highgravitybacon
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2012
- Messages
- 925
- Reaction score
- 223
Love this IPA. Super grapefruit, citrus, very well balanced. Fruity with a bit of sweet malt to balance the hop aggressiveness. Nice head. $7 a six pack.
Anyway, I emailed the brewery. They're pretty slow in getting back to me. I told them flat out I wanted to clone their beer. They just gave me a recipe.
So first let's talk about this beer.
http://www.boulevard.com/BoulevardBeers/single-wide-i-p-a
YouTube interview with the head brewer.
The video is a bit laughable. He goes, "well it's 57 IBUs and 5.7% abv so it's a sessionable IPA." Compared to what? Malt liquor? It's an easy drinking beer for sure but way to easy to pound a sixer before you even have to pee the first time.
So the breakdown for people too damn lazy to click a link. This is straight from Boulevard.
Color (EBC) 16.2
Bitterness (IBUs) 57
Original Gravity (Plato) 13.7 [~1.054-55]
Terminal Gravity (Plato) 3 [~1.012]
Alcohol (ABV) 5.7%
CO2 - Bottles 2.6 vol. (5.1 g/L)
Here's direct from the email sent to me by Boulevard.
---
77% pale malt
17% munich malt
2.5% cara 15L
2% wheat malt
1.5% amber
23 IBU from bittering
Bravo, Cascade and Centennial as aroma for 30 IBU
Dry hop centennial, simcoe and citra [presumable for addition 4 IBU]
13.2 Plato start
English ale yeast
---
You'll notice the discrepancy between the website IBU and starting gravity. The website also says they use Palisade and CTZ hops. Could be just for bittering. I don't know.
The English Ale yeast thing threw me off. You usually don't see people using English yeast for IPAs for a variety of reasons (their reasons not mine), the prinicipal being that the strains are supposedly not "hop forward" or that their flocculation "strips the hop character." It's tough in a beer like this. They don't discuss the yeast strain or characteristics in any correspondence I am aware of, and I didn't ask because frankly yeast will behave radically differently in a massive fermenter vs the ghetto azz lowes buckets I use for a 4 gallon batch.
It's tough to seperate the yeast character from the hop. But if you approach it with that "it smells English" thought in your mind, you can get kind of a scottish or english ester thing going on.
Color is a slightly hazy golden / amber. It was from the bottle and some of the bottle conditioning yeast trickled into the beer. Smell is quite fruity, heavy heavy citrus and grapefruit. I don't get much floral from it. Kind of a sweet malt thing going on. But just a slight caramel thing.
Taste is very nice. Sweet impression without being sweet. Bitter without feeling like I got robbed by a prison gang. Bitterness lingers just long enough and then is gone, like a polite house guest.
Overall it's a very nice beer. Not by means the best IPA out there, but a very nice and easy drinking beer. You can have a drink and immediately have another drink. It's not like drinking some sour flanders where you're like "WTF just happened to my mouth." Very approachable. Very nicely done.
Anyway, I emailed the brewery. They're pretty slow in getting back to me. I told them flat out I wanted to clone their beer. They just gave me a recipe.
So first let's talk about this beer.
http://www.boulevard.com/BoulevardBeers/single-wide-i-p-a
YouTube interview with the head brewer.
The video is a bit laughable. He goes, "well it's 57 IBUs and 5.7% abv so it's a sessionable IPA." Compared to what? Malt liquor? It's an easy drinking beer for sure but way to easy to pound a sixer before you even have to pee the first time.
So the breakdown for people too damn lazy to click a link. This is straight from Boulevard.
Color (EBC) 16.2
Bitterness (IBUs) 57
Original Gravity (Plato) 13.7 [~1.054-55]
Terminal Gravity (Plato) 3 [~1.012]
Alcohol (ABV) 5.7%
CO2 - Bottles 2.6 vol. (5.1 g/L)
Here's direct from the email sent to me by Boulevard.
---
77% pale malt
17% munich malt
2.5% cara 15L
2% wheat malt
1.5% amber
23 IBU from bittering
Bravo, Cascade and Centennial as aroma for 30 IBU
Dry hop centennial, simcoe and citra [presumable for addition 4 IBU]
13.2 Plato start
English ale yeast
---
You'll notice the discrepancy between the website IBU and starting gravity. The website also says they use Palisade and CTZ hops. Could be just for bittering. I don't know.
The English Ale yeast thing threw me off. You usually don't see people using English yeast for IPAs for a variety of reasons (their reasons not mine), the prinicipal being that the strains are supposedly not "hop forward" or that their flocculation "strips the hop character." It's tough in a beer like this. They don't discuss the yeast strain or characteristics in any correspondence I am aware of, and I didn't ask because frankly yeast will behave radically differently in a massive fermenter vs the ghetto azz lowes buckets I use for a 4 gallon batch.
It's tough to seperate the yeast character from the hop. But if you approach it with that "it smells English" thought in your mind, you can get kind of a scottish or english ester thing going on.
Color is a slightly hazy golden / amber. It was from the bottle and some of the bottle conditioning yeast trickled into the beer. Smell is quite fruity, heavy heavy citrus and grapefruit. I don't get much floral from it. Kind of a sweet malt thing going on. But just a slight caramel thing.
Taste is very nice. Sweet impression without being sweet. Bitter without feeling like I got robbed by a prison gang. Bitterness lingers just long enough and then is gone, like a polite house guest.
Overall it's a very nice beer. Not by means the best IPA out there, but a very nice and easy drinking beer. You can have a drink and immediately have another drink. It's not like drinking some sour flanders where you're like "WTF just happened to my mouth." Very approachable. Very nicely done.
