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
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.
That recipe makes me want to cream my pants. I'm going to this store in Providence that has, supposedly, 900+ different beers and hopefully they'll be able to satisfy my need for hops. Maybe I'll convert this and try a PM version if it comes out good for you.
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“The mouth of a perfectly happy man is filled with beer.” -Egyptian Proverb
Nice! I am trying a similar grain bill now, but using Zeus, Chinook and Cascade hops.
Brewing today?
Tempted.
I brewed up a 10-gallon batch of Dos Testes (Equis) last night so I'd have to rustle up some energy. I'm either going to brew it, or break in to more of Santa's presents and just buzz the day away.
Looks very nice. I too have been feeling the "hop bug", and the lovely selections from Santa Yooper are helping that bug along nicely.
I'll probably wind up brewing a strong IPA (probably based off your Outer Limits, GOD was that good!) by the end of the year, and if that goes well, a double IPA very shortly thereafter. (Been battling a roaming Brett infection that seems to hit everything I own, regardless of which equipment I use.........or replace. I think it's airborne. )
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For each airlock bubble you count, I will shiv you. Bubbles are not for counting.
Curious about the 10 minute Crystal addition. I would think such a subtle hop would be lost with all of those powerful C hops to overwhelm. Though, Avery's Maharaja is dry hopped with crystal, so there must be something to it.
I would swap places of the summit and columbus, summit FWH would give a nice tangerine flavor which I absolutely love, whereas the columbus will just taste like hop bomb. Which is fine if you want hop bomb flavor.
I cried the other day when I discovered the beer store was already sold out of Maharaja, so I will be brewing the Maharaja soon. Yay for hops.
Personally I like to skip the middle additions and have a pretty hefty bitterness at 60 and toss all the rest of the hops in during the last 15 minutes of the boil. Wonderfully aromatic this way. Why the high mash temp? I just tapped my DIPA--mashed it at 149. You want this beer to be drier so the hops shine. Use hop bags so you don't get that much sludge!
1.5 oz. warrior @ 60
1 oz. amarillo @ 10
1 oz. chinook @ 10
1 oz. cascade @ 5
1 oz. chinook @ 5
1 oz. simcoe @ 5
1 oz. amarillo @ 0
1 oz. centennial @ 0
.5 oz. chinook @ 0
1 oz. centennial dry-hopped
1 oz. simcoe dry-hopped
US-05 (2 packets)
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Don't try and church it up boy.
Brewed as designed yesterday (Sunday). Kind of a spur of the moment since I'd just brewed 10-gallons of a Dos Testes (Equis) on Friday night. But with icy weather coming in, the cozy dryness of my brewshop was the place to be so what-the-heck.
Came in a 1084 with right at 6 gallon in the fermenter.
Tell you what, pulling out that hopsack with 7.25 ounces of hops pellets? The thing looked like a bowling ball. I continued to agitate that hops sack though so I know I got good utilization.
All-Grain - Tits-Up Imperial IPA (3-Time Medalist - 2 Golds, 1 Silver)
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