Recipe advice : session IPA

I've been brewing all grain for about a year or more and always used recipes I've found on here. Lately I'm wanting to come up with my own designs but would really appreciate some input to see if I'm on the right track.

I'm wanting to make a good moderately hoppy IPA that can be enjoyed all evening with friends from the keg. This is what I've come up with after lurking around HBT

1.059 og / 46.6 ibu
8.5# Marris otter
1.5# dark Munich 9 srm
1# caramunich
.5# wheat malt for head retention

1.2 oz centennial @ 60
0.5 / 0.5 oz centennial and cascade @ 15
1 oz cascade @0

Wlp001 yeast

I'm really not too sure about designing the hop part of the recipe. Any help would be appreciated

Close to 1060 for a session beer? Hopefully your friends are seasoned vets!

I don't know how set you are on the malt bill or what style IPA's you enjoy the most, but in my mind sessionable ipa means light grainbill, low alcohol and tons and tons of hops (not necessarily bitter).

Any examples of IPA's you love? Maybe that will help with some more feedback.

Hop wise no matter what you choose hop very heavy in the late additions/whirlpool and get your majority of bittering from FWH. If you don't whirlpool, let the hops steep warm at the end of the boil for at least 30 minutes.

Suggestion: lighten the malt bill, lower the gravity a bit, and hop hard (no less than 8 oz total including dry hop)

Session usually means >4% abv. In any case, I would lower your caramel and increase the hops. With only 2oz of late hops, you're going to be pretty light on flavor/aroma. The advise above is pretty solid.

I may have used the word session a bit too liberally. I don't mind sitting and having 3-4 pints of 5.5-6% IPA around the table with friends (they don't mind either hah)

I'm in Canada and what I've really enjoyed lately are muskoka brewery mad Tom IPA and mill street tankhouse. Both deep amber moderately hoppy ipa's

Would it be best to move the initial hops to FWH and then maybe add an ounce of Amarillo at whirlpool for flavour? I used caramunich because I wanted the colour and taste of Munich without the sweetness of crystal malt -thus trying to keep it nice and dry. Should I lower it to 0.5#?

Thanks for the help

I would definitely add the ounce of Amarillo at whirlpool. If you dont want to extract excess bitterness from a long hot stand at the end, just flip your chiller on for a little and get it down to 150 or so (I believe below 170 and AA extraction becomes negligible, and around 150 you won't boil off myrcene). Coupled with a nice dry hop amount, I think it will come out nice. I would personally do 4 oz minimum of late hopping for an ipa (heck I use that much in a pale ale) but I love hops and I center my IPA's/pales around them. You may prefer a more malt backbone beer.

But either way I would reduce the caramuninch to about 5% of the recipe if you want it in there. Cara brand malt is essentially weyermann's line of crystal malt. Yes they taste slightly different because I believe they use a slightly different process. Of course, If you use too much you can still get a beer that is overly sweet.

With a base of MO, some Munich malt and 5% caramuninch I think the beer will definitely be more towards the hoppy amber side for you, just what you said you like!

Thanks for the excellent input. Here is the new recipe. Hoping to make this Boxing Day.

1.057 og / 56.3 ibu / 7.5 srm / 6% abv
8.5# Marris otter
1.5# dark Munich 9 srm
0.5# caramunich
.5# wheat malt for head retention

1.5 oz centennial @ 60
0.5 / 0.5 oz centennial and cascade @ 15
1 oz cascade / 1 oz Amarillo @ 0

Do I need to add any 30/45 min additions or are the two late ones good enough?

Looks good, almost all of your flavor/aroma comes from late additions/dry hop. So I would say a 30/45 addition is not needed as your ibu's look to be in line for a moderately hoppy beer.

don't forget the dry hop addition(s)

I just kegged an ISA not quite ready to drink yet tho.

9lb pale
3/4lb caramunich
It came out to 1.042

1 oz Chinook 60
.5 simcoe. 20
.5 Amarillo 20

.5 simcoe 10
.5 Amarillo 10

1 simcoe 0
1 Amarillo 0

Dry hopped with 1oz homegrown centennial

It came out to 1.004 about 5% abv

Should be very similar to Phillips bottle rocket ISA (India session ale)

Edit: should mention I mashed overnight at 150

I'll add 0.25/0.75 chinook / centennial for the dry hop. Getting excited about this brew. Should be tasty. I guess it's the only way I'll ever understand building a hop profile is to try it and adjust on future batches.

maris otter is very rich to me. i wouldn't dig it in a sessionable beer. i'm in to fruity hops on lighter grain bills for session beers so here's my idea for something simple.

simple pale ale

6# pils
5# vienna
0.5# C60

0.5oz cascade @ 60
0.75oz cascade @15
0.75oz centennial @15
0.75oz cascade @5
0.75oz cascade @5

mash at 150, boil for 90minutes.

you could swap in any fruity hops and this would be decent. citra and centennial would be my next attempt. also deliberating adding amarillo to the mix.

Colrain said:

I'll add 0.25/0.75 chinook / centennial for the dry hop. Getting excited about this brew. Should be tasty. I guess it's the only way I'll ever understand building a hop profile is to try it and adjust on future batches.

Click to expand...

basic hop schedule is 60/15/10/5. i like to get up to 50% of my total IBU's from the 60/bittering addition. the rest i'll pickup in the late additions. the other way to think about it is to throw IBU's out the window to an extent. hit your desired IBU with the 60 minute addition and then add however many ounces in the flavor additions. in my experience a pale ale will get by with 2 ounces of hops, an IPA with 4-6 ounces using this hop schedule.

snowtires said:

I just kegged an ISA not quite ready to drink yet tho.

9lb pale
3/4lb caramunich
It came out to 1.042

1 oz Chinook 60
.5 simcoe. 20
.5 Amarillo 20

.5 simcoe 10
.5 Amarillo 10

1 simcoe 0
1 Amarillo 0

Dry hopped with 1oz homegrown centennial

It came out to 1.004 about 5% abv

Should be very similar to Phillips bottle rocket ISA (India session ale)

Edit: should mention I mashed overnight at 150

Click to expand...

Did you ever brew this one out? I can't tell you what a fan I am of Phillips Brew Co beers and Bottle Rocket ISA.
I have tried many times to find out what hops are used in this beer, or the hop bill, but they keep it extremely secret, Matt answer all my questions but that one. Lol. Other breweries list the grain bill, hop bill and mash info in some cases.
These guys not so much.
I have tried to make my own, 5 batches now and I'm just not hitting it. Without knowing what hops, yeast strain or grain bill it's not easy to nail down.

If you have any information on the beer or this recipe, I'd love to hear your take on it. I have about 15 lbs of every hop one could think of in my freezer, and a wack of wlp & wyeast strains in the fridge, so I'm ready to go.
Thanks for any info. Cheers, Jim

snowtires said:

I just kegged an ISA not quite ready to drink yet tho.

9lb pale
3/4lb caramunich
It came out to 1.042

1 oz Chinook 60
.5 simcoe. 20
.5 Amarillo 20

.5 simcoe 10
.5 Amarillo 10

1 simcoe 0
1 Amarillo 0

Dry hopped with 1oz homegrown centennial

It came out to 1.004 about 5% abv

Should be very similar to Phillips bottle rocket ISA (India session ale)

Edit: should mention I mashed overnight at 150

Click to expand...

I was wondering how you made out on this one? I absolutely love Phillips Brew Co. And especially Bottle Rocket ISA.
I have tried many times to try to find out what the hops bill is in this recipe but they will not give it up.lol
I have no clue despite making 5 attempts at brewing it. Do you have a updated clone of it?
Knowing what yeast strain, hop bill and grain bill would make it easy, but not knowing anything about it, is tough to formulate.

I'd love to hear anything about your attempts at this beer.
I've got loads of different hops and yeast in the freezer & fridge so I'm ready to go.
Thanks so much for any help.
Cheers, Jim