Experimental IPA

Experimental in that I'm going to be putting some heavy malt emphasis in it along with a fairly low attenuating yeast, we'll see how dry I can get it.

malt
8.375# 2-row
1.5# wildflower honey
1# dark munich malt (16 lovibond)
.5# english extra dark crystal (160 lovibond)

hops
.5 oz cluster 7 aau @ 60 mins
1 oz green bullet 13.5 aau @ 20 mins
1 oz pacific gem 15 aau @ 15 mins
1 oz amarillo 7 aau @ 10 mins
2 oz amarillo 7 aau @ dry hop

yeast
Windsor dry yeast

numbers
1.067 OG
1.019 FG (I think it'll go lower with a healthy pitch)
69 IBUs
13 SRM
6.1 abv

A few standouts I noticed...

MVKTR2 said:

1.5# wildflower honey
1# dark munich malt (16 lovibond)
.5# english extra dark crystal (160 lovibond)

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1) do you know how to treat honey when brewing?

2) go with light munich malt

3) go with light crystal, very light, I'm talking 120-150 lovibond less than what you're using

Just a follow up. I know this is maltier than it should be... which is what I'm doing. Ordinarily I'd never let extra dark crystal near an IPA and if using dark munich I'd consider it 20 lovibond crystal only not as sweet. Honey is essentially a substitution for sucrose to dry out the brew for balance.

Mostly sharing, wondering if others have done something similar. I didn't even think of it when putting it together but it's in a sense closer to a red IPA, only still gonna be sweeter than the best examples. I definitely consider this a specialty brew.

MVKTR2 said:

Honey is essentially a substitution for sucrose to dry out the brew for balance.

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Not exactly...

You wouldn't add expensive honey to the boil for the sole purpose of drying out a beer vs. cheap sugar... especially since none of the honey's character will be left behind for sensing.

The reason the majority of cognizant brewers use honey is for it's delicate flavor/aroma, which is easily destroyed/boiled off if improperly added or not enough is used. You're using enough here, but I would make sure that you're not destroying the delicate nature by adding it to > 100 F wort.

For those who don't know how to use real honey... or those who want to make things a bit easier... or those who want slightly different character... they will resort to honey malt instead.

Yet I have almost 2 gallons of honey sitting in my cupboard... looking to use a little of it. 1.5# honey isn't really a lot of honey. You're right, I could just as easily use sucrose, but I've got a quart o honey that's pushing 2.33 years and I want to use it.

I don't suspect I'll be able to detect any honey input over the bittering and aroma of this beer. Also who says I'm putting it in the boil? I'm not a big honey beer fan, but do make mead and don't pasteurize or boil my mead must, certainly wouldn't do it to honey in a beer.

It's doable.

I've had Honey IIPAs before that were actually quite tasty and full of just enough honey flavor/aroma without being overbearing or just plain weird.

I brewed a double honey ipa using both honey malt and honey as I was chilling. Flowery and citrus type hops. It was my best brew to date and my ipa friends raved about it.

Turned out to be Something along the lines of a flower power. Its on the to brew list again

Word of caution, The couple times I used anything over c40 in a pale or ipa I didn't care for the end result. If u want maltiness, sub a good portion of Munich for your base. It'll help keep your resulting beer dry. A little caramunich could be nice too

Bamsdealer said:

Word of caution, The couple times I used anything over c40 in a pale or ipa I didn't care for the end result. If u want maltiness, sub a good portion of Munich for your base. It'll help keep your resulting beer dry. A little caramunich could be nice too

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This exactly. I like to keep my crystal malts in IPAs to 30L and below. Swapping out some of your base for Munich gives you that malt character I think you're looking for. As of late I've been using MO and no Munich as my base for my IPAs and IIPAS and really like the results. As mentioned above, a little caramunich can do wonders for you grain bill. Cheers!