Days of the Beer, July 8

The beer for today is Oskar Blues Gordon Double IPA.

On July 8, 1497, Vasco da Gama set out on the first direct European voyage to India. da Gama left Lisbon with 4 ships and a crew of 170 men. They rounded the Cape by December 16, (5 friggin months later). The fleet arrived in Calicut on May 20, 1498, a 10 month journey, to get to India. They set sail back on August 29, 1498 and finally made it back in July and August of 1499. Only 2 ships made it all the way back.

Most beer drinkers are familiar with the IPA (India Pale Ale) story. About how beer wasn't able to survive the trip to India (hell no, it took 10 months!!!) so they discovered if they put lots and lots of hops in the beer, it would preserve it and it would be ok to drink. The Zythophile is helping to kill that myth. Here's some quotes from his blog.

there was NO real difficulty exporting beer to the East: contemporary evidence shows everything from small beer to porter surviving the journey.

There were NO “tremendous efforts” by British brewers to solve this non-existent problem (the article fails to recognise that the Indian market was tiny, at 9,000 barrels a year in 1800).

There is NO evidence George Hodgson, a small-time porter brewer, actually invented IPA, or deliberately designed a recipe for a beer to survive the journey to India.

There is NO evidence India was a “very tempting” market for British brewers before the 1820s: if it had been, a small brewer such as Hodgson would not have been able to build up a substantial slice of the trade.

Yeah, but that story is so ROMANTIC. Here's a quote from the comments section.

It was called India Pale Ale, or East India Pale Ale, in Britain because it was meant to be the pale ale “as prepared for India”, to quote one advertisement from the 1840s. My personal belief is that it was not actually any different from strong stock bitter: .

So, it's the same as the strong stock bitter, probably. There's another thing that happened today in history.

On July 8, 1859, King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway died.

So, in honor of Oscar's Blues, and da Gama's trip to India. Crack open a can of Oskar Blues Gordon Double IPA (if you are lucky enough to live in a state where Oskar Blues is distributed).