User:Philosofool/MySandbox

I use this little section to write longer pieces for wikipedia so that I can work, save and polish them before I publish.

None of the following should be taken as authoritative information until it appears in a wikipedia article

Belgian Brewing Techniques
Belgian beer is brewed in much the same ways as other beer, but some techniques use by Belgian brewers are noteworthy for the results they produce. The use of sugar to increase alcohol content is found among Belgian brewers of quality beer to a degree not found in other brewing traditions. The yeasts some Belgian breweries use is noted for distinctive profiles of esters and phenols, as well as it's ability to attenuate wort.

Early IPA
IPA decends from the earliest pale ales of the 17th century, when the term "pale ale" probably simply distinguished ales which were light in color compared with brown ales of that day. By the mid-18th century, pale ale was mostly manufactured with coke-fired malt, which produced less smoking and roasting of barley in the malting process, and hence produced a paler beer. Once such variety of beer was October beer, a pale well-hopped brew popular among the landed classes, who brewed it domestically; once brewed it was intended to cellar two years.

Bow Brewery beers became popular among East India company traders in the late 18th century because of the brewery's location and its proprietor, George Hodgson's liberal credit line of 18 months. East Indiamen transported a number of Hodgson's beers to India, among them his October beer, which benefited exceptionally from conditions of the voyage and was apparently highly regarded among consumers in India. Bow Brewery came into control of Hodgson's sons in the early 19th century, but their business practices alientated their customers. During the same period, several Burton breweries lost their European export market in Russia because of new tariffs on beer, and were seeking a new export market for their beer. At the behest of the East India Company, Allsop brewery developed a strongly hopped pale ale in the style Hodgson's for export to India. Other Burton brewers, including Bass and Salt, were anxious to replace their lost Russiona export market and quickly followed Allsop's lead. Likely as a result of the advantages of Burton water in brewing, Burton India Pale Ale was preferred by merchants and their customers in India.

Demand for the export style of pale ale, which had become known as "India Pale Ale," developed in England around 1840 and India Pale Ale became a popular product in England. Some brewers dropped the term "India" in the late 19th century, but records indicated that these "pale ales" retained the features of earlier IPA. American brewers manufactured beer with the label IPA as early as 1900, and records suggest that these beers were similar to English IPA of the era.

Hodgson's October beer style clearly influenced the Burton Brewers's India Pale Ale. His beer was only slightly higher in alcohol than most beer brewed in his day and would not have been considered a strong ale; however, a greater proportion of the wort was well-fermented, leaving behind few residual sugars, and the beer was strongly hopped. The common story that early IPAs were much stronger than other beers of the time, however, is a myth. Moreover, porter shipped to India at the same time survived the voyage, and common claims that Hodgson formulated his beer to survive the trip and that other beers would not survive the trip are probably false. It is clear that by the 1860s, India Pale Ales were widely brewed in England and that the were much more attenuated and highly hopped than porters and many other ales.

Modern IPA
Tracing the history of IPA from 1900 to the present is difficult and controversial. English beers labeled IPA have fallen considerably in the amount of malt and alcohol they contain. Some contend that these IPAs are not really IPAs but instead bitters or pale ales.

History Revision
I have significantly revised the history section of this article. Many readers will notice that it is substantially shorter than it was previously. There are several reasons for this: This history section need not be as short as it is. If a piece of information was removed that you feel was very important, please edit. However, bear in mind two points:
 * 1) The history of IPA was a lengthy discussion without a clear narrative structure. It often digressed in insignificant details. Bear in mind that most readers, to find this article useful, will not benefit from a vivid three sentence description of what it would be like to be a cask of ale on the voyage to India in 1792.
 * 2) Much of the information, despite long standing complaints was uncited.
 * 3) Much of the information, despite belonging to common lore about IPA, is not verified by reliable sources. Moreover, some of that lore is contested.
 * 4) Even worse, some of that lore is clearly contradicted in authoritative sources and no authoritative source seems to object. That is, for all we can tell, that lore is simply false.
 * 5) Some of it wasn't even about IPA. Beer brewed in india and india pale ale share nothing except five letters of the alpha bet, so let's not have three paragraphs about beer and breweries in india and elsewhere that are not making IPA or descendants thereof.
 * History does not belong to "common knowledge" and claims about the history of this subject should be asserted with an appropriate citation. The present version, Sept. 23 2008, was constructed with an eye to three different sources, so if a favorite piece of "common knowledge" about IPA doesn't appear, it may be because that knowledge is actually a myth.
 * Preserve a good narrative structure that makes important points stand out and less important ones take a back seat.