IPA tastes more like a Pale

Looking to get some people's imput on my recipe. I brewed what was supposed to be an IPA, but turned out more like a Pale Ale. Beersmith predicted about 54 IBUs. I dry-hopped an ounce of Cascade for one week in the secondary. Here's my recipe. There were also an ounce of rose hips added in the last 15 min and left in the primary.

12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 1 7.1 %
12.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2 7.1 %
9.9 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 5.9 %
8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 4 4.8 %
7 lbs 6.4 oz Pilsner Liquid Extract (3.5 SRM) Extract 5 70.3 %
8.0 oz Brown Sugar, Light (8.0 SRM) Sugar 6 4.8 %
2.40 oz Centennial [8.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 7 38.1 IBUs
2.00 oz Willamette [4.70 %] - Boil 40.0 min Hop 8 15.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Willamette [4.70 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 9 1.6 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml] Yeast 10 -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs


I stuck with hops that were known for their floral aromas. I'm thinking I needed to have more hops for the last 15 and 5 minutes. Any suggestions?

I think you have enough at the end.
try swapping the 1st 2oz centennial for 2oz chinook.

I think you've got too much crystal malt. I might use 4 oz of crystal 60 in my IPA at most. Double the dry hop at least, and try using something like Centennial in place of the Willamette. Also, a 40 minute hop addition is kinda weird. For an IPA, I usually do additions of 1oz at 60, 20, 10, 5, and then 2oz at flameout. Then dry hop with 2 oz. minimum.

I use 1 lb of crystal in mine so maybe a little heavy in that area but you need more late hop additions. And 54 IBUs in an IPA is going to give you the bitterness you want, but only .5 oz willamette at 10 min is nowhere near the flavor additions you would want. I'd go at least an oz to 1.5 oz at 15 or 10 min and then another oz at 5 and then dry hop with at least 1 oz.

14% crystal malt is a LOT, plus the carapils (another crystal malt)- even for an American amber. I don't use crystal in all of my IPAs, but in the ones I do, 5-7% is about the upper limit.

With the carapils, you've got over 20% as crystal malts, and only about 75% basemalts because of the brown sugar. That recipe is maybe a decent American amber but not an IPA.

An IPA recipe would have more malt for fermentables, and much less crystal malt. I'm not a fan of fermented brown sugar and would recommend using corn sugar or even table sugar if a drier finished beer is desired. But it's odd to use 20% crystal malt and then add simple sugars to dry it out, so I'd probably rework the whole thing.

I do like a hop schedule of 60/15/10/5/0/dryhop for IPAs, though. More late hops is always a good thing in an IPA!

How are you suggesting its a pale? By bitterness?Or general bitter and hop flavor? I think Pilsner can taste sweeter than pale or 2 row sometimes,although i did a pilsner extract and it was pretty dry before.Ive mashed pilsner and it seems sweeter.It does sound like an amber/pale how many ibu's did you get?
You could have used a good amount for some more later additons, did you not get much hop flavor?
Another thing maybe to consider is the age of the hops,im finding by stocking some of mine for a while im getting screwed because they seem to be meant to brew soon and not 6 mo.+ like ive been keeping mine,not to mention how old they may be to begin with.It seems i have a tough time getting good bitterness-maybe i should just d 75 min boils from now on.

Thanks for the suggestions....I got an idea of how I'll rework it. As suspected I'll definitely add way hops at the 15/10 and 5 minute mark.

Jonmonno, I was suggesting it tasted more like a pale than an IPA. It reminded me of other pale's I've had more than it did an amber. Regardless, its not what I thought it'd be. The bitterness was there, but the hop flavor wasn't nearly as strong as I'd like.

I thought the cyrstal was large, but I wanted to go for an IPA that wasn't super light in color or body. Whether I succeeded is another thing.

It sounds like a good amber/pale. I actually posted a recipe for one. I cant belive the small amount of crystal malts i used compared to many i did that did not turn out malty that should have.
It seemes like an american amber?It sounds good to me really.Nothing wrong with what you brewed,maybe just not what you intedend.Sounds pretty tastey to me.

"How are you suggesting its a pale? By bitterness?Or general bitter and hop flavor?"

IPA's come in all sorts and tastes. This has become particularily evident to me since my wife and son enrolled me in an IPA brew of the month club for Christmas. I have sampled around twenty different IPA's from around the country and they are all extremely different from one another. In particular, the brews that I had from the Pensilvania area were to me more like a stout than an IPA than I am accustomed to here in Montana.

In short, IPA's seem to come a large variety of bitterness and hoppiness flavor. Dont throw out what you have but adjust to what you are truly looking for.

The other thing I've noticed on here is that as soon as someone mentions IPA, everyone west of the Mississippi starts spouting out that IPAs ad IIPAs need to all be really dry an the finish and leave that burst of hops from start to finish. Us east coast brewers tend to brew IPAs that are a little sweeter and more malt accentuated... Still an IPA by all standards... Well all standards except west coast brewers.

brewmaster12 said:

The other thing I've noticed on here is that as soon as someone mentions IPA, everyone west of the Mississippi starts spouting out that IPAs ad IIPAs need to all be really dry an the finish and leave that burst of hops from start to finish. Us east coast brewers tend to brew IPAs that are a little sweeter and more malt accentuated... Still an IPA by all standards... Well all standards except west coast brewers.

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And us here in the midwest balance the best from both coasts to create perfection... or something close.

Based on the IBU number is should be a IPA, but its the perceived bitterness that isn't there, probably because the high % of crystal malts in it.

Also keep in mind that IPA as a style are way more hop forward than they used to be, so the BJCP style guidelines are probably a bit out of whack these days. So depending on what you drink/enjoy you may need to boost the hops up even further.

You added an ounce of rose hips? I've never heard of this before. How does that affect the flavor?

I'm going to agree with the others. that malt bill would produce one sweet beer. I would go for a drier beer. less crystal malts and less munich and replace the pilsner with some 2 row. Americans make the best IPAs because we use American malts and hops. Your hop schedule could use some work as well. When I make my IPAs i try to shoot for additions of 60 minutes (bittering), 10-20 minutes (flavor) and under 5 minutes (aroma). I find that anything added between 60 and 20 don't get utilized into bitterness as well as the 60 minute addition and don't contribute much to flavor. so kinda a waste of hops in my opinion. With IPAs you want heavy additions in the later additions. also dry hopping is really important.

jeffdill said:

You added an ounce of rose hips? I've never heard of this before. How does that affect the flavor?

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I'm not sure how the rose hips contributed. I was going for a floral IPA by using the rose hips and hops that were known to be floral. The beer doesn't taste half bad. So I guess I did something right.

I've heard of people using rose hips for belgian wits or other good summer drinking beers with positive results.