Aging IIPA - THEN dryhop?

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pkrath84

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I know I'm probably going to beer-hell for bringing this up to the hop heads but let's see how it goes:

Has anyone experimented with this? I'm wondering because I'm working on a coffee IIPA and I'm debating if a fresh IPA is the way to go...

My thinking is that aging the IIPA will cut the astringent flavors and greenness of the fresh beer (which I think the high hops usually mask). Of course dry hopping early on, the hop aroma would fade but that's where the dry hop comes in POST-aging.

My thought is to cut the astringent and burnt flavors that comes with the typical coffee beer. So age, maybe an additional few weeks and THEN blast the beer with the hops for 5 days or so?

What's the regular turn around on an IIPA anyway?

Here's a link to my recipe and thread in my coffee beer experiment:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/help-formulating-coffee-ipa-401858/
 
If you're fermenting your beer properly and designing good beer from the start, it won't taste "green" after the beer is done fermenting and drops bright. Hops can mask some off flavors, but a good IPA or IIPA is ready to drink a day or two after it hits FG. Made correctly, 95% of beers are better fresh.

During the aging period you propose, you'll lose a lot of the impact from your late kettle additions.

Since you say the point of this technique would be to reduce the bitter/astringent quality of coffee beers, here's the best way to do that:
Cold-steep coffee overnight in your fridge (make it very strong, within reason) and then add that to your fermented beer. Cold-steeped coffee is basically devoid of the acid/bitterness/astringency of coffee made with hot water and is great for beer. You can dry hop as soon as the beer drops bright. Best of both worlds!
 
Nice. Thanks for the input.

Yeah, I was already going to go the cold brewed route. I agree with you that it's going to be the best way to get it done without any off putting flavors.

So far the beer seems tasty. I guess I just need to resist rushing the process and getting ahead of myself. The only way I'll know is by taking it to the end.

Cheers for the feedback!

daksin said:
If you're fermenting your beer properly and designing good beer from the start, it won't taste "green" after the beer is done fermenting and drops bright. Hops can mask some off flavors, but a good IPA or IIPA is ready to drink a day or two after it hits FG. Made correctly, 95% of beers are better fresh.

During the aging period you propose, you'll lose a lot of the impact from your late kettle additions.

Since you say the point of this technique would be to reduce the bitter/astringent quality of coffee beers, here's the best way to do that:
Cold-steep coffee overnight in your fridge (make it very strong, within reason) and then add that to your fermented beer. Cold-steeped coffee is basically devoid of the acid/bitterness/astringency of coffee made with hot water and is great for beer. You can dry hop as soon as the beer drops bright. Best of both worlds!
Click to expand...
 
Cold press the coffee and add it at bottling. Pull a sample before bottling and try to figure out a ratio of how much to add for the flavor you are going for.
 
I ended this experiment yesterday morning. I ended up with about 4oz of cold brewed coffee at 100% strength. I stepped it up from 2oz + 1 + 1.

The coffee was french roast from sprouts coarse ground. I just brewed a batch for the week and took what I needed. I cold steeped my coffee for about 14 hours before filtering.

The end result was a smooth finishing Coffee IIPA. I'm looking forward to the flavors melding together and carbing up over the next few weeks.
 

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