Honey Wheat India Pale Ale

Brewing an India style Pale Ale with honey and wheat malt for a summer twist on an IPA. The honey is from a friends residential hive in Hinesburgh, Vermont. A pound of whole leaf hops at the end of boil split fifty fifty between Comet and Belma hops from Hops Direct LLC. I really enjoyed the dank aroma and flavor from the Comet hops in the finished beer.

English pale malt, Wheat malt, Carahell, and Victory malt. Bravo hops for bittering. Comet and Belma at end of boil. Dry hopped with Cascade, Citra, and UK Pilgrim. Starting gravity of fourteen degrees plato. Fermented with American ale yeast Safale US-05. 

India Pale Ale, cause the kids love it!

Comet hops are an heirloom hop variety that was first planted in 1980. Comet was the result of a wild male hop collected from Logan Canyon, Utah, and crossed with an English hop, Sunshine. While looking up information about Comet, and then UK Sunshine hops I came across a great article from BrewingTechniques' September/October 1995  discussing the role of genealogy in hop substitutions. The article is filled with great historical tidbits about hop origin and hop name stories. I won't look at hop substitutions the same way after reading the article. At one point the article states that "96% of the US hop crop was Cluster". I guess Cluster is the original "C" hop. Understanding hop origins can go a long way towards making hop choices for substitutions and recipes.

Anyway, onto a batch of IPA brewed with a whole bunch of "C" hops. Bravo hops for bittering addition at sixty minutes. Whole leaf Comet hops at five minutes. Whole leaf Belma, Simcoe, and Comet hops at end of boil. I added the Simcoe to play off the wild hop flavor of the Comet hops. Dry hopped with Cascade, Centennial, and CTZ (pellet) hops. Basic grain bill of English pale malt, flaked wheat, honey malt, and weyermann carafoam. Mashed warm at one fifty six. Mash off to one sixty eight. Collect fourteen gallons. Boil to twelve and a quarter gallons. Pitch dry American ale yeast. Ferment. Dry hop. Dry hop, again. IPA!

Low Gravity IPA

Isn't that just a pale ale? Short answer, no. Long answer, in the 1970's a craft beer revolution was started by home brewers in their garages, kitchens, and backyards. The generation of Charlie Papazian brewers (home brewer's between 1970's and today who grew up brewing with Charlie Papazian books) paved a way for better beer across the country. As home brewers started opening brewery's new styles were created. Most famously, Sierra Nevada, creating the American style Pale Ale. Today's brewer's are pushing style "guidelines", brewing fermented versions of musical mash ups (Belgian IPA, phenolic yeast with American hop varieties). American brewers brew without the history and dogma of traditional brewing regions. In Germany, the rich scientific brewing tradition is at odds with an ageing population and a youth culture moving towards spirits and alcopop. In a recent article it stated, "Today's youth do not think of beer as fashionable. The trend is moving toward alco-pops, or alcoholic mixed drinks." According to Koenig, Germans spend more on wine than beer. Alco-pops are popular in the states as well, but the home brew movement in the states gave way to a new beer culture with over two thousand breweries open and tens of thousands more home brewer's. Just like discovering a new band, food, or finding a new beer style that you like, it can be exciting. With this next generation of drinkers and brewers we're able to digest the extreme beer aught years and keep moving forward. Where a session IPA is becoming the "new pale ale". 

Lew Bryson has been pushing the low alcohol beer movement for years, and more and more it seems like it's finally taking hold. A cool thing is happening. The opposite of the extreme years. Where, instead of taking traditional styles and making them bigger and bolder (higher abv and more hops) brewers are lowering the abv but challenging ourselves to not lose flavor. The rise of table, session, "everyday" beer styles is exciting. Thus today's batch of beer, a Low Gravity IPA. Target is a four point three percent pale ale with the hop rate and character of an IPA. It's more challenging to make a flavorful beer that's lower than five percent and still be malty and flavorful than brewing seven percent pale ale brewed with double ipa hop rates. IPA is the most popular style by sales across the county. It's been an obvious style candidate to shrink. Examples such as Lagunitas Fractional IPA, Otter Creek Hop Session, and Founder's All Day IPA. With brewery's like Notch Brewing whose only focus is on producing beer lower than five percent Lew Bryson should be happy to know that the full flavor session beer tipping point has taken hold. Let's just hope it lasts. What style do you think will be the next style that we'll be making munchkin versions of?

The challenge to lower gravity beers is to prevent them from being thin and watery. First off mash in warmer than one hundred and fifty two up to one hundred and sixty. Mash temperature is very important to the sugar profile of the wort. Just a few degree mash difference will change the final gravity a few points. Another way to add malt flavor and character is to use base malts that provide more flavor than boring old pale two row. Use heirloom English malts such as Maris Otter and Golden Promise. A good go to is German malts such as Vienna and Munich that provide a more bread-y flavor from being toasted longer than most base malts. I also like to use a larger percent of dextrin malt when brewing low gravity ales and lagers. For example for this beer today I'm using twenty percent cara-pils malt. Seventy percent Vienna malt and ten percent flaked wheat. I also mashed in very warm at one hundred and fifty seven degrees. This low gravity IPA today needs a malt backbone to handle all the hops. Depending on your water you may also want to add brewing salt to your water to provide more mouth feel for your low gravity style mash ups.

Super Galena hops for bittering to forty international bittering units. CTZ hops for flavor addition at thirty minutes. With a late kettle addition of Centennial and whole leaf Citra. I've dry hopped the beer on day two of fermentation with Nelson Sauvin. I'll be dry hopping the heck out of this even more with yet to be determined hops. Fermented with Safale US-05.

American style India Pale Ale

Transferred last weeks fresh hop ale to secondary while brewing an IPA yesterday. The fresh hop ale has a nice malt back bone with a hoppy nose and flavor. The Vermont grown hop flavor is pine-y and herbal. Really, the flavors of the hops in this ale are truly unique to the small cluster climbing up the side of a house in Essex, Vermont. Terroir is what is being tasted. The beer provides a sense of time and place and that's what Burlington Beer Co. is striving to brew. I had no idea what the hops were going to taste like and it's fun exploring new flavors. Just like Almanac Beer Co. states, "Beer is Agriculture".

Onto yesterday's batch of India Pale Ale. Basically brewing the same recipe I served in April at Burlington Beer Co.'s first tasting event. I also entered the beer served at the tasting event into the 2012 National Home Brew Competition and here is the score and review. 

Grist bill of Pale malt, Vienna malt, Victory malt, flaked barley, and Honey malt. I substituted the Munich malt from the recipe to Vienna malt because I have a crush on Vienna malt right now and dropped the caramunich all together. Bitter (:60) and flavor (:20) hop additions was an experimental hop variety HBC-342. The end of boil, aroma, and flavor hop addition (:1) was equal parts whole leaf Centennial and Cascade hops. The wort was knocked out onto the fresh hop ale yeast cake at sixty eight degrees Fahrenheit and visually started fermenting within half an hour. Set point on the fermentation chamber is sixty five degrees Fahrenheit to keep esters (fruity yeast flavors) at bay. 

Next week I'll be brewing an Autumnal Squash Ale with Blue Hubbard, Acorn, and Butternut Squash. Lightly spiced with the flavors of cold nights, changing leaves, and pumpkin pie, but brewed with winter squash.



Here's a picture of a barn foundation restoration taking place down the street from the pilot brewery that I think looks pretty cool. Have a good day!

NHC Results: American IPA

Last summer I entered a bunch of beer's into the Delaware State Fair as part of a "To Style Series" where I shared the score sheet feedback and judges comments for each beer. My low gravity brown ale even won best in show over higher abv (sweeter) beers. The most fascinating part about the feedback was when I entered the same exact beer into similar categories and received completely opposite comments/reviews for a few (ie: too thin-full body or not enough malt complexity-great malt complexity) of the beers. Which I found kind of hilarious and sad. I think the number scale for BJCP is completely arbitrary. Neither the World Beer Cup or GABF use any type of number scale. A beer is either good, stands out on that day and moves on, or it doesn't. I still think it's a good idea for home brewer's to enter their beers into competitions, but take the results with a grain a salt. Some of the best selling craft beer's in the country have never won any GABF or WBC medals.

For this year's To Style Series I will be posting about a bunch of beer's I entered in the National Homebrew Competition. All of these beer's were also featured at my brewery in planning's inaugural tasting event where I presented sixteen different beer's to introduce Burlington Beer Co. The event went very well with over a hundred people stopping by to sample the beer's, an article in the local paper (Burlington Free Press) and featured on Beer Pulse. 

Category 14: American IPA 

American Pale Malt

Munich Malt

Flaked Barley

Victory Malt

Honey Malt

Caramunich 60

Mash 154*

Columbus      :60 (whole leaf)

Columbus      :20 (whole leaf)

Centennial      :1   (whole leaf)

Citra              :1   (whole leaf)

Galaxy           dry   (pellet)

Columbus      dry   (pellet)

Centennial     dry    (pellet)

Pacific Jade   dry    (pellet)

Citra              dry   (pellet)

14*P (1.056)

Safale US-05

Judging

Aroma

#1- highly American hopped with citrus floral aroma, some light fruity notes, no diacetyl, no DMS

#2- big hop, citrus aroma, a little floral, some malt in background, clean, light esters

Appearance

#1- medium, gold, good clarity, white medium retention head

#2- medium amber color, tan head, medium head retention, good texture, clear

Flavor

#1- hop flavor is high, well bittered, hop character is resinious, light malt sweetness supports and balances hop bitterness, some low fruit flavors, no diacetyl

#2- hoppy flavor with bitterness evident, malt balances bitterness mid-palate, bitter finish and after taste without any harshness

Mouthfeel

#1- medium body, medium carbonation, well attenuated finish with some warming, no hop astringency

#2- medium-light body, could be a bit more, medium carbonation, fine creamy texture, no astringency

Overall Impression

#1- an excellent representation of the style, style appropriate balance towards hoppy bitterness, but with malt backbone, slightly higher carbonation would have thrown it over the top

#2- really enjoyable beer! body is a bit light for style, but malt/hop balance in flavor is good, bump up both a small amount, but overall, good job

#1- Non-BJCP        37/50

#2- BJCP certified   34/50

Overall 35.5/50---Very Good (30-37)

For the tasting event I described the beer as: A medium to light bodied India Pale Ale that delivers a spectrum of hop aroma's and flavor's. Ranging from pine, citrus, floral, and earthy. We called it Another IPA so it's easy to order Another..

I may bump the gravity up a bit and/or raise the mash temperature in the future giving the beer more body, but overall I'm pleased with the results. The patrons at the beer tasting were very pleased with Another IPA as the whole case was gone, as well as it's darker cousin Dark & Dank (which I did not enter in the NHC because there isn't a category for dark IPA's).

classic American IPA

The style re-invented in America. Beer Advocate describes it as "The American IPA is a different soul from the reincarnated IPA style. More flavorful than the withering English IPA, color can range from very pale golden to reddish amber. Hops are typically American with a big herbal and / or citric character, bitterness is high as well. Moderate to medium bodied with a balancing malt backbone."

I used a little amber and crystal malt to add a color and complexity to the malt backbone of this IPA. Used a variety of citrus forward northwest American hops. Will be dry hopping with more hops, one and a half more ounces. Calculated color 7 lovibond, 45 IBU's and around 6% abv.

Rye IPA

Brewing another collaborative beer with my friend and fellow brewer. We've been talking about brewing a rye IPA for awhile. Brewing late night, heating up the strike water now and hoping to get mashed in by midnight. Doesn't look good. Today's brew has pale, rye, munich, wheat, and chocolate malt. Some crystal rye for good measure. Target numbers are 15 plato, 12 lovibonds, and 50 IBU's. Finally mashed in at 12:40. Mash rest for forty minutes then mash out to 168 degrees. Quick vorlauf. Only halfway through the boil and it's 3:45 in the morning. Nice copper color with big hop character in the final wort. Pitching american ale yeast to let the ingredients shine.