Modern Homebrew Recipes (12 page)

•
Mosaic Double IPA
– A stronger beer showcasing a distinctive single hop variety, this brew uses several of my signature techniques and ingredients.

•
West Coast Double IPA
– All that I love in today’s IPA, plus a modern successive dry-hopping technique for extra aroma of hoppy freshness.

FOUR SEAS IPA

This was my first IPA (batch #15, brewed in 1997), and was inspired by Sierra Nevada Celebration. It won best of show at the Over the Mill competition in Michigan, where the grand prize was a custom kegerator. Somehow I stuffed it into the passenger seat of my Dodge Stealth and drove it back to Ohio, grinning all the way while hoping I didn’t get pulled over.

Style:
American Strong Ale (New BJCP Style)

Description:
Darker and richer than today’s IPAs, this was an American-style IPA at the time. Now it’s probably more like an American Strong Ale or a big red ale. I was working on a new dark malt steeping technique to give it a reddish color. More of a drinking beer than a competition beer now, but useful to compare to more modern recipes.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

RO water treated with ¼ tsp 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons

1 tsp CaSO
₄
in mash

(
*
) Steep roasted barley in heated brewing liquor (entire volume of water to be used in the recipe) until it has a deep reddish hue, then remove.

Mash technique:

Infusion, mashout, crystal malts added at
vorlauf

Mash rests:

151°F (66°C) 60 minutes

168°F (76°C) 15 minutes

Kettle volume:

6.5 gallons (25 L)

Boil length:

60 minutes

Final volume:

5 gallons (19 L)

Fermentation temp:

68°F (20°C)

Sensory Description:
Deep reddish copper color, but clear. Great, fresh hop aroma with citrusy and piney notes backed up with a light caramel
malt richness. Quite bitter, but with a full finish and clean malty richness to balance. Not as dry and crisp as modern IPAs, but the combination of hops and malt work together very nicely. It won best of show when it was seven months old, so this IPA does take some time to age since the IBUs are quite high.

Formulation notes:
The goal was to get a reddish color and feature classic old-school American hops (the ‘C’ hops, which leads to the play-on-words recipe name). A more modern combination of hops would certainly work, but I always like to return to some classics to keep perspective. Since this is inspired by Sierra Nevada, try to use fresh whole hops like they do. This does have some crystal malt, which is often frowned on today’s IPAs, but think of it more of a winter IPA; the Munich malt adds a malty backbone without as much sweetness as crystal malt. This recipe is so old, I originally made it as a mini-mash beer (use 9.9 lb of pale liquid extract instead of the two-row), but like it enough that it’s now in my regular rotation. In my older IPAs, I hop the beers heavily and age them for a considerable amount of time, which is more in the British tradition (and lets the bitterness mellow). Contrast this with some of the more modern turn-and-burn recipes, like the “Modern IPA” recipe.

Variations:
Modern malts give more choices for reddish colors, so you can explore some. I discovered that most crystal malts really gave more amber-brown colors than true copper-red colors, so I decided to see if small amounts of a very dark grain or malt could give the red color (you can literally watch the red color come out of the roasted barley as it steeps). You are looking for color, not flavor, so don’t overdo it. Carafa III Special might work as well.

TOMAHAWK CHOP IPA

The name of this recipe comes from the hop variety I used for bittering, and how they hit you when you take a sip. This is an aggressively bitter beer that takes a long aging time to come into balance. Loosely based on the “Sister Star of the Sun” IPA recipe,
¹
this is one of the first hoppy beers where I used some honey as part of the recipe. I liked the outcome, so it has become one of my signature brewing moves. I was happy to see Bell’s Hop Slam, an incredible Double IPA, use this technique as well.

Style:
American IPA (Classic BJCP Style)

Description:
An old school American IPA that has a huge bittering hop charge and takes considerable time to age. A throwback to the traditional English IPAs, but using American ingredients. Higher in alcohol than more modern IPAs.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

Untreated RO water for the mash, adding 1 Tbsp CaSO
₄
to the mash

Sparge water is RO water treated with ¼ tsp 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons

1 tsp CaSO
₄
in boil

Mash technique:

Infusion, mashout

Mash rests:

152°F (67°C) 60 minutes

168°F (76°C) 15 minutes

Kettle Volume:

7.5 gallons (28 L)

Boil length:

90 minutes

Final volume:

5.75 gallons (22 L)

Fermentation temp:

68°F (20°C)

Sensory Description:
Absurdly bitter when young. I entered it in a competition when it was young, and national judge Steve McKenna wrote, “Your IPA is too bitter.” I always admired his confidence in judging because of this comment. I can think of many people who would think that sentence makes no sense at all, but he was right. This beer only started winning awards after it was a year old, and then kept getting better and better as it aged. The base and character malts add rich bready flavor with a subtle malty and caramel complexity, but the hops carry this beer. The honey gives an extra fruity component that plays well with the citrusy and piney hops.

Formulation notes:
My recipe software calculates this beer at 172 IBUs, which is physically impossible. Let’s just say it’s really bitter. Plan on cellaring it for at least a year. IBUs tend to fade over time, so you aim higher and let it come back into balance. Since it will be aging, having the extra character malts is important as they tend to fade over time.

Variations:
Using all English hops would make this seem much more like a historical English IPA that needed a long maturation period to come into balance. Swap East Kent Goldings for the late hops, use something like Challenger or Target for the bittering hops, swap invert sugar for the honey, and choose Wyeast 1028 London Ale yeast.

ENGLISH IPA

An underappreciated style in many American homebrew competitions, this recipe is more of a modern take in that it has some crystal malt for color (sorry, colour) and a little flavor … er, flavour. The alcohol level is on the high side, but I was trying to make it a 1066 beer in honor of the Battle of Hastings.

Style:
English IPA (Classic BJCP Style)

Description:
Classic English flavors with a bready, biscuit malt base, a light supporting caramel component, and a big punch of floral, earthy, and fruity hops.

Ingredients: