Brewery: Morrissey Fox
Location: Tickton, Beverley, England
ABV: 5.0%
Version: Bottled
Source: Tesco

Morrissey Fox Aussie IPA is really rather tasty. It’s a palatable, slightly sweet, distinctly malty, fresh-tasting, easy-drinking pale ale. But at only 5% ABV and with that much up-front malt and almost no hop-bite to the finish, it’s not really an India pale ale, is it? At least, not in the sense that the style is currently understood: big, hoppy, sharp, dry to the point of ascerbic and noticeably stronger than the vast majority of most session bitters. Or – having read Pete Brown‘s Hops and Glory – in the sense the style used to be understood, back in its C18th-C19th heyday: rich and smooth, with a much more mellow hop-profile – as a result of several months of secondary fermentation and maturation in the cask en-route to India via the South African Cape – but still packing that serious alcohol-punch.

The over-use and abuse of the IPA label has provoked debate and discussion around the beerblogosphere a few times already (see posts by Mark Dredge and Zak Avery for interesting examples) and whilst I don’t really want to kick off another round of “what the hell is an IPA”, I have to admit that it does bother me. Why? For the same reason that I don’t think you should label a bottle of claret as ‘port’, or a box of Assam tea as ‘Earl Grey’: it’s just wrong. I think the wording on the label should accurately reflect the style of the beer in the bottle. If what the brewery puts in the bottle is a perfectly good pale ale, then why not call it ‘pale ale’ (or a ‘golden ale’ or ‘light ale’ if you have to be different) and have done with it? Why try to dress it up and pass it off as something it’s not?

Also, unless I missed a whole chapter of Hops and Glory, Australia doesn’t get much of a look-in, IPA-wise. Although having said that, in the relevant chapter of Amber, Gold & Black – Martyn ‘Zythophile‘ Cornell’s excellent and extremely detailed history of British beer styles – I discovered that there were actually some Australian brewers who produced their own take on India Pale Ale as far back as the 1870s. As far as I can tell, though, they were basing their IPAs on the original Burton IPAs, rather than developing a particularly distinctive, Aussie take on the style.

So have Mr Morrissey and Mr Fox combed the archives, seeking out rare combinations of malt and hops that were only ever used in nineteenth-century Australian breweries in an attempt to faithfully re-create a lost local version of the IPA? Or are they cashing in on the growing popularity of US and English ‘huge hop’ IPAs? Or do they think they’ve discovered another hybrid style (remember their televised proclamations of stylistic originality when they came up with their first ‘Blonde’ brew?) The blurb on the back label is no help at all – just some fairly inane waffle on the theme of “G’day Sports!” and “…a fruity finish to tempt the mildest sherry-supping Sheila” – and the relevant page on the Morrissey Fox website hasn’t been updated since they released the draught version last August.

All of which leaves me with the nasty suspicion that ‘Aussie IPA’ has come about through the dreaded ‘design-by-committee’ process. I could be completely wrong, of course, but to me it just smacks of focus-group thinking (“It’s pale, shall we call it an IPA?” | “Been done before.” | “What about Aussie IPA?” | “Ooh, ooh! Hats-with-corks!”) and if that’s the case, then I think it’s a bit of a shame, because here Morrissey Fox have come up with another refreshing, tasty, interesting beer with a great flavour profile; one that would go down really well at a barbecue (maybe that’s why they’ve gone for the ‘Aussie’ schtick?), or with a roast dinner, or pretty much any sort of traditional, savoury food. But how many people will actually take a chance on something as weird-sounding as ‘Aussie IPA’?

I bought a bottle because I’ve enjoyed Morrissey Fox’s other brews and wanted to try their new one. But what if I saw ‘Aussie IPA’ on a label from a brewery I’d never heard of? As a regular beer-buyer I’d probably assume they didn’t really know their beer styles, or were trying too hard to cover up a mediocre session bitter. Either way, I’d most likely give it a miss; always better things to spend my beer-money on. And if I wasn’t a real ale enthusiast? If I was a passing supermarket punter thinking of trying something a bit different to the usual? How tempted would I be to try something called “Aussie IPA”? Probably not very. ‘Aussie IPA’? Bit confusing. Think I’ll try a ‘Best Bitter’ instead. Or here’s one called ‘Pale Ale’, that sounds okay…

So, unless I am completely wrong about the whole thing and there’s actually a very genuine reason for calling it an ‘Aussie IPA’ – in which case, if anyone from Morrissey Fox (or their advertising agency?) happens to read this and can set me straight, please do feel free to leave a comment – I’ll conclude with: good beer, dumb name.