IPL Recipe - Advice?

[TheGerman]

Hi,

I am looking to do an IPL recipe but with the focus on having a nice caramel malt background and a orangey-citrus hop character.
To get the nice caramel malt background I've considered the following malt bill:

85% Pilsner Malt
7.5% CaraHell (~10L Crystal)
7.5% CaraDark (~50L Crystal)
(to get a final color of about 15SRM)

I have also considered mixing in a little Melanoidin, or Munich/Vienna Malt to compliment the flavor and am open to suggestions in that direction.

For the hops, I thought of just a tame noble bitter hop (either Hercules or Magnum) and then late hop additions (and dry hopping) with Ahtanum and Mandarina hops.

I'm looking at hopefully landing somewhere in the 35-40 IBU range and 6.5% ABV.

I am trying to keep this beer within the purity law and do not want to get the orange flavor out of orange peel or any other ingredients.

Any help or suggestions on the malt bill or hops being used to achieve a nice caramel-orange beer profile?

Thanks! Cheers!

 

[Weezy]

At 15 SRM and all that crystal, and 40 IBU, this is a lagered American Amber and wouldn't really be considered an IPL if you poured one for someone. Not that it won't be tasty!

I've never used caradark so I can't picture the flavor profile of the malts. I'd be concerned about loosing the contribution of the hops behind the malts. I'd like to recommend limiting the specialties to 10% total, and maybe cut the pils with some plain 2row?

I like the hop combo.

Let us know how it goes.