Hops so hip as IPA takes fans on taste voyage

ONE of the greatest books ever about beer surely must be Hops And Glory by Pete Brown. The 2010 account details how the intrepid author took a cask of traditional-recipe India Pale Ale from its spiritual home in Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, and recreated the 18,000-mile journey to India.

- by Matt Nixson

He travelled by canal boat, cargo ship and tall ship to Calcutta, via the Cape of Good Hope, all with his cask of IPA, in a bid to rediscover the "king of beers". It's a rip-roaring story - part travelogue, part history, part memoir and wholly entertaining, so it's no wonder Brown's been dubbed the "beer drinker's Bill Bryson".