The Beer Historian

While on a research journey to London this Spring I jumped into the National Archives for the first time in too many years to explore more IPA history. Though I had a very brief amount of time back in England I did manage to find the earliest reference to the term “India Pale Ale” and it comes from the island of Barbados in 1824!

There were many terms to describe these hoppier pale ales traveling from the British Isles to the colonies such “ale bound for India” or other similar terms but for the specific ‘India Pale Ale’ term this is the earliest reference, yet. What is especially fun and interesting about this is that it is for West India Pale Ale, since it was going to the West Indies, of which Barbados was a part, and not the East Indies that included India.

I am looking forward to finding more about this history as I continue my current research. For now, cheers to the West India Pale Ale!

It was a pleasant surprise to be contacted by the Executive Editor for Features and Enterprise at CNN this Spring to contribute to an article about the IPA for National Beer Day on April 7 (so-named because President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a law that made the production and sale of beer legal in 1933). Though I certainly have much more to add on the subject, here is the article for you to check out!

What is an IPA? A deliciously happy accident of beer history or the colonial marketing of a frugal recipe? by David G. Allan, CNN.

I was invited to have some fun trying Samuel Adams NA(non-alcoholic) beer, Just the Haze, on a cold and windy winter day in Boston recently and the results are evident in this video! As NA beer is growing in triple percentage points these days across the US, many imbibers are choosing a #dryjanuary with NA beer and NA cocktails like this one. Sometimes it is even difficult to distinguish which beer is alcoholic from the one that isn’t…

Samuel Adams Non-Alcoholic Tank Test

Another enjoyable time talking alcohol history with News@Northeastern about the history of Hard Cider and its place in today’s, and yesterday’s markets.

DON’T CALL IT A COMEBACK. HARD CIDER’S RISE IN POPULARITY IS A RETURN TO FORM FOR ONE OF AMERICA’S MOST HISTORIC DRINKS by Cody Mello-Klein, Northeastern University, Boston, MA

Sincerely enjoyed this interview and photo-shoot for News@Northeastern where I talk about my journey to where I am now as a Beer Historian and Assistant Teaching Professor at Northeastern University, Boston.

https://news.northeastern.edu/2022/08/25/beer-snob/

A share via my alma mater, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA:

https://www.hampshire.edu/news/historian-malcolm-purinton-98f-brews-together-study-sociology-globalization-and-beer

I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed by POB with Le Temps d’une Bière podcast for their first-ever English-language episode to talk about the history of the Porter and the English Industrial Revolution. We not only discussed the style of the Porter and its origins but also how taxation, urbanization, and exportation contributed to making Porter the beer-king of the day. I look forward to joining them again soon for more discussions!

On July 10, 2021 I joined Nick to talk about the history of Pilsner with the Beer Got Me Here podcast as part of the Rolling Hops Beer Tour series. I had a lot of fun with this one so please give it a listen.

As part of MIT’s Global Architectural History Teaching Collaborative with an Emerging Scholars Grant I recently completed the now-live teaching module, “Taverns and Temples: A Global Architectural History.” This module of four lectures traces the introduction and dissemination of alcoholic substances (beer, wine, spirits) and the spaces of consumption and production across the globe and offers a history of related architectural types (breweries, wineries, taverns, temples, etc.) and how they have changed over time. In addition, they examine the cultural and social factors of the rituals of brewing, feasting, and imbibing and how they connect people in spite of geographical distance. From ancient Mesopotamia and China to Incan chicha and American craft beer, these lectures (with supported teaching materials) offer a truly global look at the production and consumption of beer and other forms of alcohol.