t. While I’ve encountered a couple I could enjoy for more than a few sips, most of the IPAs I’ve tasted don’t make me want to keep drinking. So I wanted to find out if it really was the superior beer or whether something else was going on.
Enter a man named Richard Faithful.
Richard has a decade of craft beer experience behind him, having worked at several different breweries. Among his profession he worked for Dogfish Head Brewery for six years, was the Sales Manager for Lost Rhino in Northern Virginia, and was the Front of House Manager for The Answer in Richmond for the last two years. He is now planning to start brewing locally soon and continue his focus on beer education by running the University of Richmond’s new brewing program. We talked over the phone.
I asked him why there have been so many breweries opening in the last several years. According to visitrichmondva.com's Beer Trail Map, as of 2016, Richmond alone has become the home to thirty two craft breweries, and in the last four years Fredericksburg has opened its doors to nine new breweries (according to visitfred.com). The answer I got was not what I was expecting. He said it all started in 2012 when Hardywood, a Virginia brewery, worked with an agricultural lobbying group to help change the beer laws in Virginia. It used to be that breweries weren’t allowed to serve beer out of their tasting rooms, but rather had sell to a distributor that would then sell through a retailer. However now breweries could sell out of a whole batch directly out of their tasting room, making double or triple the amount of money they could have before.
Because of this change in law a lot of brewers outside of the state of Virginia have come here because they can make more money. That being said I assumed there was some sort of certification process people had to go through to become brewers. However Richard explained that while there are formal schools and programs that can help greatly, most of the brewers he knows don’t have formal education. “Brewing’s a lot like music.” Richard said. “You don’t need a certification to be a famous musician.”
So why, among this seemingly ideal setup for success, was the IPA floating to the top of the craft beer scene? In part, it was because the IPA was cheaper to make. “An ale is cheaper for a small brewery to make than a lager, not because of ingredients, but time,” he said. He went on to explain that an IPA generally takes two weeks to brew, and since many breweries have limited tank space it makes more sense to brew a beer you can flip every two weeks and sell rather than a month long lager. However while it’s cheaper in the general sense of time that goes into brewing an IPA, he emphasized that the specialty hops created in labs that brewers are using, and the techniques behind the brewing are quite expensive.
One of these techniques he mentioned is called dry hopping. Dry hopping is the process of adding hops to a beer after the beer is done to give it more of an aroma, however in this additional phase the hops actually soaks up some of the beer, resulting in a loss of product. Richard gave the example that if you brewed five barrels of beer you would end up with only about 4.2 barrels after dry hopping is over.
All this talk of hops might have you scratching your head a little bit, because after all that’s what identifies an IPA right? Well, yes and no. Richard did explain that most IPAs are controlled by what’s called IBUs, or International Bitterness Units; concerning the beer that most people drink this scale ranges from five to one hundred and twenty IBUs. Something that was brought up again and again in my conversation with Richard, however, was the factor of innovation amongst the brewing community and how these seemingly stable qualifying factors are in a great state of change right now. One example of this is of The Veil Brewing Co. in Richmond. They created a beer playing off of the concept of IBUs, called “I Don’t Wanna Be You” that was made without any hops during the brewing process. He also mentioned how the term IPA has become a lot more loose, because companies know their product will sell better with that on their label, and it is now often used for any beer with a decent amount of hopping.
“Now that brewers are redefining what an IPA is and constantly pushing the limits, the term grows more vague,” Richard said.
A beer is also classified by its ABV, or the amount of alcohol by volume per drink. To start off with a Session is a beer that ranges from a 3 to 5 percent ABV, and a Pale Ale follows with an ABV of 5 to 6 percent. Next comes the IPAs, with the average ABV coming in at 6 to 8 percent. After that there is the Double IPA with an 8 to 10 percent ABV and the Triple IPA which has an ABV of 10 percent or higher. However, Richard also let me in on the recent news that The Veil Brewing Co. released a new style last week that they’re calling the Quadruple IPA which has yet to be recognized as an IPA by any official brewing authority, but has certainly created a lot of arguing amongst the brewing community as to whether it’s an IPA or not.
“That goes to say that the innovation in the brewing industry is accelerating faster than authorities can regulate,” he said.
With all this change among the IPA community, there must be something that draws people to them. I asked Richard this question and he said that across the board, no matter where he’s worked, the best selling beers were always IPAs. “I think there’s a consistency among them that people feel comfortable ordering,” said Richard. He also addressed the fact that a lot of brewers in the craft beer world strayed aways from lagers, leaning towards beers with more flavor, so when he orders a beer somewhere he’ll usually order an IPA, “because most breweries make or break themselves on how good their IPA is.”
As someone who up till that point had thought most IPAs shared the common dish-soap factor, I wanted to know how I could learn to better identify a well-crafted IPA. One word: balance. “It’s very easy to over hop, or over malt, and have a beer taste overly bitter, or overly sweet.” Richard said. “People may not know when drinking it immediately why they don’t like it, but it’s often due to the brew recipe.”
With each glass the beer drinker experiences a culture of innovation and passion from people who have made craft beer in Virginia what it’s become known as. This process has only made me more eager to pop back into my family’s favorite brewery with my new slew of knowledge, order an IPA, and really taste it for the first time…more than a few sips.
SOURCES:
https://beerconnoisseur.com/articles/truth-about-origins-ipa
https://www.visitrichmondva.com/drink/richmond-beer-trail/
http://www.visitfred.com/blog/ultimate-fredericksburg-brewery-and-brew-tour-list
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-are-ipas-so-popular-2015-3
https://anthonygarver.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/buyer-behavior-craft-beer-project.pdf