Modern Homebrew Recipes (14 page)

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

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

1 tsp CaCl
₂
in mash

Mash technique:

Infusion, mashout, dark grains added at
vorlauf

Mash rests:

149°F (65°C) 60 minutes

168°F (76°C) 5 minutes

Kettle volume:

8 gallons (30 L)

Boil length:

60 minutes

Final volume:

6.5 gallons (25 L)

Fermentation temp:

68°F (20°C)

Sensory Description:
Very deep brown in color, light tan head. Big tropical fruit aroma, soft malt flavor with hints of cocoa. Dry but with a malty backbone. Bitter but not excessive. Malty flavor profile with bitterness taking over in the finish. Dry enough to encourage drinking but not bone dry. As it warms, more malt comes out. Clean and unobtrusive. The light roast notes enhance the dryness of the finish. As it was, it has light coffee and dark chocolate notes, which are enhanced by the fruitiness. Perfect IPA balance: no alcohol or hop bite, just very smooth. Not sweet, easy to drink.

Formulation notes:
Avoiding harshness and clashing flavors is the key to this recipe. You must use the debittered dark malts, and avoid steeping them too long. Hops with a tropical fruit character are really nice in this beer, but I’d avoid using overly citrusy or piney hops. I’d also avoid using too much bready malt. The malt should take the background here so the hops can come through. Some sugar aids in attenuation, and a dry finish helps drinkability. FWH and late hopping keeps hop harshness down. I don’t like my IPAs too alcoholic or bitter, and keep them no more than 7% and 70 IBUs. Steeping hops will add more IBUs than calculated, but they will impart a clean bitterness.

Variations:
You can play with the roast and hop balance to suit your tastes. Dropping the roast entirely would make a very good American IPA; it could also serve as the base for making another specialty IPA with other character grains. Amarillo hops would fit nicely in this beer. Cascade or Centennial would be good substitutions for the Simcoe, as they add a counterpoint to the tropical character. Clean to fruity American or English yeast would work, as long as it attenuates. Obviously this could scale up or down as a session or double IPA as well.

BELGIAN IPA

My good friend Frank Barickman helped me develop this recipe. He does a collaboration brew with Eric Bean of the Columbus Brewing Company, and they call their beer “Big Frank.” It’s a Belgian Double IPA, but I have scaled it a bit and made some hop and yeast substitutions to fit my taste. When I make the standard-strength version, I like to call it “Little Frank” in his honor. Once I made it, I got very good efficiency and it finished unexpectedly low (not a bad thing for a Belgian IPA) winding up quite close to double IPA in strength (OG 1.070, FG 1.005, ABV 8.9%, IBU 42), but deceptively smooth (just like the best Belgian ales).

Style:
Specialty IPA (New BJCP Style)

Description:
Like a tripel combined with a modern American fruity and tropical IPA.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

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

1 tsp CaCl
₂
in mash

Mash technique:

Infusion, mashout, dark grains added at
vorlauf

Mash rests:

149°F (65°C) 60 minutes

168°F (76°C) 5 minutes

Kettle volume:

9 gallons (34 L)

Boil length:

120 minutes

Final volume:

6.5 gallons (25 L)

Fermentation temp:

62°F (17°C), allowing to rise to 75°F (24°C) to finish

Sensory Description:
Huge apricot character with light pine background, dry finish, light phenols, and strong bitterness. The alcohol needs a little time to age, especially in the double IPA version. Medium body, fairly clean for a Belgian beer. The bitterness is strong but very clean; not harsh at all.

Formulation notes:
I like the WLP510 Bastogne yeast (same as Orval), but Frank thinks that Wyeast 3787 Trappist Ale yeast does better in competitions since it gives it a more prominent Belgian yeast character. I think that bigger yeast character can clash with the hops, so be careful. I love the combination of Amarillo hops with the Bastogne yeast; it’s something that I’ve seen done commercially in the
La Rulles Tripel
. Hops that are fruity (particularly tropical or stone fruit) work best. Highly citrus versions would tend to clash with yeast-derived phenols. Frank recommends not substituting out the Tettnanger hops, as they provide a nice floral spiciness. The hop techniques give a very clean bitterness without harshness. I think astringency could kill a beer like this. The yeast is a bit powdery, so I found it necessary to cold crash the yeast at near freezing after it had been warm conditioning for two
weeks, which worked wonders, as the beer was incredibly bright afterwards. Additional cold conditioning can smooth out the beer quite well.

Variations:
Obviously I’ve shown that it can work as a single IPA or a double IPA. When in the double IPA format, I found that it was like a very fresh Westmalle Tripel with a huge hop character. I don’t know that I’d play around with this too much, except maybe to vary the fruity hops a bit or possibly increase the malt complexity and body. Add some flaked oats (maybe 5% of the grist) for something more inspired by Tripel Karmeliet. Possibly also play around with light spicing, adding a dash of coriander (perhaps a third of an ounce or about 10g).

SPRING IPA

The concept of this experimental beer is a
Maibock
-style IPA. It doesn’t match a commercial beer or style; this is just something that I thought would taste good. I’d enter it either as a Specialty IPA or as a Hybrid Beer, specifying
helles bock
and IPA, depending on how malty it finished (if more malty, enter as Hybrid Beer). In either case, I would briefly describe the concept, say that it uses ale yeast, and mention the style parameters and general hopping so judges could correctly evaluate it.

Style:
Specialty IPA (New BJCP Style, Experimental)

Description:
The maltiness of a
maibock
combined with the bitter hoppiness of an IPA.

Ingredients:

Water treatment:

Mash water: RO water treated with 1/8 tsp 10% phosphoric acid per 5 gallons

1 tsp CaCl
₂
in mash

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

Mash technique: