Green’s Dictionary of Slang

ipse n.

[Lat. ipse, itself; thus ‘the very thing’. Note the Umbrian wine Est! Est! Est!, lit. ‘It is, it is, it is!’, i.e. it is the best/the thing]

a variety of ale.

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[[UK]Tom Tyler and his Wife (1661) in Farmer (1908) 37: Swill in, I care not. This drink is ipsy, to make us all tipsy].
[UK] ‘Old English Ale’ in Playford Pills to Purge Melancholy II 106: The Doctor of Law and Divinity / May stumble and fall sometimes in the Dark, / If their Caps be fudled with Ipse.
[UK] in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy IV 106: The strongest Wine in Flanders or Spain, / Or yet in the Palgrave’s Country, / ’Tis nothing like t’our English Ale, / That Liquor of Life, called Ipse.