We read this little story over at Appellation Beer today and, seriously, we wish we’d thought of it for our future novel. (Kidding.) England’s Pete Brown, author of the witty Man Walks Into a Pub and Three Sheets to the Wind, is reenacting the passage that gave the English India Pale Ale its name by sailing around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope on a two month voyage to Bombay.

There are more details at The Morning Advertiser:

He’ll follow the route round the Cape of Good Hope, taken throughout the first part of the 19th century before the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 shortened the journey.

Working with Coors brewer Steve Wellington—another winner last week—Pete will take to Bombay a pint of IPA brewed by Steve in Burton-on-Trent, Staffs, exactly as it would have been in 1820.

He sets off from Burton by canal in mid-October, spends a month on a P&O cruise ship, jumps on a 19th-century three-masted tall ship for the passage round the Cape, then spends a month on a giant container ship before arriving in India in late December.