Brew Your Own Ranger IPA Recipe

Has anyone tried this recipe? I've seen mixed reviews online and would love to hear from someone who brewed it. The sugar startles me, but doesn't scare me.....



8.5# two row
2# table sugar
3 oz c120
1 oz chinook at 60
.75 oz simcoe at 30
.50 oz casc at 10
.50 casc at 0
.75 oz cask dry hop
fat tire yeast
1.060 down to 1.009
mash at 149

Did this come from Brew Your Own?

Sugar isn't all that uncommon in IPAs - helps to dry it out quite a bit. Although, that does seem like a lot. I'm not a huge fan of New Belgium's Ranger IPA anyway - there are far better IPA recipes to brew.

That just doesn't seem like enough late edition hops... I do like ranger, let us know how it turns out if you do brew it.

Each his own. Ranger is one of my favorite basic IPA's.

Ranger is a palate wrecker. Blech.

tre9er said:

Each his own. Ranger is one of my favorite basic IPA's.

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I agree!!

SpottedDogBrewing said:

I agree!!

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I'm interested in the actual recipe for this reason but I've only just kegged a IIPA and have made 3 batches of some sort of IPA in a matter of months But I still wanna know :cross:

I got the recipe from another post in homebrewtalk, and it stated it was from BYO. Ranger is my fav by far! Some comments state it's close, and others state it tastes like cider. I've made other recipes from BYO and had great success! I see no reason not to trust this one, other than the sugar.

Nike_Eayrs said:

I got the recipe from another post in homebrewtalk, and it stated it was from BYO. Ranger is my fav by far! Some comments state it's close, and others state it tastes like cider. I've made other recipes from BYO and had great success! I see no reason not to trust this one, other than the sugar.

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I guess I don't see the need for sugar. Its not an imperial. If dry is desired why not just mash nice and low?

tre9er said:

I guess I don't see the need for sugar. Its not an imperial. If dry is desired why not just mash nice and low?

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Do an experiment brew both-taste both.If that is a legit recipe then without the sugar you are simply not really brewing it then. You also have to figure more malt for the sugar.

I've brewed it a couple times, and it comes close-ish, but it's not gonna be mistaken for the real McCoy. I subbed American Ale II for the Fat Tire yeast. Also, the 2nd time around I upped the dry hops to 1.25oz Cascade, .5oz Simcoe, and 1oz Citra. All in all a very good IPA, but it's not Ranger.

I'd second replacing the sugar with grains and mashing low and slow to dry it out. I can almost guarantee New Belgium doesn't dump table sugar into their IPA

thinking today, anyone degassed a Ranger and taken gravity reading? That plus ABV should tell you the OG, then a recipe would be easier. Are we certain the hops/schedule are right or close?

Just finishing up a 13 gallon batch of that one.
Excellent recipe. Great introduction to an easy-drinking IPA. The %ABV is a bit high, be careful throwing back a few pints.

I used US-05, because I like a clean taste in an IPA. I can't really taste much yeast-flavor in a real Ranger anyway.
Also, I couldn't get Simcoe, I used Amarillo in it's place.

It was better than Ranger, and is my go-to recipe when I get together with friends/family who "like hoppy beers".

tre9er said:

Are we certain the hops/schedule are right or close?

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I don't think that hop schedule can possibly be right, there just aren't enough late editions. I'm not expert, but I've brewed lots of IPAs.. More late editions and dry hops!

You could try contacting them. They seem pretty cool. And while you're at it, ask for Loft also! And 2 below!

I don't think Ranger is that "big" either. 60? Seems awfully high for a NB beer that is usually ~$6.99 a sixer or less at times.

The hop schedule doesn't seem too far off for a daily drinking IPA in a 5g batch. I've always found Ranger to have a very pleasant hop presence, not something that seeks to hammer your mouth with hops.

the recipe in BYO is slightly different than the one posted by the OP...mainly the hops. 30-min addition is .5oz Simcoe, .75oz Cascade at 15mins, .5oz Cascade at KO, 1.25oz Cascade DH. Mash at 148F
I've done clone recipes for BYO before and they've always had to be direct from the brewer's mouths, so I can with pretty good confidence that for the most part this is NB's schedule. Whether it's going to produce a clone of Ranger...well i think most of us who've tried clones before know that different systems and water profiles produce different beers. Key with Ranger is that Cascade is the dominant flavor/aroma hop, it should be bone dry (<1010) with a high BU:OG ratio and even higher BU:FG than many IPAs. You can check out New Belgium's site to try to gain more info:
http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/masher.aspx

telejunkie said:

the recipe in BYO is slightly different than the one posted by the OP...mainly the hops. 30-min addition is .5oz Simcoe, .75oz Cascade at 15mins, .5oz Cascade at KO, 1.25oz Cascade DH. Mash at 148F
I've done clone recipes for BYO before and they've always had to be direct from the brewer's mouths, so I can with pretty good confidence that for the most part this is NB's schedule. Whether it's going to produce a clone of Ranger...well i think most of us who've tried clones before know that different systems and water profiles produce different beers. Key with Ranger is that Cascade is the dominant flavor/aroma hop, it should be bone dry (<1010) with a high BU:OG ratio and even higher BU:FG than many IPAs. You can check out New Belgium's site to try to gain more info:
http://www.newbelgium.com/beer/masher.aspx

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I must admit that I got the recipe from a fellow homebrewtalk post, so I thank you for clearing up the hop schedule. I looked on BYO's web site and was unable to find the recipe. I'm gonna give it a shot in the next month or so, and I'll post with the update. Thanks!

I've done that recipe twice, once with and once without the sugar. IMHO, the sugar is a moot point if you're doing AG and can mash it at 149*F or so. 1.060 down to ~1.008-10 will net you around 6.5%, and that's not hard to do with low mash temps and a healthy pitch of S-05 or 1056. Also, the second time I used the hop schedule:

1 oz Chinook - 60 min
1 oz Cascade - 10 min
1 oz Simcoe - 5 min
1 oz Cascade - 0 min
1 oz Cascade - Dry hop

And I upped the Crystal 120*L to 8 oz, and just used enough 2-row to hit 1.060. I liked the second one A LOT better than the BYO recipe. Throwing some Chinook in the aroma additions would make things pretty interesting as well I'd think.

I'm going to brew this recipe on Monday. I will post how it turns out! Ranger is a good IPA IMHO. One thing I'm doing different from the ingredient list is I'm adding more hops than called for. It calls for a .5 oz of Simcoe and 2.5 oz total of Cascade, so I am going to make a late hop addition with 5 mins left with the remaining .5 oz of simcoe and cascade. Any suggestions on the additional hop addition time would be awesome. I would love to get advice from the experts...I just figured I would throw in the extra hops rather than save them. Also, the Simcoe I got in leaf instead of pellet.

Taco

I've had great success with the following schedule. Drink it young and it has incredible hop flavor (but not Ranger IPA). Age it for a month or two (if you can keep your hands off of it) and the hop flavor will subside and become spot on Ranger IPA. I will say that I very much prefer it young even though it wasn't what I intended to brew.

I start with Chinook and taper it off @ 30 minutes while introducing Cascade @ 15 minutes. Simcoe is along for the whole ride. I know NB doesn't use this amount of hops but we're homebrewers so screw the cost

60 min - 0.75oz Chinook @ 13% AA
60 min - 0.75oz Simcoe @ 13% AA
30 min - 0.25oz Chinook @ 13% AA
30 min - 0.50oz Simcoe @ 13% AA
15 min - 0.25oz Cascade @ 5.5% AA
15 min - 0.25oz Simcoe @ 13% AA
1 min - 0.25oz Cascade @ 5.5% AA
7 Day Dryhop - 0.50oz Cascade @ 5.5% AA
7 Day Dryhop - 0.50oz Simcoe @ 13% AA

Use Cali V yeast for a touch of ester, mash at 152°F, and get er done!

i dropped the sugar some, when i brewed it. and used us05.

hop flavor was pretty close and solid, the malt bill was off but i'm not too sure how.

I brewed this recipe about 7 weeks ago. I left it in the primary to include the dry hop for 30 days. Been in the bottle 3 weeks. I will say this...not ranger, but, good pale ale. As someone else stated, not enough late hop additions. The hop flavor is mild. I used simcoe and at 2.weeks not enough hop flavor at all, at 3 today it was pretty good and a nice citris flavor is coming through. I really like it. I am going to make it again but will up the hops some...

Taco

I actually think the sugar may be key here in this brew, the clean,dry,sessioning of this beer seems to need it to make it just what it really is. I think Pliney even uses sugar,as does Two hearted,I believe.or could be another of my favorates- not exact on that but I did see a pattern. But I do know from investigating with my personal favoates at least I see a pattern here. And its usually that dry edge of clean /crisp drinkability,it seems. It gives the hops some enhancement too I think by keeeping the malt in the background more.
I would be really curious as to how this comparably would turn out without the sugar and just mashed lower.I only have an assumption that they wouldnt taste the same,despite opinions.Im going to have to make a double small batch of this and do it-now Im inspired, even honey sounds good. I dont think I agree they are just the same.I mean,different malts do different things some are similar but really they are almost kind of far apart and can make enough significant difference.
So anybody that has done this please post! With sugar vs. low mash.