Every brewery and their nan!
So here we go, I’m about to alienate (possibly) myself from every beer drinker, the brewery I work for and all other breweries. But really this has to be said, “stop F-ing doing IPA’s”.
As much as I love an IPA (and I do), it just seems at the moment every brewery and there nan is making them. I work at a craft brewery and I would say 90% of beers we make are IPA’s and to me I feel like IPA’s are a cop out. They are really not had to make.
I’m talking about the 2 big style of IPA of the moment, West coast and east coast. West being the big bitter hop bombs and the easy being the soft hazy juice bombs. Niether style is really that hard.
So as a brewer lets get into the making of these styles and why I think they are a bit of a cop out. Start off with what I think is the harder of the two styles the West coast. So malt bill mostly pale malt (best, super pale, marris otter, you choose you weapon), then posibly a small amount of wheat for head retension (if that thing bothers you), and maybe some speciallitly malts to bulk up the back bone maltyness (I like adding a touch of Crystal rye). west cost IPA’s can ne done with a single malt, low mash temp 63-65 degrees C, getting a nice dry Finnish. Then it’s the hopping, American hios are a good shout, but don’t be afraid to use southern hemishepre hops, they are great and really lend them self to this style. Sorachi ace is a nice hop, with flavours of lemon, lime and coconut. Layering in the hops at different times gives a complex flavour and bitterness profile, using multiple hopes in the beer can add real depth of hop character. Fermentation, easy West coast ale yeast, 20-22 degrees C. Then dry hop, dry hop heavily but not to the point that it causes severe hop haze. Pretty easy right? Just lower the bittering hops atbthe start of boil and get the bitterness in at the back end of the boil with hefty hops additions. First style done. Aim for 50+ IBU’s and above 5.5%, (session IPA <5.5%).
So Easy coast… whoops meant east coast. Complex…ish malt bill. Mostly pale malts again, with a high percentage of wheat and oats in the mash, dextrin malt to help with a big juicy body, to get a really soft beer add a faor amount of calcium chloride and lactic acid, check your local water diagnostics. Mash temp, elevated mash temp, 67 and above recommend not going to far keep below 70. Between these to temperatures beta amalayse will be deactivated, and alpha amalayse will be the dominant enzyme. Alpha amalyse produces Maltose and dextrins. Dextrins are unfermentable and will boost the body of the beer. Now for the boil, small quantity on hops for bittering (<10 IBU’s worth). Nothing else till flame out, loads of whirlepool hops, really any hops from American to southern hemisphere, best are things like citra, really get those juicy flavours in. Ferment with Vermont ale yeast, 22 degrees C them dry hop, best to use pellet hops, do 2 or more dry hops over a week. Use a glass secondary vessel so you can see the top and bottom layer of hops and can siphon the beer from inbetween the two. Second style done.
These styles (especially easy coast) are really big at the moment and when I go to bottle shops and bars it’s sometimes really have to find anything but these styles. In a world filled with amazing beer styles why stick to these quite frankly easy styles? I have have nearly 3000 doffrent beers and IPA’s are really boring me. If I have a fantastic one I’m like great still just and IPA, with so many coming out how long is it till there are 5 IPA’s of a shelf that are basicaly the same beer?
As a brewer I find IPA’s boring to brew, I long for a sour or rauchbier, maybe a gose or a tripel. Let end this cycle of 100’s of new IPA’s every week, let’s start a new beer craze, will it be sours? Maybe Belgian styles? What about roggenbiers? So many to choose from, just please no more god damn IPA’s.