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Beer Styles - Pale Ales

Styles & Seasonals June 10, 2005      
Written by Oakes


Richmond, CANADA -

English Pale Ale


Perhaps the most confusing thing about English Pale is that it is not an English style. Beer styles come about in all sorts of crazy ways, and this is one of the craziest. The British style known universally today as bitter was also once known as pale ale. Pale Ale was the term the brewers had for the style, but the drinkers colloquially dubbed it bitter to differentiate it from mild. At the time (19th century), brewers didn’t use pump clips so the only time they were able to put their own label was on the bottle. Thus, when the beer was available bottled, the label said “pale ale”, but in the pub you’d order the same beer as “bitter”. And so it became understood that pale ale was bitter in a bottle. But taking a draught beer and putting it in a bottle does not change the style of the beer. It merely makes it more portable. For example, Bass is considered by North Americans to be quintessential English Pale Ale. This is because it only comes to North America in bottled form. In England, Bass is also available on cask and in keg, and is thus considered to be a bitter.



So what you have are two different names for the same style, depending on what sort of container it comes in. How does this make a separate style, then? You can thank the Americans for that. When American microbrewers started out, they were hesitant to use the term “bitter” to describe their beers. For so long, American beers had almost no discernable bitterness and “bitter” as a word to describe beer had hugely negative connotations. So they used the other term, “pale ale”.



Michael Jackson wrote about Bass as a pale ale rather than a bitter and made a case that the two were slightly different. Britons today don’t see the matter that way, but Americans ran with it. They looked at Bass as one of their models when devising “English-style” beers. At this point, Bass became the model for a style that Americans were calling “pale ale”, which was really still “bitter”.



Then came pale ales made with American ingredients. The American love affair with the hop began and quite quickly homebrewers and beer style theorists split off the American pale ales from the English pale ales. After all, the American examples used very different hop types, cleaner yeasts, had less assertive dark malt notes and in some cases softer water than the examples that were shooting for strict authenticity to Bass-type beers. It was a split of new and traditional ways of approaching the style, and that split grew deeper and time went on.



This then brings about the difference between “bitter” and what Americans were calling “English pale ale”. In England, there still is no recognition of any difference between the two. There is merit to that position, as discussed above. In the US, however, brewers finally started calling beers “bitter”. Many of these were based on Fuller’s ESB, which is how ESB came to be considered a substyle in the US. In England, ESB is merely a brand name of the Fuller’s brewery, not a substyle. (You may have read that elsewhere, but SilkTork and I discussed it publicly and evidently there were eyes on that discussion!).



In North America, beers that were labeled as “bitter” were often just that. Otherwise, they were very traditional interpretations of English bitter. So it became that “bitter” referred to either a Fuller’s ESB-inspired beer or a very traditional, lower-gravity English-style draught bitter. English Pale Ale remains as a malt-accented, slightly bland (like Bass) product in the 5% range, which is above the traditional “bitter” and below the “ESB-style bitter”. The colour is in the amber range. The flavour is malt-accented, often with caramel notes. Bitterness is moderate, as is hop finish. The hops will be earthier English varieties rather than American ones. Yeasts used tend to be more complex than in American Pales. Minerally character is desired in the style as very hard water is a crucial element to any Bass-inspired beer. The finish can be sweetish, but should always have some hoppy dryness. This is not, however, a hard-and-fast rule that can be applied universally. Substantial confusion as to matters in this corner of the beer style world remains and you’re label to see all sorts of beers described as being in all sorts of styles.



It is perfectly reasonable if you do not believe that English Pale Ale is different than Bitter or Premium Bitter, but enough people do consider it a separate style that it is also perfectly reasonable to consider them distinct. Most English Pale Ales today are found in the more conservative-minded parts of North America like New England and Canada, as many parts of the US have moved to IPA as the standard form of “pale ale”.



Most popular examples: Saranac Pale Ale (USA), Smuttynose Shoal’s Pale Ale (USA), Brooklyn Ale (USA), Geary’s Pale Ale (USA)



Some of my favourites: Brooklyn Ale (USA), Nynäshamns Ålö Ale (Sweden), Kingston Dragon’s Breath (Canada), Durham Signature Ale (Canada)



Colour: 2 – 3.25

Flavour: 2 – 4

Sweetness: 1 – 3



American Pale Ale



Whether American Pale started with Anchor Liberty or Sierra Nevada Pale I suppose depends on whether you feel Anchor Liberty is an APA or an IPA, but in any case, it was one of those two beers that was the first. There was no sonic boom at the time, however, no shockwaves reverberating around the beer world like when pilsner was created. It was only later, when American brewers and homebrewers started to differentiate between pale ales made with American ingredients and techniques and those that sought to adhere to the English tradition that the American Pale Ale style was actually recognized.



For a time, it was the predominant pale ale style in the United States, but has since been eclipsed by India Pale Ale. The hallmarks of APA are simple – more assertive hops than in the “English Pale Ale” (see that style’s explanation, if you haven’t already), and more of them. The EPAs were evenly balanced, the APAs distinctly hoppy. Moreover, a beer adhering to an English ideal would have to have a more minerally flavour and funkier yeast strain. American Pale Ale’s signature strain is very clean, and neither mineral character nor diacetyl places much of a role in the style. It is overall much cleaner than English-style ale, and much hoppier to boot.



In time, IPA began to overtake APA as hopheads went for bigger and badder. The emergence now of IIPA has clearly solidified IPA as the “moderate” pale ale of choice, further casting doubt as to the long-term future of APA. Thankfully, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Anchor Liberty Ale are huge sellers, so the style is not in any immediate danger of disappearing, but it is far less an important part of the beer pantheon than it once was. That said, there are some truly memorable and highly popular brews in the style – it’s just not the “elite” beer in a brewer’s portfolio anymore.



APA is of moderate gravity, though abv can in some cases (not just in Liberty Ale) creep up around the 6% mark. Bitterness is assertive, but not massive (30-45 IBUs). American hop varieties are a must, though if an English-tasting breed like Willamette is used, it will have a non-traditional APA character. Hop rates are just as important as hop type here. Malts are sweet, bready and detectable, but do not assert themselves. Rather, they provide a stage for the hops to strut their stuff.



Most popular examples: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (USA), Anchor Liberty Ale (USA), Three Floyds Alpha King (USA), Dogfish Head Shelter Pale (USA)



Some of my favourites: Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (USA), Three Floyds Alpha King (USA), New River Pale Ale (USA), Elliot Bay Alembic Pale (USA), Great Lakes Burning River (USA)



Colour: 2.5 – 3.25

Flavour: 2.5 – 4

Sweetness: 0.5 – 2



India Pale Ale



This is the style with the most widely-told, sexiest history in all of beer. Every brewpub I visit describes the story on their table tents like they are letting you in on a crazy secret that nobody else knows about. Except of course, that my cat could probably recite the story by now. English brewers shipping beer to India had to brew it stronger and give it extra hops to preserve it…right-oh. The brewer was George Hodgson and he had a monopoly on the trade for thirty years. The story gets quainter yet, as Allsopp brewer Job Goodhead recreated the recipe in a teapot. Allsopp started making “India Ale” and eventually took over the trade. Before this happened, though, legend has it that a ship bound for India wrecked, and the salvaged cargo, including both Hodgson and Allsopp’s IPAs, was auctioned. This introduced the style to the English public. They dug it, and the rest as they say is history.



This story is mainly true, but for the fact that Hodgson did not develop his product especially for the voyage. He shipped porter and something called October Beer. This was a very strong, highly hopped pale ale favoured by manor-brewers in the English countryside. It was what today would be called a barley wine, though the term hadn’t been invented yet at the time, and like modern barley wine October Beer tended to improve for a couple of years. For a time, India (Pale) Ale and October Beer were both perfectly good names for the style, and eventually IPA won out.



IPA is a classic example of style drift. The IPA of today is not likely to be recognizable to 19th century soldiers in India. In England, IPA gradually became watered down (as all styles during and after WWI) and is now just another name for bitter. In Canada, a product claiming to be an IPA has become a pale ale/lager hybrid with no hop character at all. In the United States, brewers started recreating the style based on old texts, but with different hops, different malts, different equipment and different yeasts – and with no old-time examples remaining in their original form to use as a benchmark, the product isn’t the same.



What it is, however, is a very hoppy, bitter (minimum 45IBUs, often much higher) golden-to-bronze ale with a fruity yeast character and firm malt underpinning. The malts can either be 100% pale, which will lend a bready character, or may include some crystal malt. Alcohol starts around 6% and goes up to 7.5%. The closer the brewer is trying to get to the original IPA character, the higher the alcohol will be.



Most popular examples: Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale (USA), Stone IPA (USA), Victory Hop Devil (USA), Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA (USA), Bell’s Two Hearted (USA)



Some of my favourites: Big Time Bhagwan’s Best (USA), Diamond Knot IPA (USA), Hitachino Nest Japanese Classic (Japan), LaConner Bottleworks IPA (Washington)



Colour: 1.5 – 2.75

Flavour: 3 – 4.25

Sweetness: 0.25 - 2



Imperial/Double IPA



Back in 1996, Rogue Brewery got the idea to make an extra-big IPA. They launched it at the Oregon Brewer’s Festival. I was there. The beer, however, was not by the time I arrived as it had already sold out. Suffice to say, it was a huge hit. The idea really didn’t take off, however, until the early ’00s when several US brewers decided that what the world needed was more hops. The nation’s beer lovers agreed, and it was not long before Imperial or Double IPAs were a fixture of the American beer landscape. The rest of the world has very few examples at this point, but a few brewers are starting to dip their toes in the style.



In terms of character, Imperial IPA is a big version of IPA. The alcohol goes up to a range typically between 8-10%. The hops go to bitterness levels beyond the threshold where the human tongue can tell the difference (overall, these beers range between 80-120 IBUs or more). Malt levels also rise, especially levels of crystal malt, which lends a lot of chewy, caramelly earthiness to the beers on top of resiny, tongue-scraping bitterness. Flavour and aroma will be intense. American hop varieties are favoured. On account of the higher malt levels, the colour will be darker than an IPA, perhaps amber to light brown in range.



There is not really that much to choose between an Imperial IPA and a really hoppy barley wine, except that barley wines are often stronger still and many of the hoppier ones were launched before the term IIPA existed, otherwise they may have been dubbed IIPAs themselves.



Most popular examples: Dogfish Head 90-Minute IPA (USA), Stone Ruination (USA), Rogue I2PA (USA), Three Floyds Dreadnaught (USA), Victory Hop Wallop (USA)



Some of my favourites: Phillips Amnesiac Double IPA (Canada), DuClaw Serum (USA), Middle Ages Wailing Wench (USA), Diamond Knot Industrial IPA (USA)



Colour: 2.5 – 3.5

Flavour: 3.75 – 5

Sweetness: 1 – 2.5

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