Are recipe kits succumbing to hop forward market?

[mrclean]

So, the IPA craze is pretty rampant and prolific it seems to the "craft beer drinker". Does this now influence recipe kits from homebrew stores??

This is my second kit where the hops have been WAY overdone for the IBU beer style. I have been cutting my boil time but this is a bit ridiculous.

For example, I just got an imperial stout recipe where the IBUs would be 117...117???!

Anyone else notice this?

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

I have noticed this as well. But I wouldnt let it bother you. I would just take the hops you get in the kit and cut the addition amounts to fit your tastes.

So if the kit tells you to throw in 1oz at 60mins of such and such hop at such and such alpha acid, throw in .75oz instead. If you dont have a scale that can measure to that granular level, I would take a moment to seriously consider purchasing one. There's a lot of free online recipe calculators that would allow you to modify the recipe from the baseline kit instructions to more fit your tastes. I wouldn't cut your boil times, I would go first to modifying the amount of hops you use for each scheduled addition.

Theres a lot of kits out there for maltier styles, I personally consider a RIS a hoppy style, most wouldn't, but most commercial examples I've tasted the hops definitely overpowered the malts. I would dig into trying to buy kits for maltier styles.

You could also start formulating your own recipes, or the recipe database here on HBT will give you a lot of good directions to what specialty grains/base malts/extracts/hop schdules/yeasts to use for what you want to achieve.

 

[poptarts]

117 is pretty much in style for a RIS, And unless your doing a nice rolling boil at sea level I doubt its even that high.

 

[Hammy71]

A bitter Imperial Stout? Who woulda thunk it. Just kidding, but you first mistake is using kits. Do some research and make your own recipes. If you like less bitterness, you may even save some cash.

 

[mrclean]

50-90 IBU was what I gathered from searching for IS IBU. Curious where you found 117IBU as a IS?

Regardless, I do like maltier beers. Old Rasputin is a pretty good gold standard for an Imperial.

I know the answer is to make own recipes and I have when doing AG. Right now I am in a bit of a time crunch(in life not necessarily to get this done )and assumed most extract recipe kits were balanced, guess not. Good to hear others with similar experience.

 

[Brettomomyces]

Northern Brewer has a ton of kits, and you can open up the recipes and look at the instructions for all of them online, which could help to sort out the ones you're not interested in. They have a lot of "old school" recipes before the IPA craze took off as well.

 

[kh54s10]

If you are getting your kits at your LHBS, they are going to stock more of the ones that sell the most. If IPA's sell more you will see a lot of IPA's on the shelf.

I agree with Brettomomyces. I use Northern Brewer's website to look at the recipes. I started with their kits, then to save money I bought the ingredients separately but still brewed to the recipe. Then I started buying in bulk and using the recipes for inspiration in formulating my own.

Using Beersmith Software, I now sometimes go from scratch and other times take a proven recipe and make subtle changes, or just make substitutions to use ingredients I have on hand (as close as possible to the recipe).

 

[Broham1]

The IPA craze?! What is this, 2005?

 

[ArkotRamathorn]

The IPA craze?! What is this, 2005?

Woah, its 2005? Why don't we have hover skateboards yet?

 

[mrclean]

The IPA craze?! What is this, 2005?

Ehh early 2000s was more of the shocktop,blue moon wheat beer craze.

 

[Blueflint]

I have noticed the same thing, a big swing towards hop forward beer kits and the same in the tasting rooms. Things come and go. Everyone still has their tried and true kits available. If you like kit but not that hoppy...reformulate it with either Beersmith or Brewtoad. But yes, there is a trend.

hahahaha... remember the old Keystone tv ads from the ...what... 1990's ... "Bitter Beer Face"?

honestly...some of the best highly hopped beers I have tried (local tasting room) were mostly made with late hop additions, flame out and dry hopped, tons of hop flavor without being overly bitter, it just isn't my thing to suck on a hop.

 

[Broham1]

Ehh early 2000s was more of the shocktop,blue moon wheat beer craze.

Guess we had a different experience here in the PNW. We all but ended our "Race to the Hop" years ago.

 

[Broham1]

Woah, its 2005? Why don't we have hover skateboards yet?

Seriously! I was told we wouldn't need roads!

 

[Vodomagoo]

I help my friend out at his store a good bit. I would say it is extremely varied. He does not stock a kit but has stock recipes for each style and we build off of that. When we had kits too many customers wanted something different then the standard ipa kit and Soooo many new brewer's want something similar to a sierra Nevada pale ale as there top end of ibu tolerance.

We make huge ipa's personally but don't give a new brewer or many at all our recipes because most customers don't want that. If we had to stock a standard kit I feel people would feel the hop craze for sure in not such a great way. I mean the goal is to sell more product so I am sure if the big guys are pushing big hop profile kits then that is what the market is calling for.