Home Brew Problems - Help Please

[LTownLiquorPig]

So I'm calling this Daft Bastard IPA, because that about sums it up. Went to the LHBS to buy the ingredients for an Irish Red. They didn't have a couple of ingredients, so I figured screw it, I'll make an IPA. I bought 3.75#s 2-row, a half pound of crystal 60 and a half pound of Munich, as well as an ounce of Nugget and 2 ounces of Cascade for a 2.5 gallon batch. Got home and started punching in the fermentables to Brewer's Friend and realized I was light, so I got a pound of DME from a local drug store to get my gravity up.

So brew day comes, and I realize I have no hopping plan..... So I came up with one on the fly. Just got around to punching it into Brewer's Friend now, and it comes in at stupid IBU of 117. I don't even know what that is. Highest I've ever had past my lips is in the upper 70's, not much access to really hoppy beers locally.

My question: is 117 IBU in a 1.066 OG beer going to be drinkable?

 

[MustBeZ]

It depends on how much you like bitter beers. I'm drinking my Armstrong ipa right now that's at 132.5 ibus and its delicious. If you don't like it at that bitterness just send it to, I'll properly dispose of it for you.

 

[LTownLiquorPig]

Ha! Guess I'll find out in a month or so.

 

[Cyclman]

It can't really be 117 ibus, the calculators don't take into effect the dramatic decrease in hop utilization at very high IBUs.

It will definitely be bitter, if too much so, let it age and it'll slowly de-bitter.

 

[TahoeRy]

Just wait on it and see what you came up with. I did exactly the same thing and brewed an IPA with leftovers and came up with a crazy hop plan on the fly without even running the numbers. After I did the math in Beersmith, I came up with 151 IBU's with over 70% of that in just bitterness! It Was Delicious! I mean, sweet, bitter, balanced, tasty and simply put - perfect for an imperial bitter (which is not an IPA but I'll take it). I really liked it and now I have a problem of wanting to re-brew the same exact beer but have a big problem with this. Do I change the recipe to lower the IBU's down to about 90 -100 or do I just keep it the same. I really hope you run into the same problem and you find yourself with a really unique and great beer. Just treat it as business as usual until you get a chance to try it. You might just be surprised.

 

[LTownLiquorPig]

That's the biggest reason I ran the numbers, the "holy crap what if this is amazing factor". Took awful notes though (first brew outdoors with a burner) so I wanted some info in case I wanted to re-create....