Barm had me doubting as to whether the IPA was really a German-brewed beer. He pointed out, reasonably enough, that it could have been a British beer that had been imported. He's now found evidence that there was IPA brewed in Bremen.
While it was never quite on the same scale, or of the same duration, as Porter brewing, I did know that Pale Ale was made on the Continent. Even Heineken once brewed a Pale Ale.
Funny, isn't it, how European Porter brewing is reasonably well known, but the export of Porter to India isn't. While with Pale Ale it's the exact opposite.
Erste Norddeutsche Actien Ale und Porter Brauerei, Hemlingen, Bremen. That's who the brewery was.
I wonder if they were brewing Porters and Ales in Bremen because there was a sizable enough expat community or just because it was cool to do so, just like a few Czech brewers are doing now.
ReplyDeletePorter and Pale Ale were more widely brewed in Europe than people realise. Almost certainly it was an attempt by a local brewer to cash in on the market for imported British beers.
ReplyDeleteIf you look at the old Dutch newspaper ads I've been posting you'll see that all sorts of British beers were imported into Holland: Porter, Stout, Pale Ale, IPA, Burton, Mild and Scotch Ale. Pretty much the full set of what was brewed in Britain at the time.