IPA Mead Recipe please

I went to the mayfest last saturday and had an IPA Mead and it was fantastic, been looking for a recipe and have not found one. Wondering if anyone here had one or knows where to find one.

Thanks

This where some marketing confusion creeps in !

I presume by IPA you mean like an India pale ale ?

If that's correct, you'd want to look either for a braggot recipe that uses honey and IPA ingredients, or an IPA recipe and use honey for some of the fermentables.

Was it served like a beer or a wine ?

B.Nektar in Michigan recently released an "IPA Style Mead" they call "Evil Genius"

This is from the label:

"In an obscure industrial lair resides the man known only as the evil Dr. I.P.A. Using his hadron colider, hidden deep underground, he has conducted his most remarkable experiment to-date. The result is a perfect balance of honey and hops. But there are side-effects... His lab rats can't get enough of the stuff. And soon, neither will you. Introducing the Evil Genius. The big bang is no longer a theory, it's your reality."

Product Facts: Made with raw Michigan wildflower honey and hops (Chinook, Cluster, Cascade). Lightly carbonated. 6% ABV

TheBrewingMedic said:

B.Nektar in Michigan recently released an "IPA Style Mead" they call "Evil Genius"

This is from the label:

"In an obscure industrial lair resides the man known only as the evil Dr. I.P.A. Using his hadron colider, hidden deep underground, he has conducted his most remarkable experiment to-date. The result is a perfect balance of honey and hops. But there are side-effects... His lab rats can't get enough of the stuff. And soon, neither will you. Introducing the Evil Genius. The big bang is no longer a theory, it's your reality."

Product Facts: Made with raw Michigan wildflower honey and hops (Chinook, Cluster, Cascade). Lightly carbonated. 6% ABV

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Yep thats the one i tried it is fantastic!!! I need to try it but i have only brewed beer so far. Hoping some senior mead makers could help with the recipe.

check these threads out, they might help

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/dry-hopped-mead-253161/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/dry-hopping-mead-300339/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f30/hops-mead-262138/

I bought a bottle of Evil Genius at LHBS......I concur it is awesome. I wish I had checked SG before I drank it. It was quite sweet but the hops make a nice contrast.

So based on their brewing style - I'm assuming this is really a hopped hydromel or simply a weak metheglin in a sense. It is sans malt (according to the posted description) - and comes in at only 6% ABV.

If it were "quite sweet" as reported by roadymi - my initial thoughts are, per gallon:

2 lbs clover honey
.2 oz hops
Safale US-05

The trick is getting close to the 6%. That's some serious hydromel status. I would watch your FG after a day or so and stop fermentation as necessary. SNA will not be needed in a mead this 'small'. I haven't done the math on it - but at 6%, I'm sure even less honey could be used per gallon and still be plenty sweet. You're simply going to have to base your stopping point off of your OG reading.

Curiosity got the best of me, went and got another bottle. Yup it is sweet. 1.03 @ refrigerated temps.

Label warns of sulphites and sulphates so I assume they cold crash stabilize and ship. I doubt a commercial meadery ages a year.

Ok I am gonna try a gallon 2 lbs honey should get me to 1.073 or so, cold crash and stabilize at 1.03 should be about 6%

Now for the hops.... looking for input. I am thinking dry hopping but with what variety? And how much?

B.Nektar has bourbon barrel mead and a couple cysers that they've aged 1-1.5 yrs. but this sounds like something they made quicker if they used stabilizers.

B.Nektar has bourbon barrel mead and a couple cysers that they've aged 1-1.5 yrs

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Yup! that stuff is awesome! it's my favorite store bought mead... well cyser...

Robusto said:

Yup! that stuff is awesome! it's my favorite store bought mead... well cyser...

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Seriously jealous of you guys that have access to B.Nektar stuff, I hear nothing but amazing things about everything they make.

Dont have much experience with meads (have a braggot that is still aging right now) but for hops just dry hopping isnt going to give much or really any bitterness. If you are looking for just aroma then dry hopping will work. If you want some flavor then you should do a small boil depending on what you want.

Ive experimented with dry hopping and late boil additions and in my experience (someone with more experience can chime in) but what I get with dry hopping is a very strong aroma (which unfortunately dissapates very quickly) where if I do a boil and do late additions 20 min and less I get a better flavor addition

Havent had what you are trying to make so not sure what you are going for, but dry hopping might not be exactly what you want

I agree with Adeering. I just dry hopped a Hefeweizen-style braggot with 1 oz of Tettnang hops for a 1 gallon batch and I was hopping for a huge hop wallop and to be honest its not as sharp of a flavor as I was hoping for.

Also I just tried Evil Genius this weekend and I enjoyed it a lot. I will be watching this tread as I hope to replicate it in the future.

NineMilBill said:

So based on their brewing style - I'm assuming this is really a hopped hydromel or simply a weak metheglin in a sense. It is sans malt (according to the posted description) - and comes in at only 6% ABV.

If it were "quite sweet" as reported by roadymi - my initial thoughts are, per gallon:

2 lbs clover honey
.2 oz hops
Safale US-05

The trick is getting close to the 6%. That's some serious hydromel status. I would watch your FG after a day or so and stop fermentation as necessary. SNA will not be needed in a mead this 'small'. I haven't done the math on it - but at 6%, I'm sure even less honey could be used per gallon and still be plenty sweet. You're simply going to have to base your stopping point off of your OG reading.

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B Nektar has a quick turnaround on their meads. They actually had two types of Evil Genius back in March. They let the public vote on it. The other version was actually better. Their low gravity meads have a quick turnaround, 3-6 months.

NineMilBill said:

So based on their brewing style - I'm assuming this is really a hopped hydromel or simply a weak metheglin in a sense. It is sans malt (according to the posted description) - and comes in at only 6% ABV.

If it were "quite sweet" as reported by roadymi - my initial thoughts are, per gallon:

2 lbs clover honey
.2 oz hops
Safale US-05

The trick is getting close to the 6%. That's some serious hydromel status. I would watch your FG after a day or so and stop fermentation as necessary. SNA will not be needed in a mead this 'small'. I haven't done the math on it - but at 6%, I'm sure even less honey could be used per gallon and still be plenty sweet. You're simply going to have to base your stopping point off of your OG reading.

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They force carbonate. They let it go dry then use sorbate/sulfite to stabilize. After that they back sweeten.

As far as the hops try this. Do a normal one hour boil (I know you'll lose some honey aromas. Bear with me here a sec). Add hops throughout the hour to create your desired hop bittering, flavor, aroma profile. Let it ferment dry. At this point it going to be bitter because there will be no residual sugar. Add sorbate/sulfite to prevent refermentation. Now here is the cool part. Just add honey to balance the bitterness with sweetness. Also, any honey aroma boiled off is added back. B Nektar's IPA mead is good but a bit too sweet for me. I think it would be even better if the sweetness was dialed back a bit.

Has anyone tried this yet? I'd be interested in the recipe once someone has it down...I think it sounds awesome!

Bump. Any progress in cloning the "Evil Genius"? I've tried a bottle and really liked it! I would like to make this my next batch. Especially if it could be ready to drink in 3 months or less. What hops do you think should be used? I would need to go buy something since I've never done beer. Just Mead and Cider so far.

Ok, so I love hops and mead, so this has caught my interest!

I'm curious if anyone has tried this with just dry hopping? I know in my IPA's I brew, a few months of aging and most of those delicious hop aromas disappear, so I generally drink my IPA's young. Now, I would imagine that if you did the same with mead, you would want to age it until it's drinkable, and then dry hop, bottle, and drink shortly after bottling.

That said, I'm also cuious what would happen if you boiled the hops in water for an hour(maybe with a few hop additons like beer), mix in honey, cool, pitch yeast, and then aim for it to finish at a higher gravity(say 1.010-1.030), with the theory being that the hop bitterness would balance out the sweetness. Anyone ever try this?

I think I am going to need to get some honey for some 1 gallon test batches.

I just did a cherry cyser today. It's going to be my spin on B. Nektar's Funky Monkey. I think they dry hop their's. I plan on dry hopping after 3 or 4 months. I'm using probably 2 oz of czech saaz.

Any thoughts?

Bumping this to see if anyone is working on a recipe. According to B. Nektar's website, Evil Genius has Chinook, Cluster and Cascade hops. Can anyone suggest which hop is used for which purpose (bitterness, flavor, aroma) and suggest some boil/addition timetable. I REALLY want to make something like this!

I made a blended braggot from an IPA and a traditional mead this past season and it was awesome. An upside to the blended approach, which is also historically authentic, is that you actually get three things to enjoy from two brewing sessions (IPA, mead, and braggot!).

This experience put braggots way high on my list of near future brews. I've got 10 gallons of traditional mead perking away now and ingredients for an IPA on the way.

Chinook.for bittering, cascade for flavor. I don't know about cluster though.

I too am VERY intrigued by this idea, and I haven't even tried it yet!

That will be remedied tomorrow as I will be picking up some of this from a local store and sampling while I enjoy my brew day.

If anyone comes up with a recipe let us know. I will have my keezer finished in a week or so (I hope) so back sweetening and force carbing will be an option.

YeastieBoys said:

Chinook.for bittering, cascade for flavor. I don't know about cluster though.

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Thanks YeastieBoys! I'm going to get the hops this weekend and will try a 1 Gal test batch.

BTW...I see you started a Funky Monkey clone awhile back...how did that turn out? Do you have a recipe you can share? (I have yet to try the Funky Monkey...but it sounds good).

I'll chime in too (first post! I've been lurking forever):

I threw this 3 gallon batch together on 9/9/12:

7lb Clover honey
1oz Chinook
1oz Cascade
Safale US-05 + Fermaid-K, DAP

I boiled 2lb of the honey with a little water for 60 minutes so that I could have a hop boil schedule:
.5oz Chinook @ 60min
.5oz Chinook and .5oz Cascade @30min
.5oz Cascade @5min

Then I gave it an ice bath and added it to the remaining 5lbs of honey and topped it off. OG was 1.092. Fermented at 63 degrees. It stopped at 1.006, giving me 11.3%.

As for how it tastes: the citrus quality of the hops I chose is overpowering. The amount of lemon and grapefruit is far too heavy, and there really isn't much bitterness present. I plan to rack it onto some medium toast American oak cubes and dry hop with an ounce of whole leaf Fuggle to hopefully round out the brightness of the other hops.

I bought a bottle of Evil Genius today for $10! That hurt.

Hydrometer reading out of the fridge was 1.04.

Tasting: It's good, but a bit sweet for my taste. It's an interesting flavor that I bet would grow on you, but it won't on me because I'll never pay $10 for another 500ml bottle.

Honestly, the flavor inspires me to add more hops to my Graff rather than trying to hop Mead.

The Graff experts caution to go REALLY light on the hops (half oz for 5 gallons). I might try a full hop schedule on a small batch.

P. S. This is the first Mead I have ever had so I'm no experienced taster.

Curtis2010 said:

I made a blended braggot from an IPA and a traditional mead this past season and it was awesome. An upside to the blended approach, which is also historically authentic, is that you actually get three things to enjoy from two brewing sessions (IPA, mead, and braggot!).

This experience put braggots way high on my list of near future brews. I've got 10 gallons of traditional mead perking away now and ingredients for an IPA on the way.

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That sounds really cool. Did you blend in secondary I assume? That must've been an interesting racking process.

Unferth said:

That sounds really cool. Did you blend in secondary I assume? That must've been an interesting racking process.

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The mead and IPA were brewed totally separately. I was not entirely happy with the IPA (got some fusel alcohols from starting ferm at too high temp -- I was delayed a bit in moving to my keezer). So tried blending it and result was awesome. The mead was relatively sweet which masked the fusel taste. Apparently, tavern owners in merry old England used to blend to make braggot as well.

Braggot has moved high up on my list and something I definitely plan to make again.

PattyM said:

Thanks YeastieBoys! I'm going to get the hops this weekend and will try a 1 Gal test batch.

BTW...I see you started a Funky Monkey clone awhile back...how did that turn out? Do you have a recipe you can share? (I have yet to try the Funky Monkey...but it sounds good).

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I started it back in July. I'm adding saaz hops to it this weekend. They should blend in nice with the.montmorency cherry juice (tart).

I haven't tasted the Funky Monkey yet. No one near me has it on the shelf. I'll have to pick up a bottle next time I'm at B Nektar (I'm lucky enough to live near by). I'd still be interested in your recipe if you could post it.

PattyM said:

I haven't tasted the Funky Monkey yet. No one near me has it on the shelf. I'll have to pick up a bottle next time I'm at B Nektar (I'm lucky enough to live near by). I'd still be interested in your recipe if you could post it.

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B Nektar doesn't have Funky Monkey anymore. The last.time.I saw.it was about.two years ago. You must be close to Ferndale though.

So, I've been thinking of making an IPA mead for a while, too. I'm gluten-free and haven't been very impressed with the whole rice and sorghum extract thing, but I love me some mead. Here's what I'm thinking of doing--please give me some feedback, as a lot of the techniques I'm planning here I've never done before!

3 gallon recipe:

Ingredients:
6 lbs wildflower honey
0.25 oz Millenium hops (pellet, 17.4% AA) at 60 min
1 oz Simcoe hops (pellet, 13% AA) at 15 min
1 oz Simcoe hops at 1 min
1 oz Czech Saaz hops (whole-leaf, 4.5% AA), dry hop
8 oz maltodextrin
Buckwheat honey, to taste

US-05 dry yeast

Boil:
Do a 60-minute boil with water, maltodextrin, and Simcoe hops. Add honey at flame-out. Ferment completely, racking as necessary, and add dry hops for 1 week after the final racking. Back-sweeten/prime with buckwheat honey to taste, then bottle in 22-oz bottles. Reserve enough to fill 2 plastic soda bottles (use first and last runnings from the bucket). When the soda bottles first begin to feel tight, open the first one to check carbonation. If adequately carbonated, pasteurize (on the stove) all the remaining bottles to kill the yeast. If not, give another day or two and then check the second one, and then pasteurize if satisfied. Refrigerate and enjoy some sparkling, sweet, IPA mead!

Now, questions:
1) I expect this to come out to about 8% ABV, so is my use of ale yeast okay?
2) Do I need to add nutrients? If so, how much, and when? Seems like staggered nutrient additions wouldn't be necessary given the low gravity, but I'm no expert.
3) How much buckwheat honey would you guys estimate as a good starting-point for back-sweetening? I don't want an overly-sweet mead, but I also don't want it to be as completely dry as it probably will be at this low gravity. I'd want it probably about as sweet as an American double-IPA.
4) Is my plan of adding honey post-fermentation to both prime AND back-sweeten sensible?
5) What's a realistic turn-around time for a sparkling low-gravity mead? 3 months? 6? If I brew this tomorrow, could I be enjoying it by Christmas, or will it take longer?

igliashon said:

So, I've been thinking of making an IPA mead for a while, too. I'm gluten-free and haven't been very impressed with the whole rice and sorghum extract thing, but I love me some mead. Here's what I'm thinking of doing--please give me some feedback, as a lot of the techniques I'm planning here I've never done before!

3 gallon recipe:

Ingredients:
6 lbs wildflower honey
0.25 oz Millenium hops (pellet, 17.4% AA) at 60 min
1 oz Simcoe hops (pellet, 13% AA) at 15 min
1 oz Simcoe hops at 1 min
1 oz Czech Saaz hops (whole-leaf, 4.5% AA), dry hop
8 oz maltodextrin
Buckwheat honey, to taste

US-05 dry yeast

Boil:
Do a 60-minute boil with water, maltodextrin, and Simcoe hops. Add honey at flame-out. Ferment completely, racking as necessary, and add dry hops for 1 week after the final racking. Back-sweeten/prime with buckwheat honey to taste, then bottle in 22-oz bottles. Reserve enough to fill 2 plastic soda bottles (use first and last runnings from the bucket). When the soda bottles first begin to feel tight, open the first one to check carbonation. If adequately carbonated, pasteurize (on the stove) all the remaining bottles to kill the yeast. If not, give another day or two and then check the second one, and then pasteurize if satisfied. Refrigerate and enjoy some sparkling, sweet, IPA mead!

Now, questions:
1) I expect this to come out to about 8% ABV, so is my use of ale yeast okay?
2) Do I need to add nutrients? If so, how much, and when? Seems like staggered nutrient additions wouldn't be necessary given the low gravity, but I'm no expert.
3) How much buckwheat honey would you guys estimate as a good starting-point for back-sweetening? I don't want an overly-sweet mead, but I also don't want it to be as completely dry as it probably will be at this low gravity. I'd want it probably about as sweet as an American double-IPA.
4) Is my plan of adding honey post-fermentation to both prime AND back-sweeten sensible?
5) What's a realistic turn-around time for a sparkling low-gravity mead? 3 months? 6? If I brew this tomorrow, could I be enjoying it by Christmas, or will it take longer?

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Us-05 might poop out before you hit 8%. You might be able to get it to 7%. I would start at 1/4 lb honey for backsweetening and test it.

Us05 can go to 12%

I just tried Evil Genius this weekend and I have to try making it also. Still working on a recipe.

I tried getting some info out of the owner but he said he wasn't giving me much more info than the hop list (which is on the web site).

At 6% I don't think too much aging will be involved. and yes us05 will ferment a mead pretty dry to 11 or 12% in my expeience.

...for what it's worth (since I don't know if you were able to measure your sample) the FG of room temp flat Evil Genius is 1.038. Much sweeter than most of their other offerings. I hope this info helps to clone this.