Low ABV APA/IPA

I'm wanting to brew a low ABV IPA (or perhaps better named a hoppy Pale Ale). I've been waffling between whether or not to make it 3.5% or 4.5% (my current recipe is at 4.4%)

Regardless, I'm trying to determine how best to balance the hoppiness I want with the low ABV. I don't want it to be crazy bitter, but clearly hoppy. My current thought process has me trying to create something with a nice malt backbone to balance the hops.

Here's the current sketch. All suggestions welcome.

3.5 gallon batch
est. OG: 1.043
est. FG: 1.010

4.5 lb American 2-Row
.5lb Crystal 40
6oz Belgian Aromatic
2oz Rye Malt

Mash at 153° for 1 hour.
Raise to 167° for 15 minutes.

90 minute boil.

.25oz Chinook @ 60
.1 oz Amarillo @ 30

Starting at 15 minutes, continually hop at additional .25 oz of Amarillo (I would add one pellet ever minute, gradually increasing the number of pellets as I get closer to flame out.)

Ferment with California Ale yeast, 9 days, 70°

Cold crash 2 days.

Rack to secondary and dry hop with .5 oz of Cascade, 2 days.

Just throwing this out there but I'd dry hop closer to a week @ least. 2 days may not be long enough to impart the fresh hop aroma you're looking for. Good luck!

Not sure why you need a 90min boil.

I'd move the amarillo to 15min to improve the flavor contribution.

I'd go for an IBU/OG of maybe 0.75, so I'd bump up the Chinook enough to accomplish this. Right now I think your IBU are going to be under 25, and that won't come across as very hoppy. I think 30IBU would work well for this beer and still give you some room for the malt to shine through.

But did you see how at 15 I was continually hopping with the Amarillo? That should give me around 30ibu

What did you end up going with?

I recently made a split batch of Jamil's Ordinary Bitter at 3.7%.

One half I did to style; the other I dry-hopped with 1.5 ounces each of Columbus and Simcoe.

I was somewhat surprised to get a good deal of bitterness from the dry hopping. The "ordinary" side was spot-on for bitterness, so it was a good control. The dry-hopped batch was really more like an American IPA, almost but not quite over the top.

So with this low ABV you will get some bitterness from dry hopping with high-alpha hops.