Samuel Allsopp Wins A Major India Pale Ale Contract

During the 1820s, the British East India Company sought an alternative supplier to George Hodgson's Bow Brewery, which had dominated the India beer trade for decades. Campbell Marjoribanks, a director of the East India Company, approached Samuel Allsopp of Burton-on-Trent and encouraged him to produce a pale ale suitable for export to India. Allsopp was provided with samples of Hodgson's beer and tasked his brewer, Job Goodhead, with reproducing the style. In 1822, Allsopp shipped his first pale ale consignments to India. The beer proved highly successful, benefiting from Burton-on-Trent's sulfate-rich water, which enhanced hop bitterness and flavor. Orders soon followed, and Allsopp's brewery became a major competitor to Hodgson's. The success of Allsopp's India trade transformed Burton-on-Trent into the center of IPA production. Other Burton brewers, including Bass and Worthington, quickly entered the market, helping establish Burton-brewed India Pale Ale as the dominant form of the style throughout the nineteenth century.