monkeymath
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 18, 2019
- Messages
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Hey guys,
I have brewed some 30-40 batches by now, but I don't have much experience when it comes to hoppy beers or, well, hops per se. Now, two of my friends are getting married and I wanted to brew a beer for them to celebrate this special occasion. Problem is: they love their fruity Pale Ales and IPAs. I'd love to get some help with this and hear your thoughts, especially on the hop schedule.
The main reason I don't brew a lot of those is that I'm not a huge fan of the style: most (I)PAs in Germany have a great smell of tropical fruit - for 30-45 seconds after pouring - but taste taste like a grapefruit-smoothie - pulp, pith and all - mixed with caramel syrup. I find the combination of malty caramel-like sweetness and excessive bitterness rather offputting. So this is what I definitely want to avoid in the beer.
Now, a friend of mine brews a lot of Pale Ales and I actually do like those, because they are much lighter on the malt and very well-rounded, with a noticeable, but balanced bitterness. His base recipe looks like this:
OG: 1.053, Bitterness: 37 IBU
60% Pale Ale Malt
20% Munich Malt
13% Wheat Malt
7% CaraPils
Single infusion at 67C (152 F), First Wort Hopping to adjust for bitterness, then some at 25" and 5", ferment at 17C (62 F) with US-05, moderate dryhop with roughly 2.5 g/l.
To me, the malt character is quite perfect, without any intense caramel-malt flavours, just a nice golden, juicy beer.
Thing is, I like my yeasts a bit more expressive and my beers are little fuller and rounder, so I have decided to ditch the old US-05 in favor of Wyeast 1272 (which I have never used before). I'm unsure whether that means I should cut back on the Munich Malt and/or the CaraPils. I also have some Honey Malt and Golden Naked Oats, but I'd rather put these aside as "experimental" for next time (unfortunately, my schedule does not allow any test runs). In my case, "Pale Ale Malt" means Crisp Maris Otter, which is very flavourful, so maybe I'll cut it with some Pilsner Malt. Very keen on your input here, especially if you have some experience with Wyeast 1272. (Yes, I know, I probably should have sticked with plain old US-05)
I terms of hops, I want to put the emphasis on tropical fruit, but I want to balance it out with some spiciness underneath to keep it from being too one-dimensional. I like Citra and think it gives a great baseline of tropical fruit. On its own, it does have a bit of a pungent character and quite some pine/resin as well, so I decided to pair it with Amarillo (which I have never used before), since I think it has a mellower, fruit-forward character. To get the spiciness, I picked up some Columbus hops (which I have, surprise!, also never used before). At this stage, the hops are somewhat fixed (I do have a bag of Simcoe lying around, but I think it also identifies with the pungent spectrum).
In terms of hop schedule, I'm thinking to use Columbus mostly for the boil, Amarillo mostly for dryhopping, and Citra for both. Does that make sense? Somewhat vaguely something along these lines:
- Bittering with Columbus (60 min)
- a 20 min flavour addition with Columbus
- a 5 min addition with Columbus and possibly Citra as well
- at flameout, cool to roughly 80C, then hit it with a decent amount of Citra and Amarillo
- dryhop with Citra and Amarillo
I know that any flavour/aroma additions before flame out are rather controversial, but still a lot of people seem to do them. What do you guys think? Also, I'm kind of at a loss when it comes to the ratios between these hops (dry hop 1:1 Citra:Amarillo?) and the absolute quantities (how much hopstand, how much dryhop, etc.) I'd be really happy to get some insights from you hopheads
Thank you in advance for reading and, hopefully, contributing!
Cheers from Munich,
Daniel
I have brewed some 30-40 batches by now, but I don't have much experience when it comes to hoppy beers or, well, hops per se. Now, two of my friends are getting married and I wanted to brew a beer for them to celebrate this special occasion. Problem is: they love their fruity Pale Ales and IPAs. I'd love to get some help with this and hear your thoughts, especially on the hop schedule.
The main reason I don't brew a lot of those is that I'm not a huge fan of the style: most (I)PAs in Germany have a great smell of tropical fruit - for 30-45 seconds after pouring - but taste taste like a grapefruit-smoothie - pulp, pith and all - mixed with caramel syrup. I find the combination of malty caramel-like sweetness and excessive bitterness rather offputting. So this is what I definitely want to avoid in the beer.
Now, a friend of mine brews a lot of Pale Ales and I actually do like those, because they are much lighter on the malt and very well-rounded, with a noticeable, but balanced bitterness. His base recipe looks like this:
OG: 1.053, Bitterness: 37 IBU
60% Pale Ale Malt
20% Munich Malt
13% Wheat Malt
7% CaraPils
Single infusion at 67C (152 F), First Wort Hopping to adjust for bitterness, then some at 25" and 5", ferment at 17C (62 F) with US-05, moderate dryhop with roughly 2.5 g/l.
To me, the malt character is quite perfect, without any intense caramel-malt flavours, just a nice golden, juicy beer.
Thing is, I like my yeasts a bit more expressive and my beers are little fuller and rounder, so I have decided to ditch the old US-05 in favor of Wyeast 1272 (which I have never used before). I'm unsure whether that means I should cut back on the Munich Malt and/or the CaraPils. I also have some Honey Malt and Golden Naked Oats, but I'd rather put these aside as "experimental" for next time (unfortunately, my schedule does not allow any test runs). In my case, "Pale Ale Malt" means Crisp Maris Otter, which is very flavourful, so maybe I'll cut it with some Pilsner Malt. Very keen on your input here, especially if you have some experience with Wyeast 1272. (Yes, I know, I probably should have sticked with plain old US-05)
I terms of hops, I want to put the emphasis on tropical fruit, but I want to balance it out with some spiciness underneath to keep it from being too one-dimensional. I like Citra and think it gives a great baseline of tropical fruit. On its own, it does have a bit of a pungent character and quite some pine/resin as well, so I decided to pair it with Amarillo (which I have never used before), since I think it has a mellower, fruit-forward character. To get the spiciness, I picked up some Columbus hops (which I have, surprise!, also never used before). At this stage, the hops are somewhat fixed (I do have a bag of Simcoe lying around, but I think it also identifies with the pungent spectrum).
In terms of hop schedule, I'm thinking to use Columbus mostly for the boil, Amarillo mostly for dryhopping, and Citra for both. Does that make sense? Somewhat vaguely something along these lines:
- Bittering with Columbus (60 min)
- a 20 min flavour addition with Columbus
- a 5 min addition with Columbus and possibly Citra as well
- at flameout, cool to roughly 80C, then hit it with a decent amount of Citra and Amarillo
- dryhop with Citra and Amarillo
I know that any flavour/aroma additions before flame out are rather controversial, but still a lot of people seem to do them. What do you guys think? Also, I'm kind of at a loss when it comes to the ratios between these hops (dry hop 1:1 Citra:Amarillo?) and the absolute quantities (how much hopstand, how much dryhop, etc.) I'd be really happy to get some insights from you hopheads
Thank you in advance for reading and, hopefully, contributing!
Cheers from Munich,
Daniel
