I love being Indian and one the many things that I enjoy about my Indian-ness is that while the world needs seven degrees of separation, we Indians can manage in just three, or maybe four.
It is to say that for everything that exists or has existed (or will, for that matter); we can find a way to connect it to India. To show how anything Indian was intrinsic in the coming-into-existence of a person, place, or thing and thus establishing the relevance of our existence as a race in the very fabric of civilisation also demonstrates our indispensable validity in the creation of everything starting from (and with) zero.
This brings me to Indian Pale Ale. It has the word ‘Indian’ worked into its very name so obviously the provenance becomes already established within this nomenclature. But the premise that led to its origins are what make an interesting story.
First of all, what the United Kingdom calls beer, or chugs by way of beer, is nothing like that flavourful brew you get on the continent, but that’s a grouse for another day. For now, let’s focus on the British and their need for a good brew at the end of a working day. It didn’t begin now, it has always been this way. Finish work, have tea (which is posh for dinner) and then head down to the pub for two pints and some banter.
if more hops were added to the beer before it was shipped, somehow that extra dose of bitterness made the brew resilient enough to withstand the voyage
Almost a 100 years ago, being enlisted in the armed forces and then being packed off to India must have been somewhat of a punishment, for it made the pub-stop rather difficult at the end of a day’s worth of work. But a mother has to provide for her lads, and so it was that England decided to ship beer all the way over to India so that her boys didn’t lose their morale, courage, or that general state of inebriation which kept them from wondering why their otherwise polite country was on this inexplicably cruel conquering spree. And why were they supporting it.
But beer being beer is fragile. It barely travels well from one town to another (which is why in Germany even today each village has its own trademark beer), let alone a voyage lasting over two months. Then a solution was found; if more hops were added to the beer before it was shipped, somehow that extra dose of bitterness made the brew resilient enough to withstand the voyage. If I had been alive, I would have shipped over the brewing equipment – you know ‘teach a man to fish’ and all that – and started the micro-brewery culture almost a 150 years before it really caught on anywhere else. But hey, that’s just me: intelligent.
So they sent this extra-hoppy ferment over and it did survive. Once you got used to the deceptively pale colour and got over the jaw-dislocating bitterness, you were just two tables and a bar stool short of a pub. Thus was born the Indian Pale Ale aka IPA.
It didn’t quite catch on with the Indians as a flavour I presume, for in the decree for Independence, where it probably mentions that the British hand over the deeds to the lands, it says nothing about also handing over the recipe to make a good proper IPA. Maybe it was overlooked in all that paperwork but I doubt the English would have parted with the recipe for their favourite drink so easily given how it and their national dish (the Chicken Tikka Masala pronounced with the tikka sounding more like teeka ) are both a huge debt to India. But then we already run their health system, their call centres, their corner shops and pretty much everything in their country, really, so let’s not make them feel any worse.
I’m sure that in time, they too will develop their own cuisine and drink, one that, no matter how many degrees of separation are employed in no matter which direction, still points back to Great Britain. Till then, the next time you are in the Isles, order an IPA and make sure you stress the ‘Indian’ in it.
Magandeep Singh is India's first sommelier, food, wine and travel writer and TV show host. His passions include studying languages and choking the saxophone. In his free time he works.
