This is a style I haven’t tackled yet, but every commercial version I’ve tried makes me wonder why. Like an addiction to hot peppers, the more you move up to highly hopped beers, the harder it is to settle for anything less.

Well last night I cracked open a beer I cannot even buy here in Missouri. Thanks to my Secret Santa from somewhere in Colorado, I got to enjoy a bottle of Pliny the Elder from Russian River Brewing.

That session last night falls into one of those “memorable moments” of beerdom. Light in color, rich in maltiness and the maddening amount of hops was incredible.

While clones of ‘The Elder’ abound, my intent is not to clone this pinnacle of IIPA’s, but to build a recipe that was motivated by it. Pliny recipes boast over a pound of hops for a 5-gallon batch. I’m stopping at 12 ounces (I know…I’m a wuss). I’m also going to scale this up to 6.5 gallons to allow for loss due to the incredible amount of sludge I’m going to end up with.

As my taste for bigger, hoppier beers grows, I’m afraid that these big IPA’s and RIS’s are going to be the death of my wallet, or the death of me (at 8+%).

In honor of that which will likely be my demise, I dub thee:

Tits-Up IIPA

Batch Size: 6.50 gal
Boil Size: 8.54 gal
Estimated OG: 1.082 SG
Estimated Color: 7.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 100.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 64.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------

18.00 lb Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM
1.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM)
0.25 lb Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)
1.00 lb Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM)

1.00 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [12.20%] (FWH)
1.00 oz Nugget [11.50%] (45 min)
1.00 oz Centennial [9.50%] (30 min)
1.25 oz Cascade [6.10%] (15 min)
1.00 oz Centennial [9.50%] (10 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (10 min)
1.00 oz Crystal [3.50%] (10 min)

1.00 oz Summit [16.50%] (Dry Hop 14 days)
1.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90%] (Dry Hop 14 days)
1.25 oz Cascade [6.10%] (Dry Hop 14 days)
1.25 oz Centennial [9.50%] (Dry Hop 14 days)

Mash at 153 for 90 minutes.

Pitch a butt load of Safale-50 slurry from a prior batch.


I'll let you know how this turns out.
EDIT
On June 6th, 2009...this beer was Grand Champion in a special high gravity brew off at the Boneyard Brew Off in Illinois.

On December 12th , 2009, this beer took Silver out of 25 IPA entries at the St. Louis Brews Happy Holidays Homebrew Competition.

On February 13th, 2010, this beer took gold among 16 IPA entries at the Great Northern Brew Ha-Ha in Minnesota.