How Harpoon Brewery—Boston's IPA Pioneer—Landed Its New Look

'They had a great story to tell, but they weren’t telling it on the packaging'

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It’s hard to imagine a time when India pale ales were an exotic rarity, but if you were kicking around the East Coast in the 1980s, they actually were.

In those years, a handful of California brewers began to revive the strong, hoppy beer (named after the brews that England began exporting to its colonies in the mid-18th century), but East Coast drinkers would have to wait—specifically, until 1993. That year, Harpoon Brewery (established seven years earlier by three college friends after a sudsy romp through Europe) began making IPA at its brewery in South Boston.

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