To dry hop or not to dry hop. That is the question.

Beer Recipes
1

I am not a big IPA guy so this is only the second one I have done. My first one I did with citra and cascade. It tasted a bit too much like fruit for my taste. This time I single hopped with cascade. They have a fruity, but not overbearingly so, flavor. My recipe is as follows:

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Ralph’s Wag Your Tail Pale Ale
Brewer: Roger
Asst Brewer: Ralph the Wonderdog
Style: American IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications

Boil Size: 5.70 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.20 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal 
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.064 SG
Estimated Color: 8.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 59.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 72.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:

Amt                  Name                                    Type          #        %/IBU       
9 lbs                Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)          Grain        1        73.5 %       
2 lbs                Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)            Grain        2        16.3 %       
12.0 oz              Victory Malt (25.0 SRM)                  Grain        3        6.1 %       
8.0 oz                White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM)              Grain        4        4.1 %       
1.00 oz              Cascade [7.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min        Hop          5        16.3 IBUs   
1.00 oz              Cascade [7.50 %] - Boil 15.0 min        Hop          6        13.4 IBUs   
2.00 oz              Cascade [7.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min        Hop          7        19.5 IBUs   
2.00 oz              Cascade [7.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min          Hop          8        10.7 IBUs   
1.0 pkg              Nottingham (Danstar #-) [23.66 ml]      Yeast        9        -

Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 12 lbs 4.0 oz

Name              Description                            Step Temperat Step Time   
Mash In          Add 16.31 qt of water at 162.9 F        152.0 F      60 min

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.37gal, 2.98gal) of 168.0 F water
Notes:

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My question is will this have a nice hop aroma if I don’t dry hop? Or should I drop a couple of ounces in this weekend?

2

Fruity is a not very helpful descriptor.  Do you mean citrus fruity from hops?  Do you mean estery fruity (which is not a great descriptor) from yeast?  Do you mean dark fruits fruity from malt?

You should get plenty of Cascade flavor from your recipe, but not so much Cascade aroma.  Nothing beats sampling the flat beer this weekend to figure out what you want to do before packaging.

3

i fine that dry hopping gives the “freshest” (lack of a better word) hop aroma. personally i find that the grapefruit from cascade (or columbus/any of the really grapefruity hops) can be overpowering when used in excess so with my ipas i use a little bit of each different variety usually around 4 or 5. i recommend tasting it as well and if its not amazing then why not throw them in? this one should be bursting with hop flavor anyways looking at your hop profile. Its all personal preference

4

I dry hop just about everything, so I would - but that’s my tastes. I’d say taste and see. It will probably be a nice beer as-is, but you can definitely amp up the hop aroma even with a modest amount of dry hops.

5

I went ahead and dropped 2 oz of hops in. The sample I tasted was delicious.