IPA, trendy but: What does it mean and where does it come from?

Many years ago, the English enjoyed wearing wigs and building horrible empires around the world. Central Africa, Australia, Canada, and of course, India , fell under the terrible yoke of fish and chips.

Whether its original inhabitants liked it or not, the British, fond of applying market economics, left the government of this area of ​​the world in private hands through the East India Company.

Remember the bad guy from Pirates of the Caribbean who worked for a horrible trading company? Well, those guys.

The thing is, in order to control a population of that kind, the British had to send part of their army and also their colonial administration (with officials and their families) there.
And of course, that group was asking for beer .

At that time, the most popular beer styles in England were Porters and Stouts , styles with a higher malt content. Furthermore, the Suez Canal did not yet exist, and access to the Indies was via the Cape of Good Hope.
This inevitably meant much longer journeys and crazy latitudes that caused huge temperature changes in a world where refrigeration didn't exist. The problem: by the time the beers arrived, the yeast had started working again, seriously messing up the original recipes.

It was then that a man with an unpronounceable name, George Hodgson ( seriously, try saying it out loud ), played with the only two variables he could count on in the recipe: hops and alcohol . Both, although with different properties, are basically great preservatives and antibacterial agents. So he increased the alcohol content of a Pale Ale , added much more hops than usual, and tested it out.

The beer was much more bitter and cloudy. It was also much more alcoholic. But it made the journey there quite pleasant. However, it's said that the first people who tried it mixed it with water, tea, and milk to reduce that bitterness, which was completely new to the public.

Little by little, George continued perfecting the recipe and its distribution and marketing not only in colonies, and thus the IPA was born: INDIAN PALE ALE .

And you? Are you more of an IPA person or do you still find them too bitter?