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Whitbread’s Edwardian beers are bound to get a style Nazi in tizzy. Because they certainly don’t fit with the modern hierarchy of Pale Ales. With their IPA being significantly weaker than their Pale Ale.

Whitbread IPA was a latecomer to the party, first brewed in October 1899. They’d been in the Pale Ale game since the 1860s and already brewed three different ones – PA, 2PA and FA, in descending order of strength. With IPA slotting in just above FA.

So, what made this beer an IPA? The fact that the brewery called it that. I can’t work on any other basis. Were British breweries consistent in their use of the term IPA? Like hell they were. And particularly liable to use PA and IPA pretty much randomly. There’s no point searching for a pattern, because there isn’t one.

As was typical, the grist is dead simple. Just pale malt (made from Middle-Eastern barley) and the classier PA malt. Along with quite a bit of sugar, which I’ve assumed to be No. 1 invert.

The hopping was heavier than for their Pale Ale – 11 lbs per quarter (336 lbs) of malt as opposed to 9 lbs. Leaving it a little more bitter. The hops themselves were three types of East Kent, all from the 1908 harvest.

IPA would be a real survivor, eventually becoming Whitbread Trophy, brewed right up until the closure of Chiswell Street in the 1970s.
1909 Whitbread IPA
pale malt 8.00 lb 80.00%
no. 1 sugar 2.00 lb 20.00%
Goldings 90 mins 1.75 oz
Goldings 60 mins 1.75 oz
Goldings 30 mins 1.75 oz
Goldings dry hops 0.50 oz
OG 1049.6
FG 1015
ABV 4.58
Apparent attenuation 69.76%
IBU 68
SRM 6
Mash at 151º F
Sparge at 165º F
Boil time 105 minutes
pitching temp 59º F
Yeast Wyeast 1099 Whitbread ale




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