hoppy red ale recipe, suggestions?

Hi everyone, just looking for some advice. Ever since I tried the Big Red Coq from Brewery Vivant, I wanted to try my hand at a hoppy red ale. I love ipa's, thats sort of what im going for. I thought I would try a variation of this recipe - http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2011/04/india-red-ale-recipe.html?m=1

I went to my local brew store and ended up getting 4 oz of Cluster hops and 5 oz of Warrior. I also picked up a vial of american ale yeast (wlp060). I didnt get the grain yet. Im not yet set up for all grain by the way. Just wondering if you guys have any suggestions on the boil timing, ive never tried these hops. Any help is appreciated, thanks.

i've only used cluster for bittering in a pumpkin ale, so i can't comment on the qualities it might have. my instinct is that the standard here would be several of amarillo, cascade, columbus, and other american hops with a bit more size. warrior is more of a clean bittering hop.

in any event, 9oz is an absurd quantity for a 5gal batch. if your goal is a very flavorful, hoppy beer, i would choose some hops that would work more toward that. see the above and probably save warrior for a beer that needs a hefty bittering charge - imperial IPA, BW, RIS. you could use an ounce of warrior here, but you'll want a ton of late hops, and you'd be better off using some that target the hop flavors you'd like to get out of the beer.

Yeah - I agree on the hops - I can't imagine using 9 ounces of those two hops in an amber/red ale.

I brew quite a few hoppy amber ales.

I like something like Chinook, Columbus or Magnum for bittering.... Maybe even Centennial.

Then, mixing hops like cascade, centennial, simcoe, amarillo, citra in additions over the last 15 minutes, plus maybe a dry hop.

So, perhaps something like -
60 min. 1 ounce of Columbus
20 min. 1 ounce of Centennial
15 min. 1 ounce Cascade
10 min. 1 ounce Simcoe
0 min. 1 ounce each of Cascade and Simcoe
Dry hop ounce of amarillo and half ounce each of cascade/simcoe or an ounce of one of them.

There are lots of ways of going about it, but you basically have a half pound of bittering hops, and you probably want much more hop flavor and aroma in an amber ale.

May i suggest some thing from brewing classic styles. cluster and warrior are both good bittering hops and i think would be a good sub for horizon. if your doing extract sub the 2 row with 8.75 lb lme and the munich with .7 lb munich lme.

12 lbs Pale Malt (2-Row) Canadian Malting Co (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 79.5 %
1 lbs Caramel Malt - 40L (Cargill) (40.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.6 %
1 lbs Munich (Cargill) (9.5 SRM) Grain 3 6.6 %
8.0 oz Caramel Malt - 120L (Briess) (120.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.3 %
8.0 oz Victory Malt (25.0 SRM) Grain 5 3.3 %
3 oz Chocolate Malt Pale (Thomas Fawcett) (250.0 SRM) Grain 6 0.6 %
1.00 oz Horizon [12.00 %] - First Wort 60.0 min Hop 7 34.5 IBUs
1.10 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 8 -
1.00 oz Cascade pellet [6.20 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 9 5.9 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial pellet [11.40 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 10 10.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade pellet [6.20 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial pellet [11.40 %] - Aroma Steep 0.0 min Hop 12 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml]

Do you have "How to Brew" by John Palmer?
He has a really good red ale recipe. If you google it you'll find it.
It has centennial, willamette, and mt hood.

Wow, thanks so much for all the great advice! I guess now that I look at my previous recipes, 9 oz is a lot. However my favorite beer I've ever made had 7 oz of falconers hops (I think that's what it's called), so it doesn't seem too outrageous. But I'm guessing those are more well rounded and used for both aroma and bittering.. Regarding the Cluster and Warrior hops, I couldn't find a couple kinds that I wanted and I was feeling a little adventurous.. I guess I should probably know what they are before buying them.

From what I'm getting from you guys, these are both used more for bittering, and yeah, what I'm going for is the aroma and flavor of an IPA, and I chose an amber/red type beer because I also like to have some body to it. If the consensus is not to use either of them in my IPA, I'll use them in another beer. Should I use any of them in my IPA? Is it bad or wasteful to dry hop these or use them at the end of the boil? I just don't know what I'm going to do with the hops. Thank you for the recipe Glynn, but that still only uses up on ounce of the hops I have.. I wonder if there's some way to use them up between two 5 gal batches..

Thanks for the help everyone.

you can use them in late addition hops stands, whirlpool and dry hopping. they are high alpha hops and are generally used as bittering hops because of the clean character but i have had many a brew that used warrior as a late addition. I personally have never used cluster so dont know what its profile is like.

ddrrseio said:

in any event, 9oz is an absurd quantity for a 5gal batch.

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Oh I totally disagree. I frequently use this much in ambers, stouts, as well as IPAs of course. If you have 'em use 'em.

Steve da sleeve

So far, in 5 years of hopped out brewing I haven't found a single hop variety I haven't liked BTW, and as I run out I'll often brew my hoppy beers substituting whatever I have. Tastes different but so far I truly have not been disappointed! This includes cluster, northern brewer, warrior, tetnang, saaz, liberty etc. that being said my preference is high alpha west coast hops for hop bursting and these are usually what I buy in bulk.

My point is try it! I am 100% sure it will be a decent beer and you might find, as I have periodically, the hop combination in non traditional amounts creates a wonderfully unique beer!

Steve da sleeve

Thanks for the input steve

I've found Caramunich to give a really intense Red color when paired with a small amount of American 40L and a touch of Roasted Barley.

tinytowers said:

I've found Caramunich to give a really intense Red color when paired with a small amount of American 40L and a touch of Roasted Barley.

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Thats what I want. I want a really red brew. I thought warrior hops would be fun to use with a red ale and I could name it something interesting.. also I just love the deep red color.

True Brew Red Ale kit. It's PM, but it's really good beer. I'm primarily an AG brewer, but I found this one earlier this year. It's easy, cheap, and tastes really good.

Probably not what you were looking for, but... it is a hoppy red ale.

Maybe pair caramunich with carastan and a touch of 120. I've noticed Decheutes uses Carastan in their Red Chair NWPA.