Working in the Craft Beer industry, I have seen a shift in IPAs in the last few year- though it is not a new idea, it is becoming very popular in the Texas Craft Beer scene. 60 minute boils, but only mid to late hop additions. With that in mind here’s a west coasty IPA recipe for yall to mull over…
Fruit Bomb IPA:
AG
Pre-boil- ~1.063
OG- ~1.069
FG- ~1.016
ABV- ~ 6.9%
IBU- ~63
SRM- ~6
I’ll step back from recommending, I dont make a ton of IPA. But when I do, they are about 1.070 of a quality pale malt, like Golden Promise. If I want a little more color I might add a touch of midnight wheat, but I like them pale. In my opinion I get plenty of body and flavor out of that. With the gravity and all the hops I don’t need carapils, there’s always plenty of head and lace. I start fermentation on the low end to avoid any hot or boozyness.
Hopping, I like to get about 40 IBUs from a 60 min neutral bittering charge, and then go for it in the whirlpool. I like to pick a main flavor/aroma hop and then pair it with one maybe two others so its not one dimensional.
But hang out a bit, there’s some IPA gurus on this forum.
I like ~ 3% C40 in IPAs. But the sweetness from it gets tamed by a healthy dose of sulfate - I like ~ 250 ppm. For this recipe you need a lot more dry hops for starters - .75 oz would be light in an APA. Is this a 5 gallon recipe ?
i actually use 6.5% C15L in my standard IPA, so for my eyes, your grist looks fine.
your hop schedule is piddly.
i’ve not really seen many folks adding hops for an ipa at 35, 30, 25, 15 - was that something you read or were trying to duplicate?
I can offer my strategy for hopping if you’d like, but what you have is so starkly different from what i do, you may be looking for something particular and I wouldn’t want to steer you away from that.
EDIT - on further reading your original post, i guess that is what you are looking to go after. Its not something I would be interested in brewing, but it seems like you are after something in particular, so I guess just brew it and see what comes of it. Maybe its exactly what you are after.
Question 2- There was a beer just launched a few weeks ago in Austin and the brewer told me he did only mid to late additions. I agree with your initial statement of a piddly hop bill. However after having his IPA, i was just floored. Only Mosaic and Citra at 30min or below. It was a full 60 min boil and it was about 5.5% and 60 IBUs and it was an incredibly delicious fruit bomb.
All my IPAs in the past have been warrior at 60min for about 33ibu (love warrior cause its cheap readily avaialbe and has a nice neutral bitterness) then all my other additions are the usual supects, 30min, 15 min, flame out- dry hop. But again after trying this beer I was blown away and wanted to try to replicate it in a similar fashion
yeah - I hear you. I skimmed, went to the recipe, and went “no-no-no.”
but when I saw the post again after I put up my reply, i read a bit more carefully.
I still think that your dryhop could be tripled or quadrupled, but that’s me.
One final word of caution - many methods employed by pros don’t exactly correlate to homebrew scale methods. One in particular that i’ve found is hop schedules. in some cases they get dramatically better utilization than we do - look at the Avery scaled down recipes - I had a club member’s version of the IPA and it was barely an APA.
You may have to just do a rough draft on this one, take good notes, taste it objectively and tweak as necessary.
I hear yeah- good news is the beer was launched at my Craft Beer Bar and the brewer offered to come over and brew his clone with me on my system- so hopefully I will have some good intel to report soon!
I might back off the crystal just slightly or alternatively replace some of the base malt with sugar to assist with keeping the beer reasonably dry but these are personal preferences that I don’t feel that strongly about.
as for the hops, MORE HOPS! I’m not saying you need more overall IBUs but I would say you need some hop additions during those last 10 minutes and especially at flameout and maybe a hop stand if you are into those. similarly I’d kick the dry hop up to at least 2oz. again - just me b/c I really like big hop aroma and flavor but not extreme IBUs.
on reading this post again- I also agree this would have originally not been something I would have been interested in brewing- However looking at your recommendations, I have a feeling you like the same types of IPAs that I do- and this style is goona catch on- there is still enough bitteress for the hardcore hop heads- however even NON-IPA drinkers were loving this beer due to its super fruity drinkability
there is a big shift as of late for IPAs to not be just about the IBUs anymore. the IBUs are coming down into a more balanced territory and the flavor/aroma is going WAY up.
Totally agree- I went on that journey as most do- started out seeking the highest IBU monsters till I found the one that finally shut me down! Now its all about the flavor profile of the hops for me- I love the fruit forward varietals at the moment
Just guessing here, but I bet the brewer uses a modest amount of M & C at 30 minutes and then hammers it at around 10 min thru the end of boil. You can still get significant IBUs late in the boil/whirlpool, and that’s probably where most of them are coming from here.
What you have here now looks like a fairly bitter beer with very little flavor and aroma.
totally agree. I wouldn’t mind trying to brew an all late IPA, but those mid boil additions, plus so little in amount at late boil and flameout/whirlpool, not to mention dryhop, leave me thinking its going to be very lacking in what the OP was targeting.
but if this is exactly how the pro does it, who knows?