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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Warning, I am a Hop Head

Pliny the Younger
With Pliny the Younger upon us and a great breath of other outstanding seasonal hoppy beers on the scene (Bell's Hopslam, Surly Abrasive) I thought I would take this moment to repost and update another presentation I did at Addison Homebrew Provisions for the AHP Brewclub, this one on IPAs.  I'm going to include some of my favorite IPA recipes that I've done as well as plan to do in the future.

When I got into craft beer (shit, beer in general) back in 2004 I started with Hefeweizens and American Wheats.  Overtime I started gravitating toward hoppier beers and fell head over heals in love with IPAs. Currently I have been fortunate enough to have sampled the 15 of Top 20 IPAs and 14 of the Top 20 Double IPAs ranked on BeerAdvocate.com (as of 14-Feb-12).

Wall of Abrasive
The style IPA or India Pale Ale originated in Britain in the 18th century to categorize pale ales as prepared for shipment to India.  It started out as a beer known as an October beer which was a pale well-hopped brew intended to be cellared for up to two years.  In the late 18th century George Hodgson of the Bow Brewery started exporting his beers (included his October Beer) to India via the East India Company (his location on the Middlesex-Essex border and liberal credit line of 18 months made him popular with the company).   In India his October beer became highly regarded as it had benefited from the conditions of the voyage.  Soon October beer started to become known as "pale ale as prepared for India", "India Ale", "pale India ale" or "pale export India ale" finally became "India pale ale" in an advertisement in the Liverpool Mercury newspaper published January 30, 1835.  Today in England, IPA is still a common term for ordinary session bitters that are a far cry from their American descendents.

Hops, It's what's for dinner
American IPAs have been round for far longer than today's beer consumer might realize.  Ballantine brewery was brewing a highly regarded 7% 60 IBU IPA that was aged in wood barrels for a year around the turn of the last century (maybe mid 1930's).  During the Dark Age of American Beer (Prohibition to the late 70s) American IPAs were regularly available but not very popular, fortunately homebrewing was legalized in 1978 and today IPA is one of the most popular styles of beer, in fact it was recently announce by me to be the GREATEST STYLE EVER end of story!

Favorite Wet Hop Beer
As far as Double or Imperial (I do not like the use of the term "Imperial" in front of anything but a Stout) IPA goes 3 breweries claim ownership of the style. First off is Vinnie Cilurzo of Blind Pig Brewing Company, in the 1994. According to Vinnie "I took the recipe for what was to be our Blind Pig IPA, doubled the hops (literally) and raised the malt bill by 30 percent or so. I figured that if there were any off flavors in the Inaugural Ale, at least there would be enough hops to help mask them." Pizza Port San Diego claims to have been brewing a DIPA since they opened their brewery in 1992.  Finally to Rogue Ales has been brewing it its I2PA beer since 1990. If you want to get technical at 7.5% and 70+ IBUs Ballantine’s IPA is technically a DIPA and was first brewed around the 30s.

BJCP categorizes IPAs as Category 14 currently divided into 3 different subcategories: 14A English IPA, 14B American IPA and 14C Imperial IPA.  Who knows what the future for the category might hold as in recent years additional subcategories have started to develop.  The most famous of these is the Black IPA or Cascadian Dark Ale or India Black Ale or Black Ale or American-Style India Black Ale or as the Brewers Association recently announced American-Style Black Ale.  The others are Belgian-Style IPA, Northwest Pale Ale (NWPA) and American Barley Wines or Triple IPAs

Cheers

-SNB


Recipes
Scott's BIG IPA v3
Style Double IPA
Brewer: Scott Bennett
Boil Size: 5.72 gal
Boil Time: 60 min

Profile
Original Gravity: 1.080 SG
Final Gravity: 1.018 SG
Bitterness: 95.2 IBU
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.12% 
Color: 14.3 SRM

Grain
3.00 lb Amber Dry Extract (12.5 SRM)    
3.00 lb Dark Dry Extract (17.5 SRM)   
3.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM)  

Steep 160 for 30 Min
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine    
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L

Hops
0.70 oz Simcoe [11.90 %] (60 min)
0.70 oz Columbus (Tomahawk)[12.20 %] (60 min)
0.75 oz Centennial [9.20 %] (20 min)
0.75 oz Centennial [9.20 %] (20 min)
0.75 oz Simcoe [11.90 %] (15 min)
0.75 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [12.20 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [12.20 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
1.00 oz    Cascade [6.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)

Yeast and Others
1.00 unit WLP001 California Ale   
1.00 unit Whirlfloc Boil at 15 Mins
1.00 unit Yeast Nutrient Boil at 15 Mins



16 Grit
Double IPA
Type: All Grain Date: 2/14/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 6.00 gal
Brewer: Scott Bennett
Boil Size: 8.41 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: Brew Pot (15 Gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (10 Gal)
End of Boil Volume 7.28 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 80.00 % (only for planning reasons)
Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.084 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 9.3 %
Bitterness: 102.9 IBUs
Est Color: 6.7 SRM 

Grain
8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
7.00 lb Golden Promise (2.0 SRM)
2.00 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM)

Hops
2.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [15.40 %] - Boil 90.0 min
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [7.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [15.40 %] - Boil 5.0 min

Dry Hops
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [7.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [15.40 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
Yeast and Others
1.0 pkg Dry English Ale (White Labs #WLP007)
1.00 unit Whirlfloc Boil at 15 Mins
1.00 unit Yeast Nutrient Boil at 15 Mins

Mash Profile
Mash Name: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge Total Grain Weight: 18.00 lb
Mash Steps
Name Description Step Temperature Step Time
Mash In Add 5.63 gal of water at 159.1 F 148.0 F 75 min
Sparge Step: Batch sparge with 2 steps (1.14gal, 4.61gal) of 168.0 F water

1 comment:

  1. For whatever reason, it took me making my own beer to appreciate hoppy beers. Never really liked American IPAs until about 6 months after I started brewing.

    Great post.

    ReplyDelete

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