Have a hoppy Fourth
July is an important month in Boston. We celebrate our independence, of course, and this year we're hosting the convention to nominate a candidate for the office we created to replace King George. This requires something special -- and typically American -- in the glass. Toast the revolutionary spirit (as well as the fireworks, overtures, and confused convention delegates) with a beer style that was created in Britain but that independent-minded American brewers have made distinctly their own: India pale ale.
This strong, hoppy ale originated in England more than 200 years ago, as Britain was reaching the height of its worldwide power. Maintaining an empire was thirsty work (no occupation without intoxication?), but in the days before refrigeration, it was too hot in India to brew beer to keep the British soldiers happy. And the beer brewed in England would spoil during the long sea voyage to the colony.
Brewers in Burton-upon-Trent came up with a solution. As brewer
and educator Horst Dornbusch explains it, "Taking advantage of the preservative qualities of both alcohol and the bittering compounds in hops, the Burton brewers made their India ales almost twice as strong (probably 7 to 8 percent alcohol by volume) and twice as bitter as their regular beers. These beers were so pungent as to be almost undrinkable when they left England, but, because hops deteriorate over time, they were quite palatable, yet still potent, by the time they reached their parched consumers in the service of the Empire." As the Industrial Revolution picked up steam, ships got faster, and the trip from England to India became shorter and shorter, so brewers no longer had to rely as much on hops and alcohol content to preserve their India ales. The huge, hoppy beers of the early 1800s gradually disappeared.
Disappeared, that is, until the next American revolution: the birth of craft brewing in the Northwest in the 1980s. The Northwest is hop central for brewers. Climate and soil both contribute to the big, bold, citrusy hops that are a hallmark of American beers. Northwest brewers had hops to spare, so they resurrected the huge style of the original India pale ale in order to showcase the pungent flavor and bitterness of the hop flowers.
In the next few years, brewers all over the country joined the party, making their beers bigger and bigger, trying to out-hop one another. (The hop arms race escalated to such levels that brewers had to create a new designation for the strongest of their creations, which became imperial India pale ale.)
To celebrate this American spirit of bigger-is-better, David Ciccolo, who co-owns Anam Cara Publick House in Brookline with Ailish Gilligan, decided to stage the first HopHead ThrowDown. "I'm a hop addict," says Ciccolo. The ThrowDown will showcase 15 American beers -- such as Berkshire Brewing Company's Lost Sailor IPA and Paper City Brewing's Blonde Hop Monster -- with international bittering units, or IBUs, above 50. (For comparison, the popular IPA from Harpoon has an IBU of 42.)
Anam Cara will even have on hand a couple of hop-filled contraptions developed by the brewers at Dogfish Head brewery, through which beer is filtered before it's poured into a glass.
Dogfish Head's 90 Minute IPA and 120 Minute IPA will be served after being dry-hopped using the filter. "It's going to be beer geek paradise," says Ciccolo.
"And then your tastebuds will be shot for two days afterward," Gilligan adds.
Anam Cara's chefs will be serving a special menu of spicy foods, including Jambalaya a la Hades and ThrowDown Chili, to stand up to the beer. No advance tickets will be sold for the all-day event, says Ciccolo, because "I want to see a line form outside. It'll add to the party atmosphere."
The place will be hop-ping.
Ann Cortissoz can be reached at acortissoz@globe.com. 