Keith’s brewery tour is cool — but that’s still not an IPA
An unnamed editor at Mom & Hops once integrated the line “Keith’s is a fake IPA” into a (successful!) pick-up line with his server at a bar. This editor relates well with this article by Jason Foster at Planet S:
It’s no secret that I’m a sourpuss when it comes to Alexander Keith’s beer. Keith’s is a product of the world’s largest beer corporation, AB-Inbev, but that’s not my main complaint: my real problem is that they continue to sell Keith’s as an India pale ale, which it’s not — full stop.
In fact, the bloody thing isn’t even an ale — it’s a standard pale lager, in the same genre as Molson Canadian, Stella Artois and Budweiser. To beer aficionados, the term India pale ale means something quite particular and specific, and there are a lot of rules involved — all of which Keith’s breaks on a dizzying number of levels.
Here the tour resembles a standard one — descriptions of the ingredients, an overview of the process and so on, although with a bit of a 19th century feel (no kegs and twist-off bottle caps here). They play up the IPA aspect of the beer — which is both authentic and infuriating.
Back in the 1800s, Alexander Keith’s really was an IPA (he also brewed porter and other ales), with the hop bitterness to prove it. The beer lost its authenticity during the dreaded 1950s, when brands were going down left and right and the majority of the survivors turned their beer into the yellow, fizzy drink we consider mainstream beer today.
Read full article…
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