How The IPA Became Craft Beer’s Most Popular Style

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In the exploding beer brewing industry, one brew style has become more popular than all the rest; the India Pale Ale. The style, which is known for it’s strong hopp character, dates back to the 1800s, and its popularity has gone through peaks and valleys like any other beer. However, in recent years, the style has surged to the height of its popularity.

The modern-day IPA is the king of craft beer, and is the fastest growing and best-selling style of craft beer by just about all metrics. According to market research group IRI, which tracks off-premise beer sales, said the IPA style was the fastest growing category in 2012, posting unit growth of 39%.

Since 2001, according to entries into the Great American Beer Festival, the world’s largest beer competition, the IPA has been the most-entered category, specifically the American-Style IPA, which saw 252 entries in 2013. However, though the IPA is the king of all beers now, it wasn’t always.

Back in 1993, when Harpoon Brewery, then based in Boston, released its Harpoon IPA as a summer seasonal, the style was not well known at all.

Harpoon’s IPA recipe was based on the traditional English-style IPA, but was tweaked to use American hops instead as well as Harpoon’s signature yeast strain, which provided a malt profile designed to balance out the hop bitterness.

While there were a few breweries already making the IPA on the west coast, Harpoon’s IPA was the first on the east coast, and with its hoppier and more bitter flavor, it was unlike anything else in the marketplace at the time. Consumers may have been confused by the style at first, but once they got a try for it, they were hooked. Twenty years after it’s debut, the IPA remains Harpoon’s highest selling beer style, comprising more than half of the brewery’s total sales.

Harpoon’s IPA has been an inspiration for many up-and-coming breweries that have delved into the IPA since Harpoon planted its flag. Stone Brewing Company of San Diego, CA is one such company, who has made a name for themselves as being one of the best and most prolific IPA brewers in the United States. With staples like Arrogant Bastard Ale and Stone Levitation Ale, the brewing company has become the most popular IPA brewer on the West Coast, their brews characterized by their hoppy flavor and high-alcohol content.

By comparison to many IPA’s that are fluttering around the U.S., Harpoon’s seems very mild, and a perfect entry beer to one who is new to the IPA flavor. And while Harpoon has kept it’s traditional IPA recipe the same, it has continued to experiment with the style throughout the years, releasing the Black IPA, a White IPA, Rye IPA, and Imperial IPA.

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Golf World Cup Set Up for Olympic-style Preview

This week’s golf world cup will offer an opportunity to see what to expect when golf returns to the Olympics in 2016 at Rio de Jeneiro.

The World Cup begins Thursday at Royal Melbourne and will have its traditional team component – whereas the Olympics will not have a team competition – and the situation involving Britain and Ireland is much different, which raises an interesting query for Rory McIlroy. Which country will he represent in 2016 in Brazil – Britain or Ireland?Individual stroke play and world ranking will help determine who plays and, for the most part, players will play with their country of origin’s flag on their golf bag. After that, the similarities begin to fade.

At the Olympics, England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland compete under Britain’s flag. However, at the World Cup, England, Scotland, and Wales will compete as separate

countries. To make things even more complicated, at the World Cup, it’s the tradition for Ireland and Northern Ireland to compete together as Ireland. McIlroy will not be competing at Melbourne this week, but is confident it’s still his choice as to whom to play for in the 2016 Olympics.

For other international players at the World Cup, the rules are more cut-and-dry, as they use the same ranking format that will be used to determine Olympic seeds.

Players within the top 15 of the World Golf Rankings gain access to the World Cup, with the exception that there will be no more than four golfers per country until the field of 60 is about filled. Matt Kuchar, who will be representing the US this week, along with Kevin Streelman, won the last World Cup in 2011 with Gary Woodland. That tournament held in Haiku, China, featured four-ball competitions on Thursday and Saturday with foursomes on Friday and Sunday.

Individual stroke-play was instituted this year for all four rounds to mirror the Olympic format, and the best two scores from each country will dictate the team placings.

Twenty-five teams are set to play, including Francesco Molinari and Matteo Manassero, representing Italy, Graeme McDowell and Shane Lowry representing Ireland, and the South Korean team K.J. Choi and Bae Sang-moon.

Fiji’s Vijay Singh, who finished third in the Australian Masters, will be one of fifteen competing exclusively in individual competition, which offers $7 million in prize money. The winning individual player gets $1.2 million while the winning team gets $600,000.

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Home Retail Group Sees Sales Rise

The real estate market has been recovering nicely since the financial crisis. Prices are on the rise, the number of house listings is at a decent level and the median age of a house on sale is significantly lower than it was in 2012. These broad economics forces mean good news for Home Retail Group.

The profits for the company has declined five years in a row. But in the most recent quarters, its two divisions, Argos and Homebase, have reported a rise in sales. In the six months before August 31, their total sales grew by 3%, with Argos netting 2.3% increase and Homebase netting 5.9%. Profits still have declined (because of the costs of structural changes in the company), but the increase in sales is good news. Operating profits (profits that doesn’t take investment costs into account), over six months, increased from £3.3m last year to £7.7m this year.

Home Retail Group has updated many of its Homebase store. But the success of the division has been accentuated by last summer’s heatwave, which caused an increase in demand for garden furniture. This was the strongest growth for the division since it was first acquired by Home Retail Group in 2002.

Home Retail Group has tried revamping Argos by focusing on its website. Internet sales now account for 43% of Argos’ total sales (with 16% coming from smartphones and tablets). Argos also announced a deal with Ebay, where people can order stuff on eBay and pick them up from an Argos store.

Chief executive Terry Dundy believes they’ve made good progress with their investment plans, and that they’re on track with their long-term strategic objectives. But he also added that the general retail climate can make his company’s recovery tough. While macroeconomics indicators look good in general, there still is the issue of households lacking disposable income.

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