Good points by everyone. My local brewpub will list the beer’s style and the ABV. The brewer does a great job of exploring styles and putting interesting twists on old favorites. The descriptions are fair and honest, and we’re told what the ABV is, so there’s no deception of the public going on there. Admittedly, a lot of the beers are higher ABV 5-6% and higher. If I were to make a long evening of it, I’d like to have a flavorful “session strength” APA or IPA available. Just call it that (and list the ABV). It sounds better than “pigoodle,” anyway.
I like Fred’s recipe. I just might brew that one soon.
We have a local brewery around here by the name of Desert Edge. They make a beer that they call a Utah Pale Ale. Hopped up like an IPA, but low gravity to comply with Utah liquor laws (anything served in a keg can’t be over 4.0% ABV). It’s quite good, and stands up to the high hops very well.
High ABV is not a prerequisite for good beer. If it was, Utah wouldn’t have any breweries.
I think a hybrid APA is in order. An APA with more IBU’s than style dictates. At the very least an APA with the highest level of hops that the style will support might also fit the bill. An APA has 30-45 IBU and an IPA has 40-70 IBU’s by style. An APA with 45 IBU’s and a healthy dose of flavor/aroma/dry hops would come close to an IPA hop profile as per the BJCP style guidelines.
to document a new style/substyle we would need to establish that it exists and is being brewed by homebrewers. Entering in CAT 23 in national contests is one way. and we need some classic and available examples.
given that we would need to present a fully qualified style write-up (template is available on the BJCP website).
The answer in my opinion is YES— an “XPA” is essentially a low ABV beer with the character of an IPA.
I do not think an APA is what the original poster is looking for. Most APAs are balanced, with caramel flavors, where the hops are prominent but not necesarily the sole focus of the beer.
If I were to attempt this, I would basically shoot for an OG:IBU ratio of 1:1. I would skip the middle, flavor hops (because I feel that they will skew the IBU rating, perhaps unpredictably), use a lot of flameout hops, and a lot of dry hops.
I would also use a decent amount of crystal malt, 8% or so.
I would experiment with both American and British style yeasts. I find that sometimes the esters in a London or British ale yeast will bring out more of the hop aroma in a beer.
I usually have a super hoppy APA on tap at my house. One way I go about brewing it is using all Munich malt for a nice malty backbone that makes it seem bigger than the 1.040-1.050 beer but still finishes dry, then add around 20-30 IBUs of a clean bittering hop at 60 minutes, then pile on the hops at 10 and flameout, and more in the keg. For a 10 gallon batch I use between 8-12 ounces of hops in the boil. I’ve entered variations of this beer as an APA and both times it didn’t score well, but next time I might enter as an IPA or Specialty, or I might just drink it myself. A hophead’s session beer!
Just wanted to add that I have toyed with the idea for awhile of putting together a recipe for an american-style hoppy beer around 1.040. I had always thought I would refer to it as an “American Bitter,” or even an “IPA Light.” I still want it to be hop focussed, I don’t want the heavier malt character of a mild or even pale ale.
keep in mind that if your goal is to have the same mouth feel and balance as an IPA with a light (1.040-) beer you need to add some non-fermentables some way (higher mash temp) to achieve this. if you want bone dry beer (nothing wrong with that) then don’t worry about it
Bone dry would accentuate the hops more, but I think a medium boby would allow for SOME supporting malt presence and give the beer a little more complexity. Maybe somewhere in between bone dry and medium would be best to allow those hops to shine.
I agree, you need to keep some body. I’m tempted to use 100% 2-row and mash a little higher than normal.
I just did a 100% 2-row ale. Starting gravity came out a little higher than expected - 1.047 - with 25 IBUs and finished with 1oz of Crystal at 20 and another 1oz at flameout. Used S-05 and it finished at 1.011. I thought it was excellent, and it proved to be a very popular beer with friends and family. So I figure why not try something similar with say Cascades or Amarillo?
