IPA Day & Black Lives Matter
6th August is IPA day.
I tend to view it primarily as a commercially focused opportunity to promote IPA but that didn’t stop me from having a glass of Verdant’s Pigs All Day West Coast IPA at the excellent and open again Bubs in central Cardiff.
Pete Brown has dealt with some of the debates around IPA here:
https://www.petebrown.net/2017/08/03/a-quick-blog-post-for-ipa-day/
The link with various aspects of far from always great British imperial history is difficult to avoid.
What did the ships that took IPA to India return to Britain laden with? As often Martyn Cornell has an answer, in relation to a ship returning from Calcutta in 1838:
cargo including raw cotton, 83 elephants’ tusks, coffee, wool, pepper, ginger – and opium
http://zythophile.co.uk/2015/10/12/the-ipa-shipwreck-and-the-night-of-the-big-wind/
In other words profitable parts of British imperial rule that should have gone to those who laboured to produce them in India.
In short, enjoy the IPA but keep in mind its history and that Black Lives Matter
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