English Pale Ale

Just had a look at the top 50 highest scoring ones. Guess how many I have had!

https://www.ratebeer.com/beerstyles/english-pale-ale/16/

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Thereā€™s no reason for you to have avoided them all, perhaps youā€™ve crossed paths with 2 of them, but the fact that youā€™re posting implies itā€™s closer to 0. Iā€™m on 6, and Iā€™m temted to guess that the other 44 would also make me say ā€œthereā€™s nothing English about thisā€ too.

BINGO!

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Iā€™m drinking a top 50 English Pale Ale now. (Iā€™ve had 8, apparently). This one is 4.2% ABV, hazy pale gold and hopped with Mosaic, Galaxy, Simcoe, Citra. Itā€™s Philter XPA. It has a small head. Maybe that makes it English.

I got a private message from Tilford Brewery stating that their beer was an EPA. Iā€™d joked that I couldnā€™t add it as one hand Iā€™d been there that lunchtime and they tracked me down.

Although of a brewery states that their beer is an EPA (such as Elusive) whoā€™s to sayvthatvtheir beer is not based on the US style;)

Not one of the beers in the top 20 is brewed in the UK! LOL

(I stopped looking after 20, so itā€™s probably more than that).

Iā€™ve just looked at the rest i.e. 20-50 and whilst I checked through most, I never checked each and everyone individually, but I am quite certain that not one of that entire 50 are from an English or even UK brewery. It appears that alongside the many from the US, that France, Italy, New Zealand and Australia brew a style that we barely recognise which is probably right as most of us here would just lump it into the Golden category anyhow.

Iā€™ve been told before that itā€™s the same as ā€œScottish Aleā€ i.e. an American classification and therefore nothing in the UK will be classed as such! As Fin says, English pale ale is usually just a golden.

Yes, thatā€™s where the confusion comes in. The original Pale Ales in the UK were not very pale at all by modern day standards, not even golden (generally). Pale Ale was what they were called by the brewery, and what was on the bottle labels, but they came to be known as Bitter by drinkers on draught in pubs, without the benefit of point of sale branding back then. They were the same beers (courtesy Martyn Cornellā€™s research). Mainly brown twiggy bitters - although some (e.g. Boddingtons) were quite pale. Those of us of a certain vintage (i.e. me) will remember that, once upon a time, it was very rare to see a bottled beer labelled as Bitter.

More recently, those bottled beers labelled as Pale Ales (notably Bass) exported to the US where what, in all probability, inspired the English Pale Ale style there, possibly originally as clones made by homebrewers. It may have evolved into something somewhat different nowadays in the US - Iā€™ve not had enough to know. Iā€™d imagine, though, that ā€œEnglishā€ hop varieties remain key.

English Pale Ale seems to be making a bit of a comeback on labels in the UK. What it actually means is rather obscure to me. I suspect itā€™s often used for beers that resemble APAs but the brewer doesnā€™t want to call them ā€œAmericanā€. Iā€™d wager that not many are brown twiggy beers like the American ā€œoriginalsā€. I guess, as @beardedavenger says, there may be some that are modelled on present day American EPAs, whatever they are. I dunno.

In the UK, the area inhabited by Bitters/Golden Ales/EPAs/APAs/Session IPAs/IPAs is very cluttered. Not helped by the fact that many UK beers tend to be a few notches down from their US counterparts in ABV. Precision is hard to tease out. Maybe impossible.

Cheers Chris, your post got me thinking about what actual EPAā€™s I have rated and where they were from.

Only had 20 apparently, that alone tells me that they arenā€™t something I come across very often (out of my 8,000 plus rates).

The diversity of countries however is amazing:

English 6
Italian 3
Welsh 2

and 1 each from this bunch;

Australia
Belgium
Czech Republic
France
Holland
Malta
Spain
Uruguay
USA

Interesting selection, even if I say so myself.

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Donā€™t be at all surprised if those numbers decrease! I think the EPA moniker is in fairly common use in Europe for Bitter-like beers using ā€œBririshā€ hop varieties. I donā€™t recall seeing Bitter used much in labelling there.

I have a feeling it is as you allude to where itā€™s pretty much an APA, but perhaps the difference being the use of English (or at least English-grown) hops, therefore the term English Pale Ale is one of more accurate semantical value if nothing else?

But of course, the meaning no doubt varies from brewer to brewerā€¦ Like BrewDogā€¦ initially suggested their Indie Pale Ale was an ā€œEnglish Pale Aleā€ despite the use of American hops, in fact Iā€™m not sure exactly what was supposed to be English about it. Jamesā€™ comments on the EFP forum seemed to suggest the ā€œyeast-derived flavours and estersā€ were what Indie was all about, and that if being pedantic about style he would place it ā€œsomewhere between an English Pale Ale & a Blonde ale, just nudging towards the English Pale.ā€

So yeah, I canā€™t see the confusion ever clearing up, there doesnā€™t seem to be any agreement from anyone about what makes a beer an English Pale Ale, especially with these modern interpretations arguably fitting better in other styles.

This old thread came up on my screen and I thought Iā€™d see how many English EPAs there were. Some cheeky mutha had changed Timothy Taylorā€™s Landord to EPA:

https://www.ratebeer.com/top/english-pale-ale/england

I think here in America it means less agressive Pale Alesā€¦with English hop and malt characteristicsā€¦i like most i have tasted.
I do not know why some get so upset of these type of thingsā€¦the USA is the birthplace of the new craft beer stylesā€¦so they do not correspond to the old Europe?
Who cares shit changes

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But only the bottle version. The cask version is a bitter.

Last night the cask version was the #1 rated EPA. So thatā€™s one corrected, just 50+ to gošŸ˜

But it is an English Pale Ale!?!?

As are all bitters, obviously.

Ignore ratebeer styles, and anyone influenced by them, they are pulled out of an orifice Iā€™m too polite to mention.