The backstory of those delicious IPAs we never get in Egypt: Few beers incite and enrich conversation as much as India pale ales (IPAs), The Economist writes. “Their distinctive character — the ‘firm bitterness [that] lingers long and clean’ in one, the ‘complex aromatic notes of citrus, berry, tropical fruit and pine’ in another — spur discussions that spill over from tap rooms to websites with ease.” IPA is the child of Britain’s industrial revolution and imperial expansion — and it almost vanished with the spread of lager.

It all began in the 18th century, with the British East India Company. “Boredom between the comings and goings of the ships led company men in India to make an ‘art-form of feasting and boozing’ … To help this art-form along, wily entrepreneur-seamen packed the holds with hams and cheeses, crockery and glassware and good supplies of drink … The Company encouraged the imports, even taking an interest in guaranteeing their quality.” The troops in India may have preferred darker, sweeter porter, but the wealthier traders hankered after more refinement and George Hodgson’s Bow Brewery, which by the late 18th century had become the main supplier, managed to give them what they wanted.

Hodgson provided them with pale ale, a lighter-coloured bitter that was a recent innovation. “Its (relative) pallor came from its malt, which is a grain, usually barley, which has been heated and dried. Sometimes called the ‘soul of beer’, malt imparts sweetness, colour and the starch that is broken down into alcohol.” The key step in being able to create the pale ale was developing coke, a coal from which impurities have been baked out, which made it possible to move away from wood or straw that were used in malting but had “a devilish lack of consistency.” Coke’s “clean burning produced a paler, subtler and more consistent product, and though darker, sweeter styles still predominated, brewers started to aim those pale ales at the palates of wealthier drinkers.” But then, however, Hodgson overreached and began to operate close to being a monopoly and started to export beer on his own ships to exert more control over the trade and expand his business. So in 1822 Campbell Marjoribanks, one of the Company’s directors, sat down to dinner with Samuel Allsop, a brewer from Burton-on-Trent, “hoping to clip Hodgson’s wings.” Allsop succeeded in creating a similar ale and, joined by other Burton breweries, drove Hodgson’s out of favour. This is how “East India ales” or “Ales for the Indian Market” reached some global dominance.

This was short-lived. Rival drinks became more popular and “industrial refrigeration made it possible to brew beers year round [it had previously been a seasonal business unsuited to summers] and to make more beers of the crisp, light lager style popular in Germany and Bohemia.” Enduring a severe rout, IPAs made a comeback in the late 20th century. “Born in monopoly, IPA is triumphing through diversity. Everyone can have a home-town brew and an opinion. That is bad news for the vast brewers that dominate the large but shrinking global lager market. The competition flourishes at a local level and on a modest scale that the big brewers hardly know how to understand,” The Economist says, “the tipple that helped create the world’s first brewing giants could yet undermine the beermaking behemoths of today.”