Supply Creates Demand: IPA History in America

Gary Arndt: 00:00:05

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Respecting the Beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:07

My name is Gary Arndt.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:09

With me again, as usual, is brewer extraordinaire, Bobby Fleshman and historian of beer, Joel Hermansen.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:16

Now, in our last episode, we were talking about the origins of IPA and the tortured process of beer that had to sail all the way to India.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:24

Their solutions for doing it were to increase the alcohol volume and add hops.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:29

So in this episode, we kind of want to take the next chapter.

Gary Arndt: 00:00:33

So, Joel, when did this become something that wasn't just found on ships?

Joel Hermensen: 00:00:40

That's a great question.

Joel Hermensen: 00:00:41

The people in England drank IPAs, A bit, and I mentioned at the end of the most recent podcast that some of the early 19th century laws that the British Parliament had arrived at with as far as taxation of beers that used higher grain bills and kind of targeting the fact that the urban centers in England were having a difficult time feeding their population and that beer was, you know, perhaps diverting some of those resources.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:12

The IPA is a style.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:14

Kind of vanished from the 19th century forward and it was not widespread It was not common.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:23

The pale ale was still common.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:26

Okay, but again, we're talking about a different style The ABVs of a typical I would imagine of a typical English pale ale at that time

Bobby Fleshman: 00:01:36

I would assume between four and five Right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:01:38

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:39

These were called table beers.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:40

These, these were these small beers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:01:43

And as we talked about last episode, this had to do with government pressures on ingredients.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:01:47

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:01:48

And the fact that these beers were being taxed and, you know, people didn't want to go into a, you know, an industrial age hub in, in, you know, Manchester in 1852 and, and pay double what you would.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:02

For a small beer so side story to this they were losing tax money because it was based on strength of beer Yeah, and so they were losing tax money.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:02:10

And so then they changed that system I think to be Based on volume, but I I don't know the details, but I imagine it's all sort of entangled.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:17

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:17

Yeah, so there were you know, I think probably a small amount of IPA brewing that was still happening in England But on a wide scale the the widespread, you know network of IPA's was was no longer that common So what we need to do then is kind of fast forward to where America takes the IPA because we clearly took the handoff from the British, and in 1978, Jimmy Carter passed legislation that Gary has talked about a couple of times, if you're a, a repeat listener of us, and if you are, thank you.

Joel Hermensen: 00:02:57

And The homebrew legislation that Carter passed in 1978, which made homebrewing legal is really where we have to begin that conversation.

Gary Arndt: 00:03:08

Before we get there was one of the reasons why IPA another reason why IP has kind of died is that in the late 19th, early 20th centuries, the need for IPA kind of disappeared with refrigeration.

Gary Arndt: 00:03:20

You had industrial brewing.

Gary Arndt: 00:03:21

You could probably make beer now in India.

Gary Arndt: 00:03:23

You didn't need to do this, but there was a particular problem that IPA was solving and that problem kind of,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:30

It might've been expense to and government pressures, the expense of it because the hops weren't able to be produced per acre like they are today.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:03:37

So I would imagine that rolled into it.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:39

I think we can safely say all of those things.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:43

to the decline of, you know, IPA availability and preference in industrial England.

Joel Hermensen: 00:03:57

Their hops are going to, you know, you've, you talked about this in the previous episode, their hops are going to be more earthy.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:03

Oh yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:03

In their, in their nose.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:04

And when you, when I taste tall mass, when it's on point, it actually does taste more earthy and that's what, that's the intent.

Gary Arndt: 00:04:10

So you're looking at a period of over a century.

Gary Arndt: 00:04:14

Roughly.

Gary Arndt: 00:04:15

IPA is just a, kind of a niche beer, or is it?

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:18

It's dormant.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:20

I think we could call it dormant, at that point.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:22

There was one brewer in the United States, and, and I'm gonna have to go back and look this one up.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:28

We can put it in the show notes or something, but there was one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:31

Is it valentin?

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:32

That.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:32

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:33

Valentin, it was a vestige of the style.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:35

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:35

And stopped making it sometime in the 70s.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:37

And it was.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:38

That's where I was trying to get to in the last episode.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:40

I couldn't remember the name of it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:41

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:04:41

So.

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:42

Again, I think dormant would be the word that it's, it's Newark, New Jersey, small pockets, but it's not a particularly.

Gary Arndt: 00:04:51

So now the seventies we legalize home brewing.

Gary Arndt: 00:04:54

Yes.

Gary Arndt: 00:04:55

What happens?

Joel Hermensen: 00:04:55

So, and Bobby and I were talking about this this morning when we were doing some prep work for this episode, you know, if you've done any homebrewing, as Bobby and I have done, IPAs are a really natural beer for a home brewer to do.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:13

Okay.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:13

Lagers are, that's a, that's a different, that's a different animal.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:17

You need a different level of, you know, equipment that is not the, the, the homebrew kit that you're probably starting with.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:24

You

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:24

need five more refrigerators and temp controllers and a very patient wife and family.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:29

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:05:30

I mean, hypothetically, you need all these things.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:32

So lager's not the entry point.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:36

Ales are.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:36

You can ferment an ale, you know, at anywhere between 63 and 72 degrees, and it's gonna come out pretty well.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:45

To be honest, as a, as a home brewer, I remember some of my own early struggles.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:50

Bobby probably didn't have any struggles, but I certainly did.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:54

And, and sometimes We'll do a show on that someday.

Joel Hermensen: 00:05:56

Oh, I would love to listen to that show.

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:00

But what would oftentimes happen is that you don't have a beer that's particularly well balanced.

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:07

You might have a beer that has some off flavors in it.

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:10

And you can kind of mask that.

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:13

With hops, you can add hops at the secondary fermentation stage to kind of cover some of the mistakes

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:20

So these down south we call it putting lipstick on a pig,

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:23

Right!

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:24

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:24

Perfect So you can you can kind of see why homebrewers?

Joel Hermensen: 00:06:28

Gravitated to that style because it's a style that's and I'll get your thoughts on this But I think it's a style that's forgiving

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:37

It is.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:40

But when it's like anything to do, something good is pretty easy, a lot of things anyway, but to do them great, takes a lifetime.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:47

And I think IPA falls in that category as some of the best have proven for sure.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:53

Does it hide things?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:53

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:06:54

And I've seen, Home brewers and professional brewers alike misuse hops for that purpose.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:00

They're throwing hops, they're throwing money away.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:02

Honestly, yeah, there's no reason to do that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:05

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:07:05

So I think that, to me, that's always been a really important part of the story.

Joel Hermensen: 00:07:09

Cause it's, it's after 1978.

Joel Hermensen: 00:07:13

And if you know anything about Ken Grossman from Sierra, Nevada, this is part of his biography as well.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:19

And, you know, who unapologetically made a, I think it was a 40 or 35 IBU pale ale and it blew people's minds.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:29

Absolutely.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:30

Just people.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:32

First of all said, this will never sell.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:34

This is disgusting.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:35

This is my mind.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:36

My mouth's on fire with bitterness, whatever it was.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:39

And like overnight it became the drug of choice for every craft beer drinker in America.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:46

Briefly explained an IBU.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:48

Oh, it's, it's a, it's a bitterness unit.

Gary Arndt: 00:07:49

How does one measure?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:51

Well, it's one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:52

It's one part per million alpha acid, I think, by weight and so we can measure that in all these different ways.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:07:59

In modern times, they did not, you did do this when IPA began.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:02

We didn't have that kind of instrumentation.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:04

So they would just measure pounds per barrel and equate that to something with that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:08

Maybe they call it bitterness unit, but it wasn't analytical.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:12

But in any case, just, For context, a logger will have 10 IBUs, a payload will have IP will have 50 and up.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:20

Something like that.

Joel Hermensen: 00:08:21

And I think the human palate actually reaches a point where you max out like at IBUs, you also, you get to a point where it's like you can't even

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:31

Also saturate the liquid.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:32

So you can't get more than a hundred IBUs in a liquid.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:35

And so people that say they've hit two, 300 IBUs, it can't, I maybe I'm wrong, but you can't put that through a UV vis spectrometer and read that amount.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:08:45

It's not going to come out the other side, right?

Joel Hermensen: 00:08:47

Yeah, this is the benefit of having a scientific genius sitting here.

Joel Hermensen: 00:08:52

He covers, you're like a hop.

Joel Hermensen: 00:08:53

You cover up some of the mistakes that we make.

Joel Hermensen: 00:08:57

But Ken Grossman coming back to this part of the story, Ken Grossman in the, I think it was 1980, opened up a home brew store.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:04

You know, much like the one, if you're from Appleton, we used to have the homebrew market over on Meade street that, I, I still remember going in there and, and, and you had talked about this.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:15

I think it was on episode one or two of this podcast, but just grabbing grain and kind of chewing on grain and smelling hops and

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:23

Take me an hour to get a batch ground up.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:09:25

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:26

And those, those places were so much fun.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:30

To go into and to hang out in and you would meet like minded people.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:34

And so in the, in the 1980s, you started to see, you know, people doing this.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:39

And for reasons that we've talked about, it's easier to brew a pale ale or an IPA.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:44

They're, they're just, you know, more in, in the wheelhouse of the, of the common brewer with the gear that we had with the temperature ranges of the house and things that we had to work with.

Joel Hermensen: 00:09:56

And, and gradually I think that's really what, you know, Was the, was the, catalyst for this, but I think, and, and you and I were talking about this this morning, I think maybe the primary catalyst for this is the fact that in the United States, we started to do a lot with hop hybrids and different species of hops, and, you know,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:21

The primary is that, like you said, Jimmy Carter made it legal.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:25

That's the big, big deal.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:26

That's the big, what do you call it, threshold moment in time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:30

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:30

One of his greatest moments of his presidency.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:32

Otherwise, you don't have all these thousands of would be brewers that became the next wave of craft brewers.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:37

But, but yeah, then you get into hop breeding, but that was only, that was only made, that was only, a demand was only made for that after you have legalized brewing and all these little breweries opening up.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:49

They're not going to make these hops for home brewers.

Joel Hermensen: 00:10:51

Right, because just for context, there was a hundred breweries.

Joel Hermensen: 00:10:54

There was less than a hundred.

Joel Hermensen: 00:10:56

In 1978.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:57

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:10:57

And then when you look at the numbers

Bobby Fleshman: 00:10:59

And we should have mentioned and we have many times Anchor Brewing Company Oh, they're and they're okay.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:04

All right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:05

I want to gloss over that.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:06

Oh, yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:06

Okay.

Joel Hermensen: 00:11:07

Yeah So all of a sudden the amount of breweries in the United States starts to spike particularly after we start to see, you know, what Carter did, and then we start to see these hop hybrids, because I feel like every time, you know, and I haven't brewed in a while, but every time I'm, you know, on a line ordering my grain bill and getting my hops in order, et cetera, there's like a new hop out there.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:30

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:31

And we've kind of got to a place now.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:33

It's a little out of hand.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:34

I think at some point it's, you know, The difference between this hop and that one are so minuscule and your process is going to dominate the outcome.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:43

Anyway, there's a lot of marketing at play right now, right?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:46

There's, there's a whole bunch going on and that's an entire episode in himself, all the different hot products that are coming out.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:51

But so the pendulum is definitely swung the other way.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:53

The money right now is in those sexy new hops.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:11:56

So they throw a lot of marketing at it and they try to hit 10, 000 brewers with a new product every week.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:01

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:02

But in all of these hops, You know, and like you said, we've gotten to the point where the difference is minor between them, but all of a sudden, instead of using some of the, the European, those noble hops,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:15

The heirloom varieties, right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:17

Now we're starting to see cascade and centennial.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:22

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:12:22

And Simcoe and Chinook, which are American styles of hops.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:28

And also garbage from the German standpoint.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:30

Cascade came out of a breeding program related to a German brewery.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:34

I can't recall which, but in any case, it ended up in America and, and Coors kept it in their, in their pilot program and they never used it because it was garbage.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:43

And then, Jack, Jack McAuliffe at new Albion, new Albion got a bail of it, bail of hop leaves.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:12:49

And he would go that would last him all year long, you know, a hundred pound bail of hops, and he would cut it back, get past all the Brown edges and get to the middle green middle of it and throw that into his batches as he was in reinventing the American IPA.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:03

So, yeah, there's a whole thing there, there's a whole story behind New Albion Brewing, yeah, as well.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:08

All California, all Bay Area.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:11

And it also matters where these hops grow.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:14

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:15

You know, I think there's a reason why You can grow

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:17

Cascade in 20 different countries and get 20 different products, yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:19

Right, like then, you know, a lot of people are really interested right now in New Zealand

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:23

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:23

Style beers and, you know, a lot of great grapes come from there too.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:27

Yep.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:28

And, you know, many of the West Coast breweries are brewing with Cascade.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:33

Hops from Washington, Yakima, Washington.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:35

Mm-Hmm.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:36

and things like that.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:36

Mm-Hmm.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:37

. So I think the, the companion bringing this full circle, the companion to that.

Joel Hermensen: 00:13:44

1978 legislation is the fact that we're also seeing this incredible surge of new hop species and

Bobby Fleshman: 00:13:53

And that's not gloss over breeze malting company just 40 45 miles away They became who they are today because of all of this they decided they were going to be The monster for the craft brewer They weren't, it wasn't worth anyone else's time, these big monsters.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:08

It wasn't not worth their time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:10

They're sending rail cars to Budweiser.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:12

Why are they going to start making malts for crappers?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:14

Right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:14:15

So breeze became that one of the first.

Gary Arndt: 00:14:17

So you talked about craft brewers using hops kind of as a way to, cause it's easy to use.

Gary Arndt: 00:14:24

If you're running a real brewery though, that probably is not a problem.

Gary Arndt: 00:14:27

And so when did the professional brewers.

Gary Arndt: 00:14:32

Even if they may be small brewers start to use this and also the demand side of the equation because at this point in in Assume like the 1980s Everyone's drinking a lager still that's kind of

Joel Hermensen: 00:14:44

Still at that age of that monolithic lager brewing So how did he embed in the band?

Joel Hermensen: 00:14:49

Yeah

Gary Arndt: 00:14:50

I think most people if they have an IPA and they've never had one before It's going to be a very different experience.

Gary Arndt: 00:14:55

This is not what they're accustomed to when they think of beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:14:58

It's, it's much more bitter.

Gary Arndt: 00:15:00

how does that transition start to happen?

Gary Arndt: 00:15:01

How does this go from craft brewing to mainstream?

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:05

Well, and I, and I think this is where, you know, we need to mention some of the founding fathers of this whole thing, you know,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:14

In the, there is definitely a Mount Rushmore, isn't there?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:17

Absolutely.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:17

Is, and I'm talking about craft brewing in general, or are you talking about both, but

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:22

Yeah, I, I mean, if you're talking about the Mount Rushmore of this craft beer movement, of which I think IPA has a centrality to it, which is why in the last episode, Gary Arndt named it his beer of the 21st century but I think, I think when you look at that list, you know, if you can only put four people on the mountain, I'm going to give you some names and I'm going to see if, if they make the mountain for you.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:47

Okay.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:48

There's name number one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:15:49

There's behind the scenes people and then there's, yeah, these are going to be kind of, yeah, I got you.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:54

Yeah, the famous.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:56

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:56

So you can only pick four.

Joel Hermensen: 00:15:58

Okay, Charlie Papazian.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:00

I was going to say, yeah, nailed it.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:03

He has to be on the mountain.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:04

Yeah, he's Boulder, Colorado.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:05

He founded both the Brewer's Association and the American Home Brewer's Association.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:09

Right, a giant.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:10

Everything, every organization we have.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:12

Right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:13

Ken Grossman.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:14

For sure.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:15

The pale ale is the best beer probably made depending on who you ask.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:19

Yeah,

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:19

right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:19

And we're going to come back to that beer.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:21

Cause I want to get your story about that beer as well.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:24

Vinnie from Russian river.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:26

No doubt.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:27

He, he created, he cemented the double IPA as truly quintessentially an American style.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:33

And before that he did the same with American IPA with blind pig.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:36

So.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:37

Yeah, I got you, or else you'd just say West Coast IPA.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:40

So now we only have one spot left on the Mount Rushmore.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:45

Okay.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:46

Alright, got a list.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:47

Jack McAuliffe.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:48

Yeah, that's a good one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:50

That bale of, that bale of Cascade Ops.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:52

Steve Schmidt at Bells.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:54

Yep, oh yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:16:56

Sam from Dogfish Head, like the,

Bobby Fleshman: 00:16:58

the,

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:00

it, there are so many gigantic figures.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:03

Do you have Garrett Oliver on that list?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:05

I don't.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:05

Brooklyn Bruin?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:06

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:06

Yeah, we definitely should.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:08

And, and this is kind of my point.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:10

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:11

Because if we were doing this same exercise with a, a stout, as an example, are we going to be having that, that list of That's a good point.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:24

That's a good point.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:25

These titans.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:26

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:26

The market said that it wanted IPA and, and the market responded, or the brewers responded.

Joel Hermensen: 00:17:33

So it's around this time where these titans emerge and all of a sudden we go from 70 craft, you know, 70 breweries in the United States to 1500.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:42

You mentioned that there was demand for it.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:44

I think this is a great example in economics, what's known as Say's law.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:48

Supply creates its own demand.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:49

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:50

Nobody knew that they wanted IPAs before.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:52

This is true.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:17:53

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:54

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:54

You know what Henry Ford said, if I gave people what they wanted, they would want a faster horse.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:58

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:17:59

That they didn't know what they want.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:00

That's a great quote.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:01

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:02

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:18:03

So there had to be this process of introducing people to it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:06

I think Ken Grossman did a good job.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:08

He was in the right place at the right time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:10

And he was sort of a rebel against the, and he was definitely a rebel against the industry and he had his thumb right square on the pulse.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:20

of where people wanted to go next.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:21

They were done with Wonder Bread.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:23

They were done with Heinz Ketchup.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:25

He knew he was the beer answer to that, to that demand.

Joel Hermensen: 00:18:30

Your first experience with Sierra Nevada Pale Ale?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:35

My first one.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:36

It honestly wasn't that sexy.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:37

It came off a shelf, a dusty shelf in an Oklahoma liquor store.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:42

But I will say I did think, holy shit, this thing's hoppy.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:46

This thing is, is a lot.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:48

And, and it, and there's very few breweries that can make a product that can hold up to being warm and dusty on a shelf.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:53

Looking back, that was horrendous to see that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:55

But it did, at least to my palate at the time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:18:59

And it, it did.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:00

And it went alongside the Sam Smith oatmeal stout as one, as one of my first two segues into craft beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:07

The other one was actually arrogant bastard from stone brewing company.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:11

But Holy cow.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:12

That's a whole other thing.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:13

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:16

my, my first experience with it, I had it on tap.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:20

I can actually, oh, you're lucky you.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:22

Oh my God.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:22

I can remember who I was talking to.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:24

I can remember the conversation.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:25

I can remember the chair I was sitting in because it was like in Ouie where he eats the cheese that had been toasted or whatever, and you can see all the colors from that day.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:36

Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:36

And I don't even, I can't do the math as far as years, but Yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:41

You know, well, past 30 years, I have not willingly drank a.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:47

domesticated, you know, lager pills since that day.

Joel Hermensen: 00:19:52

Cause I'm like, this is what I need to be drinking right here.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:56

And, and I was saying with my story in Oklahoma, nothing made it there.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:19:59

Like I didn't get, there was no conduit to the outside world in terms of craft and many other things.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:20:04

But yeah, it served as that for me, a conduit to what the hell was out there.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:08

Right.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:09

It was just this revolutionary moment.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:11

And then from there, you know, you're, you're seeking out all of these Things that they're doing out there and I remember my good friend Christoph and I used to try to get you know Some of these beers from from California that they were brewing out there the anniversary ale I remember when I had gotten a six pack of the anniversary ale, which kind of is the forerunner to Torpedo I think And I think it was 2006 and we opened this box and it was like, you know, when Indiana Jones takes the relic off the thing, you know, it's like you would acquired some major thing.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:52

And we still count the days.

Joel Hermensen: 00:20:53

I've actually been to the, some of my grocery stores, and I know you've asked about this, you know, two or three times, wondering where's the celebration at, where's, when's it coming?

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:02

You know, and we, we, we sit and we count the days.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:05

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:05

And it's connecting with current events.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:06

Now you were talking about how the hurricane may actually delay shipment this year because they brew it in the East and West coast.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:12

Because we tend to get more, I think more of the Asheville you know, Sierra Nevada line, then we get the Chico stuff.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:20

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:21

This is turning into quite the, fan show for, for Sierra Nevada.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:25

Deservedly so.

Joel Hermensen: 00:21:26

I mean that, cause we're talking about the origin of, of these beers and that's really where, As you mentioned, it's the gateway.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:34

Yeah, and I mean, New Albion definitely did it first, but who did it best was Ken Grossman, there's no doubt about it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:41

He knew, had the business sense, and he got it out there, he was in the right place, right time.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:44

And I don't know him either.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:48

I've met him, I've shook his hand.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:49

I've spoken to him on the phone.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:50

Yeah, I know, there's a whole, he had a letter.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:21:52

But I will say, I, from the outside in, it looks like he may be the, the highest level of a perfectionist of all the brewers and all the industry.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:02

But yeah, you'll have to see his brewery to believe me that to let that sink in.

Gary Arndt: 00:22:06

Right.

Gary Arndt: 00:22:07

So before we wrap this up why did IPA start on the West coast and what defines a West coast IPA versus an IPA?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:16

Well, hops made it to, funny enough, that a lot of these vineyards were hop growing fields.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:21

So, the wine industry is connected to the history of hop growing in California.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:26

So, mold and spider mites and so forth moved hop growing from New York State all the way across through Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:34

All the way into the Pacific Northwest, but even as far down as into California.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:39

So there is some history with hops there even before all this happened.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:43

Because we, we've been brewing beer for a while.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:45

The IPA may be, especially West Coast, may be modern, but we've been brewing for a while with hops grown in the U.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:50

S.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:51

But why West Coast?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:53

There's something about San Diego.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:54

There's something about San Francisco.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:57

There's something about Portland.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:22:58

There, I don't know.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:00

I haven't, I don't know.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:00

I'm not the historian here as to why I know who the people were and I know where they were, and I think it was just like minded people.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:07

California is a rebellious, a little bit of its own country, and I think that it was marching to its own beat, and it had a craft phenomenon that was led by Sierra Nevada.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:19

And before that, Anchor Brewing Company and, Liberty Ale, which is an important IPA.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:26

think that Liberty Ale probably is your answer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:29

If we're going to go to one moment.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:31

Liberty Ale was a beer that every one of these brewers grew up drinking.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:35

And I think that it, it broke the mold in such a way and it gave California such an identity that all the marketing factors came together at the right time, led again by Ken Grossman and Sierra Nevada.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:47

It's the best I got.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:23:48

I could list a whole litany of brewers that have gone on and done great things, but I think that's the foundation.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:53

I think at some level, I mean, when you look at San Francisco, San Francisco has always been prone to counterculture movements.

Joel Hermensen: 00:23:59

That's right, yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:00

The IPA in the 1980s was the brewing equivalent of a counterculture.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:06

Yeah, yeah.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:06

Liberty Ale was everywhere then too.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:08

And Fritz Maytag is the one who first did this, you know, when he's from the, The Iowa Maytags and, and, you know, he's...

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:15

He's sold all his part of that company to open a brewery.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:18

To buy, Anchor Steam Brewing and, and to you know, resurrect that style.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:22

And, and he kind of started that.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:25

Yeah.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:25

And it was, these were Germans that owned it before he did.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:28

They, they were brewing quote, German loggers in a California environment, which led to the steam beer.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:33

And he turned it into an IPA brewery as well.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:24:36

In addition to.

Gary Arndt: 00:24:38

All right, any more on the subject of IPA before we wrap it up?

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:41

Well, I do, I do want to ask you really quickly.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:43

So since, since 2011, we've seen, you know, the, the West coast IPA kind of go up and down a little bit.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:51

And you mentioned hazies a little bit, 2011 hazies kind of emerge on the scene and they become the darling of, of IPA.

Joel Hermensen: 00:24:59

IPAs as a style.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:02

Are you seeing that fever break at all?

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:04

Or are we still, are we still on the hazy train?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:06

I think we've established that it's a style such as any other style that on its own.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:12

So IPA is so broad, so broad.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:15

There are no less than like 20 sub styles.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:17

You have everything from hazy to black IPA, English IPA, double IPA, West Coast, yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:22

Why don't we have a cliffhanger?

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:23

Yeah.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:24

And talk about the different types of IPA.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:26

Oh, that would be

Gary Arndt: 00:25:27

on the next episode.

Joel Hermensen: 00:25:28

Let's do it.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:28

All right.

Bobby Fleshman: 00:25:29

There it is.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:30

All right.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:31

So that concludes this episode of respecting the beer.

Gary Arndt: 00:25:33

Make sure to subscribe to the show and your favorite podcast player so you will never miss an episode and feel free to join the Facebook group to get updates between the episodes and support the show over on Patreon links to both of these are in the show notes and until next time, please remember to respect the beer.