Feedback on Ginger IPA

I'd like to make a winter ale that is a little lighter and lower alcohol than many christmas ales and similar spiced beers. My thought was to take an IPA recipe and add ginger to the batch. I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, and if you've made something like this before, I'd appreciate the feedback.

Based on Jamil's "Hoppiness is an IPA" in Brewing Classic Styles

7# Light LME
1# Pils malt (leftover from a previous batch)
1# Crystal 15
.25# Crystal 40

1 oz Horizon (60 min)
1 oz Centennial (30 min)
6 oz ginger (30 min)
2 oz ginger (10 min)
2 oz ginger (0 min)

I just did a green tea ipa with 3 ounces of ginger added with 2 minutes left to the boil. When the beer was fresh the ginger flavor and smell was huge kind of dominated the beer, at least to me. With that much ginger you should get a huge ginger aroma and flavor. The ginger in mine died down quite a bit after a month or so.

More hops! I have done several ginger oriented IPA recipes, and have found best results from ginger additions at 10minutes and under. A 30 minute addition becomes astringent and almost metallic, in my experience. I also frequently "dry hop" my fermenters with ginger cubes during primary fermentation. Just do a quick blanch of your root to ensure it is sanitary, then dunk it in an ice bath to keep it tasting fresh.
Hope it turns out well!

Roger on the hops.

In regards to the ginger, I've now heard both pros and cons to cooking the ginger. StokedBrew says that ginger cooked for 30 minutes becomes astringent, and I've heard that late additions have a burning flavor and need to be used sparingly. Does that mean there's a special 20 minute window to get the flavor right?

I'm brewing tomorrow, so I'll check back again then for any other comments. If nothing else, I'll keep the ginger quantity on the small side and add more to the fermenter if it's too weak.

Made an Orange Ginger IPA using the recipe below about 6 months ago. Beer ended up coming out really well but be aware that time is this beers friend. After 2 months in the bottle is was solid but after 4-5 months it was amazing. Might be a bit to late for winter but worth brewing and putting away for the spring!

Hopville . "Orange & Ginger Pale Ale" American IPA Recipe

Are we talking about fresh ginger or dried ginger? If you're using dried ginger your recipe would be undrinkable with that much.

Always use fresh ginger. Peeled and cubed, or French cut for the fermenters (easier to retrieve post fermentation).

Here's an update on the recipe:
I decided to use 6 oz at 20 minutes and 2 oz at 0 minutes. After a week of fermentation, it had a nice ginger aroma that didn't overpower the hop aromas. However, there wasn't much ginger flavor in the sample I took so I added 1 oz that was cooked in a little boiling water.

So far, this seems like a pretty subtle delivery of ginger flavor, which is what I wanted. I'm planning to bottle in the next day or two.

I tried this a couple weeks after bottling and it has a subtle ginger aroma and a very subtle burn like ginger ale. It's drinkable and refreshing. Ginger seems to work well with the grapefruit quality of an IPA. This is what I wanted to achieve for this batch, but I would probably add more ginger next time and also consider pairing it with another adjunct or different yeast for more complexity.

Here was the final recipe:
7# Light LME
1# Pils malt (leftover from a previous batch)
1# Crystal 10
.25# Crystal 60

1 oz Cascade (60 min)
.5 oz Centennial (20 min)
1 oz Amarillo (20 min)
1 oz Citra (0 min)

6 oz ginger (20 min)
2 oz ginger (0 min)
1 oz ginger (added after 1 week)

I always find that grating ginger works best (better than cubing), and a few ounces with about 10mins left is nice, but adding it to the secondary gives is a really nice aroma and a little kick.

Hello, I would like to get an all grain recipe if that is possible. If so, I will brew it tomorrow.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers

Lupauru said:

Hello, I would like to get an all grain recipe if that is possible. If so, I will brew it tomorrow.
Thanks in advance!
Cheers

Click to expand...

Just substitute 10lbs of 2-row for the 7lbs of LME.

Thanks for digging up this old post. Was nice to look back on what I did a few years ago. Makes me want to give it another shot too!

My pleasure! Yesterday I did a scaled down 10 liter recipe. Let's see how it turns out!