I live in a rural area and the nearest LHBS is an hour away and I am out of base malts, except for Pilsner. I have the urge for a hoppy brew for the nice weather and want to brew on Thursday, can I make a decent IPA-ish brew with Pilsner as the main malt? I have plenty of specialty malts, some MO, Munich, Crystals, etc to play with as well.
you could use 70% pilsner and 30% munich. or all MO or all Munich (use LOTS of hops in this case as that will be a very malty brew indeed)
You mention that you are out of base malt except for pilsner but then mention you have Munich and MO. I assume you don’t have enough of those to use as the main base? Depending on how much you have of all the varieties you mentioned, I would think you should be able to formulate a good IPA grain bill.
As Mort mentioned, using a large portion of Munich will require more hops to cut through. I found this out too late…
My basic IPA recipe is 80% Pilsner, 15% Munich and 5% Crystal 30 to 60L depending on what I want.
You could also make a German Pilsner, which is pretty hoppy on its own.
i just brewed a dortmunder that is mostly pilsner and quite hoppy also.
You can definitely make a nice hoppy brew using pils as your base. I’ve brewed several brews that are basically a cross between a malty continental style and an APA or IPA, and they are some of my favorite brews I’ve ever done.
What I’d do: 70% Pils, 20% Munich, 5% Carapils and 5% of A) Crystal of your choice in the 20-80L range (if you like crystal in your IPA’s) or B) Victory if you don’t like Crystal.
Could also make a very hoppy saison, tripel, or BGSA.
Thanks for all the input, I should have mentioned that I do NOT have enough MO or Munich to use entirely, I will post back w the recipe!