This is a reproduction of a beer and cheese pairing Naomi Laporte and I performed in February.

An American Pale

The 1986 animated feature An American Tail begins with a heartwarming scene: a family of poor mice in 1880s Ukraine celebrating Hanukkah. But just as Papa Mousekewitz begins to regale his son Fievel with stories of a far-off land of opportunity, their village is raided by anti-Semitic Cossack cats. With their home destroyed, there’s nothing left to do but pack up and head to the mouse utopia of Papa’s tales – America. While the Mouskewitzes suffer repeated traumas on their voyage (Roger Ebert called it a “tragic, gloomy story”), they are eventually able to make a happy life in a young United States. An American Tail is thought by many to illustrate how courage and determinination can be leveraged to overcome hardship, but this is far from the truth. In fact, An American Tail is simply a story about how moving to America makes things awesome.*

The story of our beers today is similar. In the early 1700s, most beer produced in England was sweet and dark (a new style known as the Porter was all the rage). Despite the overwhelming trend, an enterprising young man named George Hodgson developed a style with higher alcohol, lower sugar, and additional hops—both because the recipe was more suitable to the gypsum-laden waters of his city and because the hops would allow the beer to better survive long journeys (e.g., to India). This new “India Pale Ale” exploded in popularity, but as the decades passed it faded into obscurity due to both the rise of continental lagers and the evolution of the pale ale into lower-bitterness, lower-alcohol iterations (e.g., the bitter).

Fast forward to 1970s America, perhaps the darkest hour of our own beer story. While the vast majority of Americans consume grocery-store adjunct lagers (think Bud Light, but worse), a bored industrialist named Fritz Maytag had recently purchased a failing brewery in San Francisco. After reviving the brewery’s classic flagship Anchor Steam, he sought to create a new style, re-interpreting the classic English India Ale with American hops. Thus, in 1975, the American Pale Ale was born as Liberty Ale. The beer quickly developed a cult following and almost single-handedly launched the craft beer revolution in America.

Nascent American brewmasters were, like Maytag, often passionate about pushing the limits of what beer could be, and they quickly began making bigger, bolder versions of the American Pale Ale (the American IPA). While several were produced in the 80s, a man named Vinnie Cilurzo produced an aggressively hopped version in the early 90s that is today thought of as prototypical. That beer was Blind Pig, and Vinnie soon went on to launch Russian River Brewing.

Of course, American brewers weren’t done pushing the envelope, and the early 2000s saw the release of a bolder, bigger, IPA: the imperial IPA. Vinnie had his interpretation, inspired by Blind Pig and now considered demonstrative of the West Coast style- Pliny the Elder. Across the country, Sam Calgione simultaneously developed a very different imperial IPA, with a stronger malt backbone: Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA. Since then, the style has evolved at an exponentially faster rate, becoming one of the dominant forces of American craft brewing.

And so you have it- each beer in this pairing is not only wonderful in its own right, but also a significant piece of history… and don’t forget, evidence that America is awesome. Enjoy!

*note: if it is not obvious, the tone of this is not entirely serious

Pairing Menu

Samuel Smith India Ale (English IPA)
Camembert

Anchor Liberty Ale (American Pale Ale)
Aged Goudas (8 mo. and 5 yr.)

Blind Pig IPA (American IPA)
Roquefort Papillon and raw milk blue cheese

Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA (American Imperial IPA)
Red Hawk (triple-crème aged cow’s milk cheese with brine-washed rind)

Pliny the Elder (American Imperial IPA)
1883 English Cheddar