Where Does IPA Beer Come From? What Does IPA Mean?

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India Pale Ale was first brewed when the British ships crossed the oceans en route to their faraway colonies in the 19th century. To better preserve the beer during these long voyages, the English brewers added extra hops, and so the IPA was born. British Brewer John Martin honoured this tradition when he landed in Antwerp in 1909 by using the unique dry hopping technique. His Martins'IPA is simply delicious.

What is the difference in taste with a normal beer?

IPA beers are more floral and bitter.

The bitterness of the IPA beers come from the dry-hopping technique: normally hop is added in the boiling process, but with dry-hopping the hops are added in the fermentation tank before it goes into the bottle. In this way the raw hops keep its antioxidant character.

IPA beers are still very popular nowadays due to their bitterness very much liked by beer drinkers, and the large variety offered by more and more craft breweries around the world. Each brewery has its top secret technique and preferred variety of hops available, making very different tastes of IPA beers.

Beer my Guest has selected varieties of IPA beers today. More will come later.

Henricus brewery, located in Zeebrugge, launched The Paljas IPA that got the Best IPA Beer Awards in 2015.

Viven is an artisanal brewery located in Damme near Bruges, brewing wonderful Imperial (amber) with hops from New Zeland and US.

So each IPA beer reveal very different aromas and tastes, depending on the selected hops, the dry-hopping technique and last but not least the "savoir-faire" of the craft brewery.

Try them out !

Click here: IPA beers

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