The India Pale Ale: Tool of British Colonial Expansion | Nicholas Mehle |

PDF Version.


During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the British Empire expanded its influence and control throughout the world as naval ships carried military personnel, bureaucrats, and Western culture far from the cold, north Atlantic shores. Historians have written extensively on British colonies, the industrialization of peripheral lands, and the resulting global commerce that grew from these outposts. Despite significant work on these subjects, there has been little focus on beer, which was more than a simple beverage during this era. British ales were considered an essential provision for long oceanic voyages and lifted the spirits of sailors who pined for its refreshment. Homesick expatriates abroad happily paid for bottles of ale, which created a consumer market that industrialized breweries were eager to tap into. This paper explores how one of the world’s most famous and popular beers – the India Pale Ale – became an active tool of colonial expansion. Using historical research regarding the importance of beer to the British, as well as anthropological analysis to argue how imperative alcohol was for social construction and stability, the IPA deserves recognition as a prominent and impactful piece of British imperial history.

While the modern IPA enjoys unbridled popularity in bars around the world, the original beer was anything but inclusive, as the hoppy ale set its British consumers apart from the indigenous people whose land was being colonized. The IPA became not only a symbol of British colonial expansion but also served as a cultural identifier and divisive social separator for expatriates living on the subcontinent. This beer became an active tool in pushing the colonial British Empire around the world. This ale was not present only in India, as records show the Australian penal colonies received large shipments of the bitter beer, as well as regions in the Near East and the Atlantic shores of North America. Wherever the Crown’s vessels sailed, there was sure to be IPA onhand.

A Brief History of the IPA

The London and Country Brewer, published in 1763, outlined the three main types of malt that breweries used in the eighteenth century: pale, amber, and brown.1 London porters were made from the brown malt and had a rich, smooth sweetness, while October ales used an abundance of amber malt, were more heavily hopped than the porters, and were much higher in alcohol.2 Pale ales were created from grains that were lightly roasted and had a moderate amount of hops, although typically less than the October ales.3 The beer which would eventually become the famed IPA evolved as a hybridized pale October ale and was dryer, lighter in color, and higher in alcohol. The transition from malty October ales to the ultra-hoppy India Pale Ale came after much experimentation using hops as a preservative for extended aging, and from a shift in taste preference by those living in the balmy tropical climate of India.

The India Pale Ale gained its name from Britain’s most prosperous colony in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as vast income flowed into its treasury through spices, textiles, coffee, and other uniquely Asian commodities that gained popularity throughout Europe. Holding a monopoly on this commercial trade was the East India Company (EIC), which negotiated its first trade contract with the Mughal Empire in India in 1618. By 1620, this corporation had a large fleet of ships manned by 2,500 men carrying Asian commodities back to British shores.4 Between the years of 1750 – 1780, The EIC’s commerce generated an estimated £36,000,000 in customs and excise revenue, representing over 11% of the total government income of Great Britain.5 As India became more important to the financial stability of the British economy, investment within its borders intensified. Trade was mostly one-way, with few British goods being exported back to India. This trade deficit allowed the hulls of the EIC ships bound for India to be filled with casks of beer, a vital and necessary commodity for merchants, military personnel, and bureaucrats living abroad.

Beer had been shipped on the long transoceanic voyages from Europe to Asia since the early eighteenth century. While there is evidence of pale ales arriving on the distant shores of India as early as 1718,6 there was never a specific style called “India Pale Ale”. Regardless of how consumers and brewers referred to the pale ale, it evolved into a specific style of hoppy, dry, and bitter beer that was ever-present in British colonies. Mitch Steele has made major historical contributions to the development of the IPA, denouncing the original belief that this beer was created for an export market in India. Rather, Steele argues the IPA evolved from October Ales, which were already high in alcohol and commonly exported to British settlements. The earliest record of the term “India Pale Ale” being used was not until 1820 when Hodgson’s Brewery ran a newspaper advertisement touting “Beer as prepared for India.” The specific term “India Pale Ale” was not commonly used until 1835.7

There is little scholarship on the specific style of the IPA, while more emphasis has been placed on the subject of beer in general. An abundance of research into the origin of beer has come from Dr. Patrick E. McGovern, the scientific director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory for Cuisine, Fermented Beverages, and Health. An adjunct anthropology professor and prolific writer who focuses on ancient ale and wine production, McGovern has hypothesized that alcohol was one of the most important factors in the domestication of grain and the development of civilizations.8 His research places beer as an important mechanism in the transition from nomadic societies into agrarian-based ones. Dr. Max Nelson, associate professor of Greco-Roman studies at Windsor University, has also given detailed research into the origins and dispersion of making beer in the ancient world. His groundbreaking work The Barbarian’s Beverage analyzed an overarching prejudice against beer by the Roman Empire, who felt the grain-based drink was inferior to wine.9 Mark Patterson and Nancy Hoalst-Pullen’s book, The Geography of Beer: Regions, Environment, and Societies features research from a collection of historians and anthropologists that explore the history of brewing beer and its cultural impact on various societies.10 Thus, most of the academic research surrounding beer focuses on its history, its use, and its dispersion throughout the world. 

Academic writing regarding the modern brewing industry tends to focus on the correlation between specific brewing regions and certain styles of beer. Closer analysis of the climate, agricultural resources, and water sources shed light on the reason certain populations drank specific beers. Mitch Steele has stated the reason the English town Burton-on-Trent became famous for its ability to create unrivaled IPAs was a result of their highly calcified water source. Containing higher levels of calcium and sulfate, Burton water was perfectly suited for the brewing of hoppier golden ales because these minerals produced a drier beer which accentuated the hops, and promoted yeast flocculation, making the finished product brighter and clearer than its London competitors.11 No other water source in the world had the same chemical composition, which meant no other beer could ever mimic the export pale ales from this esteemed brewing region. As a result, Burton IPAs were brighter, clearer, crisper, and hoppier than any other pale ale in the world.

Few historians had placed the India Pale Ale into a sphere of cultural and economic importance until Alan Pryor elevated the IPA to an iconic symbol of the British Empire. Pryor writes that the India Pale Ale was a cultural invention that occupied a space that was neither British nor Indian.12 This statement is intriguing since the beer was made by British brewers, stimulated the British economy, and filled an overseas British consumer market. Yet the IPA was not readily available in local British pubs until the mid-1800s and its popularity did not peak until near the end of that century.13 Therefore, this beer’s identity and use were imperial, being used to fuel expatriates on their efforts for the Crown. More important to the British abroad than simply a refreshing beverage, Pryor writes that the IPA symbolized a growing industrialized England, working to tame a wild Indian subcontinent.14 I seek to push this idea further, moving the IPA from a symbol of the British Empire to an active tool in the expansion of the Crown across the globe.

The Importance of Beer to the British

To understand the role of beer as a tool of colonization, it is necessary to recognize the importance of beer to the British. This beverage was consumed in large quantities, as one writer bluntly stated, “[t]he English nation annually consumes an Atlantic of beer.”15 At the end of the nineteenth century, the British were drinking an average of thirty-one gallons of beer per capita annually.16 This figure placed the nation second only to Belgium on a global scale, who consumed almost forty-five gallons per annum. Considering these staggering figures, the absence of English ale in British outposts around the globe would be inconceivable. Beer became so prevalent in the Indian colony that General G.I. Wolseley lamented, “before the construction of railways it used to be said that, were we driven from the country, no trace, no monument of our rule would exist ten years afterward, beyond the empty beer-bottles we had left behind us.”17 Beer was one of the many pieces of the British imperial machine present in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

British sailors were promised one gallon of beer daily, as it was not simply a luxury beverage for special occasions, but a necessity to keep spirits high while enduring long voyages.18 The perceived medicinal qualities of beer also played a factor in ensuring the mariners were aptly stocked. Sir John Pringle wrote to the Royal Society in 1776 that scurvy was never an issue as long as beer was present in full allowance.19 The brewer and author William Tizard wrote in 1850 that hops were a cathartic medicine that promoted digestion and the IPA would improve the nutrition of food consumed alongside it. He even claimed the hoppy ale would “give strength and vigour to the mental faculties and physical powers.”20 As the Crown’s vessels expanded further away from its Atlantic shores, a sturdier beer which was higher in alcohol and hop content was required for the ship’s crew and the colonial population since longer voyages rendered beer to sour before arrival at its destination. Beer was so important for the sailors that it has been noted “nothing doth displease the seamen more than sour beer.”21 And when beer supplies ran out, anger and even mutiny were not uncommon results. In early ventures to North America, for example, one British captain proclaimed that his crew are in ‘an uproar’ about their offensive beer, and that if he finds no fresh supply at Plymouth he is sure of a mutiny.”22 As the British Empire extended its influence around the world, beer would become an important tool to get troops onto distant shores. Once a colonial outpost was solidified, beer was essential for a growing bureaucratic population. The absence of a usual shipment of the ale at the height of the IPA’s popularity in India “sickened every heart and saddened every countenance.”23 The British population in India quickly became accustomed to and dependent on beer with an insatiable desire for the exported IPA. 

Other countries took notice of the new beer style and its growing popularity, although not always in a positive light. American periodicals labeled India as the “El Dorado of British younger sons; liver-destroying and bitter-beer consuming.”24 India became synonymous with bitter beer, and the British with overindulgence of the beverage. To the world, young British soldiers and merchants were wrangling an exotic land, reaping vast wealth from its exports, and drinking a unique elixir during their conquests. This is important as it reveals the IPA was being used as part of British colonial identity. The new beer style became synonymous with Britain’s endeavors in India and placed the IPA squarely in the imperial realm of the British in the eyes of other nations.

Ale was not only a staple in the British diet, but became a source of national pride worth defending. Historically, heavy tariffs had been placed on imported wine which made locally produced ale affordable and preferred. When this tax was lifted in the mid-nineteenth century, brewers feared there would be a shift in consumerism, favoring wine. Medical publications of the time proudly rallied to the defense of British ale. “Our national beverage is still as important an article of diet as ever… The general excellence of British beer has long been recognized… It has been customary to consider both the method and the system of manufacture adopted in this country, as well as the product itself, as being in most respects far superior to any other.”25 The scientific journal Nature also wrote of the pride Britons had in their beer, proclaiming its quality was “notorious throughout Europe,” and the “fame of bitter beer has now become familiar in all parts of the world.”26 Readers of the day would understand that this use of “bitter beer” was about the hoppier, exported pale ales that were arriving on distant shores across the globe, known in most regions as the India Pale Ale. The IPA took its place among the great British beers that had caught the attention of the world and as it was initially made specifically for export to British outposts, this drew attention not simply to the beverage, but the breadth of British colonial reach. The IPA’s prestige was no longer strictly limited to the decks of British ships and in the colonial outposts of foreign shores, but a cultural flagbearer of English industry and nation-building. 

Other western countries took note of the India Pale Ale as Scientific American viewed Burton’s Samuel Allsopp & Sons brewery as “[t]he most perfect and complete establishment ever erected…”27 The publication marveled at Allsopp’s size, which spanned fifty-two acres and was “handsomely furnished” throughout. The brewery had its own post office, a team of chemists who ensured the quality of the beer, and 400,000 individually numbered handmade casks for storing beer. Not only was England’s beer growing in fame, but the production facilities were gaining international attention as well. Great Britain remained the benchmark of the brewing industry as industrialization gave rise to modern commercial breweries which would eventually spread throughout other western nations.

One unique draw of the IPA was its perceived medicinal value, stemming from its exorbitant amount of hops and dry character. The tropical climate of southern India presented new diseases, especially cholera, which ravaged the British colonists. Doctors of this era, who racially described the indigenous population as having “feeble and washy” bodies that “lacked the same rigidity” as their British counterparts, were completely baffled at how this population was rarely affected by these diseases.28 Sweet and dark porters were not considered to hold the same healing properties due to their sugar content, yet the sparkling golden IPA was prescribed by many doctors who felt it aided in digestion. One doctor even claimed the hops in the IPA were restorative for “invalids and convalescents.”29 Contaminated water supplies often led to disease outbreaks and beer was a safe alternative because the brewing process involves boiling water, which kills harmful bacteria. In a time before the understanding of germs, it is easy to see how beer was embraced by the medical community as having medicinal properties. The IPA grew into an important aspect of colonization, reviving the spirits of soldiers on their long journey to the Malabar and Coromandel Coasts, and providing relief for those ailing from disease. This beer had transcended the realm of a simple commodity and grew in necessity beyond a basic staple of diet.

The Rise of the IPA in Popular Culture

During the mid-nineteenth century, romanticized accounts of life in India became available to readers in the United Kingdom as travelers and military personnel recorded their time abroad and published their stories. The IPA found space within these pages and gained more notoriety as the beer became associated with the wild and exotic subcontinent. Tales of riding elephants while hunting tigers, buffaloes, and wild boar were balanced by the daily consumption of IPA.30 John D’Ewes, a global traveler and hunter, marveled not only at the striking wildlife and jungles that were so foreign to Europeans, but also at the local cuisine. He recounted his hunting party eating curries and other local fares before they “distinguished themselves amongst the votaries to the shrine of the immortal Hodgson.”31 Hodgson’s IPA was the single most popular brand of IPA in the early nineteenth century, and the depth of D’Ewes’s fervor is evident in the language used to describe Hodgson’s beer. This India Pale Ale was held in such esteem that D’Ewes describes the drinkers of this famous ale as devotees and the place where it was served a shrine. The IPA was a central figure to the colonial population, the prized refreshment of the adventurer in the remote lands of South Asia. This was not the beverage of London dockworkers or casual publicans. Rather, this beer was the beverage of imperial actors, of adventurers taming the wild jungles, and of colonizers bringing millions of indigenous Indians under their rule.
Similar to the expanding Crown, the reach of the IPA was not limited to just India, as numerous accounts have placed this beer in other parts of the world during this time. Contributors to the nineteenth-century London magazine Punch wrote of the presence of IPA throughout the East in Syria and Egypt.32 William Thackery described great joy when a camel-load of IPA arrived in the City of Prophets during his trip to Jerusalem.33 There was no prerequisite of ocean voyages to drive the demand for this export ale. Overland trade routes also facilitated the growth of this imperial signifier, as the reach of the British Crown and the IPA, alike, proliferated the modern world. The ale was also present in the United States, as newspaper advertisements for merchants selling the “East India Pale Ale” were not uncommon.34 The fame of the British beer was expanding throughout the globe, as the ale became synonymous with British economic and colonial growth.

Perhaps the most intriguing account surrounding the IPA took place in 1836, which further pushed the beer’s legendary renown. The Stirling Castle departed a British port and sailed to Hobart Town in Australia. Among the various crew members and goods onboard were 900 barrels of Hodgson’s IPA for the British who resided in the southern colony.35 The ship safely completed the first half of its trip but encountered disaster upon its return voyage. Harsh seas and shifting wind caused the vessel to run aground on the Swain Reefs off the coast of northeast Australia, causing most of the ship’s provisions to be lost. Tossed by the sea for weeks, the crew exhausted their remaining food and water. They survived on part of an eighteen-gallon barrel of Hodgson’s IPA, supplemented with rock oysters and rainwater for over a month. When the ale was finished, the hops that settled on the bottom of the cask were chewed on to garner any last bit of moisture that could provide relief.36 This brought just enough sustenance for the castaways to safely reach the northern shore of Australia. 

The thirst-quenching qualities that the IPA was said to contain were exemplified on the grandest scale, preserving the lives of those aboard the Stirling Castle. While one would think this account could have been used to advertise the IPA and bolster its popularity, the impact it had is unknown. Most British breweries did not invest more than a simple section of the newspaper for advertising and even their bottle labels were considered dull compared to their American brewery counterparts.37 Nevertheless, the IPA found utility in the farthest stretches of the British colonial empire while harrowing stories like that of the Stirling Castle pushed the IPA into a realm of legend among sailors and merchants who already touted its medicinal qualities. 

The IPA as a Social Identifier and Cultural Barrier

While the IPA revealed itself as a necessity to military personnel and bureaucrats alike throughout the British Empire, the crux of its use as a tool of empire was through its ability to culturally separate the colonizer from the indigenous population. Here the IPA is better viewed through an anthropological lens. Janet Chrzan describes how alcoholic beverages and social drinking customs stem from a particular population’s values and attitudes.38 Beer was a major identifier of British culture and thus became a way to impart their identity into new colonies around the globe. While there is evidence that fermented beverages similar to beer were present in India since the second millennium BC, it was not a major identifier of Indian culture, at least not to the extent to which it was for the British. Pryor notes that the India Pale Ale “was not for consumption by the indigenous population, but for the British population of colonial India.”39 The British fraternized together, strengthening comradery over pints of IPA while driving a cultural rift between themselves and the native Indian population. 

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century British attitudes concerning the Indian population had not yet developed into sentiments of racial superiority, and local Hindu and Muslim traditions were seen in a rather positive light by many Europeans.40 Yet social relations between the foreign and indigenous groups began to decline under Governor-General Cornwallis at the turn of the century. By the Victorian era, British rule in India was centralized and cultural attitudes had become racialized.41 British colonialism in the nineteenth century required a separation between the foreign power and a local community falling under their authority, both militarily and socially. As anthropologist Michael Dietler writes, alcohol consumption is a way to construct social cohesion and cultural unity, such that drinking patterns are not merely a reflection of society, but can reveal the active construction of homogenous group identity.42 The colonizer used food and living conditions as social identifiers that both emulated superiority and served as images of disparity. The British troops lived in lofty barracks compared to the indigenous population who resided in “lowly huts.”43 The British were also noted as enjoying wholesome food with meat that was washed down by India Pale Ale, while “the Natives subsisted on farinaceous or vegetable matters washed down with only water.”44 These specific observations were meant to show the difference between the two groups, revealing the assumed superiority of the British compared to the “primitive” Indians. While there was some transculturation between the British and the Indian communities, the India Pale Ale remained an apparatus of separation. 

Dietler, again, writes that alcohol can be a fiercely charged social tool in the political sphere.45 If the IPA actively constructed a British colonial community, then this means it was also actively restricting the inclusion of the indigenous community from being allowed into the fold. Some alcohol has a dark history of being used by colonizing nations as a coercive product, or as currency, as was the case with distilled spirits in the West African slave trade.46 The India Pale Ale was unique in that it was a beverage of separation since it was made specifically for British troops and bureaucrats, rather than the native indigenous population.47 This sparkling golden ale helped establish the symbol of a superior community committed to bringing Indian subordinates and their resources under the rule of the Crown.

Interestingly, British soldiers developed unique skills during their extended time spent in India. These included not only gaining an understanding of the Indian language and customs but also becoming a critic of incoming batches of IPA.48 British consumer’s particular knowledge represents a form of cultural capital.49 So ingrained into British colonial society was the IPA, that only experienced soldiers could conduct adequate quality control on the shipments of beer arriving onshore. This skill was an identifying trait of “sun dried and gray headed captains.”50 Breweries back in England relied on the discerning palates of the consumers for constructive feedback as competition increased after more breweries began exporting their brand of IPA.51 One vital aspect to the continued well-being of colonial life was ensuring that the highest quality of pale ale was ever-present for consumption.

Social clubs also emerged on the subcontinent which offered an escape from daily responsibilities for British leaders. Kasturi Kar writes that imperial British rulers yearned for a space to relax with others similar to them. The burden of lording over the indigenous population “with a stiff upper lip” pushed the creation of European style clubs, designed solely for the British to congregate and relax with a glass of beer.52 “To put it in correct terms, the European clubs in India under the Raj served as an instrument to widen the gulf between the rulers and the ruled.”53 These clubs, and the beer consumed within them, were cultural garrisons that offered socializing and conversation with peers. Kar writes that these institutions legitimized the British claim as rulers, as well as their own perceived omnipotence. Despite being halfway around the world from their native home, the British could exercise their cultural identity, separated from the indigenous Indian population they were working to exercise control over.

Access to these social clubs was limited and fell along dividing lines of gender, class, and race. The institutions were open to elite European men who served as bureaucrats or high-ranking military personnel. Mrinalini Sinha writes that these social clubs were imperial institutions that served to both divide groups as well as unite and mobilize people of the same sociopolitical identity.54 These clubs harbored the elite British who were in control of India and its vast population, and the articles found within the club walls served as tools of imperialism. While IPA was not the only beverage that could be found in the hands of the elite British, it was definitely present and consumed, serving its purpose of creating social cohesion and group identity.

The Decline of the IPA

The trajectory of the India Pale Ale’s use followed a similar trajectory of the British Empire’s colonial system: as decolonization unfolded in the twentieth century, the steady decline of the IPA also followed suit. There were numerous factors to blame for the decline of the IPA, including temperance movements and rationing as a result of world war. Yet it is still worth noting that, as the British lost colonies who gained independence, the IPA lost steam. By this time, many breweries around the world were brewing the IPA, diluting its image as being purely British.

Furthermore, the development of modernized refrigeration systems allowed beer to be brewed in hot climates that were not previously suited for making beer. Yeast needs moderate temperatures to ferment sugar into alcohol, and the balmy heat of southern India resulted in yeast dying before it could complete its chemical process. The advent of refrigeration allowed brewers to control the temperature of their beer during fermentation and ushered in new opportunities for brewing. This propelled German-style lagers to quickly take over the market majority in India. These beers ferment at much colder temperatures compared to IPAs and result in a lighter and more refreshing beverage. Consumers found these lagers more suitable to the heat and the demand for this alternative beer rose. It would not be until the late twentieth century that the IPA would make a resurgence, this time in the United States. 

Research on the India Pale Ale has begun to receive more attention in recent years as the popularity of this beer has risen in modern times. While the origin story of this beer is becoming more common, and the economic impact of the brewing industry during the nineteenth century has received more scholarship, there is still insufficient research on this beer as a cultural and political mechanism. The IPA’s perceived medicinal value, its ability to socially construct the British identity in India, and the spread of its popularity throughout the global British Colonial Empire rendered this elixir a tool of imperial expansion. Rarely has a beer served such a diverse purpose and had such a dramatic impact as the India Pale Ale.

Notes

1.  William Ellis, The London and Country Brewer. (London: J. & J. Fox, 1763).

2.  Traditionally brewed in October when temperatures were cool enough for the yeast to ferment the ale, these October ales used the freshly harvested hops and grains and were aged for at least one year.

3.  Mitch Steele, IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes, and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale. (Boulder CO: Brewers Association, 2012) 17.

4.  Nick Robins, The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational. (London: Pluto Press, 2012), 19.

5.  Jonathan Eacott,  “A Company to Fear: India and the American Revolution” in Selling Empire:

6.  Steele, IPA, 18.

7.  Steele, IPA, 26.

8.  Patrick E. McGovern, Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

9.  Max Nelson, The Barbarian’s Beverage: A History of Beer in Ancient Europe. New York: Routledge, 2005.

10.  Mark Patterson and Nancy Hoalst-Pullen, eds., The Geography of Beer: Regions, Environment, and Societies, New York: Springer, 2014.

11.  Steele, IPA, 39.

12.  Alan Pryor, India Pale Ale: An Icon of Empire.” Commodities of Empire No. 13, (University of

13.  Steele, IPA, 97.

14.  Pryor, “Indian Pale Ale,” 2.

15.  John Stevenson Bushnan, Burton and its Bitter Beer. (London: William S. Orr and Company,

16.  “The Consumption of Alcoholic Beverages from an International Standpoint,” British Medical Journal, (April 1900), 1041.

17.  G.I. Wolseley, “The Native Army of India,” The North American Review, 127, no. 263

18.  M. Oppenheim, “The Royal Navy under Charles I,” The English Historical Review, 8, no. 31

19.  Sir John Pringle, “A discourse upon some late improvements of the means for preserving the health of mariners,” Royal Society (November 30, 1776), 16.

20.  William Tizard, The Theory and Practice of Brewing Illustrated, Containing the Chemistry, History, and Right Application of All Brewing Ingredients and Products, (London, 1850), 467-8.

21.  Oppenheim, “The Royal and Merchant Navy under Elizabeth,” The English Historical

22.  Oppenheim, The Royal Navies Under Charles I, 485.

23.  “Affairs to the Northward,” Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies, (January – June 1826), 89.

24.  “INDIA,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, 11, (1880), 544.

25.  “Report On The Malt Liquors Sold In The United Kingdom: With Analyses And Comments”

26.  Benjamin H. Paul, “Our National Drink,” Nature, (April 7, 1870), 576.

27.  “Manufacture of Foreign Beer,” Scientific American, 16, no. 12 (March 23, 1867), 184.

28.  W. H. Sykes, “Vital Statistics of the East India Company’s Armies in India, European and Native,” Journal of the Statistical Society of London, 10, no. 2 (May 1847), 121.

29.  Jonathan Pereira, A Treatise on Food and Diet. New York: Fowler and Wells, (1843), 200. 

30.  Jonathan Leach, Rambles Along the Styx. London: T. and W. Boone, 1847, 22.

31.  John D’Ewes, Sporting in Both Hemispheres. London: G. Routledge & Co., (1858), 28.

32.  “Punch in the East,” Punch, or the London Charivari, 8, 1845, 31.

33.  Francis Espinasse, Literary Recollections, and Sketches London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1893, 151.

34.  “Advertisement 6,” The Albion, A Journal of News, Politics, and Literature, (Sep 12, 1863), 445.

35.  Shipwreck of the Stirling Castle: Containing a Faithful Narrative of the Dreadful Sufferings of the Crew and the Cruel Murder of Captain Fraser by the Savages. London: George Virtue, 1838, 7.

36.  Shipwreck of the Stirling Castle: Containing a Faithful Narrative of the Dreadful Sufferings of the Crew and the Cruel Murder of Captain Fraser by the Savages. London: George Virtue, 1838, 30.

37.  Jonathan Reinarz, “Promoting the Pint: Ale and Advertising in late Victorian and Edwardian England,” Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, Volume 22, No 1 (Fall 2007).

38.  Janet Chrzan, Alcohol: Social Drinking in Cultural Context. “The Routledge Series for Creative

39.  Pryor, “Indian Pale Ale,” 4.

40.  C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990, 39.

41.  Udayon Misra, “Nineteenth-Century British Views of India: Crystallisation of Attitudes,” Economic and Political Weekly, 19, no. 4 (1984), 15.

42.  Michael Dietler, “Alcohol: Anthropological/Archaeological Perspectives,” Annual Review of Anthropology, 35, (2006), 235.

43.  Sykes, “Vital Statistics,” 122.

44.  Sykes, “Vital Statistics,” 122.

45.  Dietler, “Alcohol,” 232.

46.  Dietler, “Alcohol,” 240.

47.  Pryor, “Indian Pale Ale,” 4.

48.  Francis John Bellew, Memoirs of a Griffin; Or, A Cadet’s First Year in India, (London: W.H., 1843).

49.  Dietler, “Alcohol,” 236.

50.  Bellew, Memoirs of a Griffin, 2.

51.  Bushnan, Burton, 106. 

52. Kasturi Kar, “Early Colonial Sensibilities, Social Life and Leisure Habits in the Indian Subcontinent.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 75, (2014), 535. 

53.  Kasturi Kar, “Early Colonial Sensibilities, Social Life and Leisure Habits in the Indian Subcontinent.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 75, (2014), 535.54.  Mrinalini Sinha, “Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India,” Journal of British Studies, Vol. 40, No. 4, (Oct. 2001), pp. 489-521.

olas Mehle