Cascadian Dark Ale (CDA) Recipe or Kit

I was recently in Portland for business and had some beers at Baily's Taproom downtown. They had Widmer's W'10 Pitch Black IPA on tap and it was spectacular. I did some research on black IPA's, which is a misnomer to have a "pale" black ale, and found this to be an emerging style generally under Cascadian Dark Ale, or CDA (seems CDA is preferred to India Dark Ale or India Black Ale since the appreviation CDA doesn't confuse with IPA like IDA or IBA would).

From their website, Widmer's beer has debittered black malt to get the black color without a robust flavor. This allows the IPA hoppiness to continue to dominate. Kind of trick on the palette, if you will.

I really want to brew this, but I don't think I have the setup for an all grain brew since I'm working from my kitchen with a 5 gallon pot. Do you think I could get an IPA kit or recipe and add the debittered black malt to get close? I would appreciate any suggestions you may have.

Thanks!

 

hmmm, now that i've posted, i see some similar threads i didn't find in my initial search. i'll give them a look.

 

absolutely that would work. I add adjuncts to recipe kits all the time. probably add 1/2 pound to your steeping grains ought to turn it black. Also look into "de-husked" carafa malts. They still have roasty flavors, but are not as harsh as ordinary black malts.

 

Here is a kit from AHS.
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?cPath=178_452_42_161&products_id=12426

 

thanks! i might give this one a try in the mini-mash version. i wish they told you which hops they included in the kit?!

 

There's a northern brewer black ipa kit as well:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/black-ipa-extract-kit-1.html

I've made several CDAs. My advice is to get either carafa special III or whatever de-bittered black malt you can find. add just a bit of roasted barley (maybe .25 lbs in a steep for an extract brew), some crystal 120, some chocolate malt... and add this to a more typical IPA brew.

using aggressive hops like centennial, columbus, simcoe, and amarillo have given me fantastic results.

 

choices. do you know what kind of hops they use in the northern brewer kit, alex? i'm not sure how much roasty/coffee flavor i want, as it seems the pitch black IPA from Widmer I tried in Portland was not very roasty. but i seem to trust the pacific northwest a little more on the style generally, so am leaning northern brewer.

i have some hops growing and depending how strong they turn out to be, i might try again this fall with more of my own recipe. in that case, i think i will go with the debittered malts and carafel or something with less roast flavor. unfortunately for my hopes, in this region, they tend to be less strong. i have some nugget growing that is supposed to do well, but its just the first season.

 

I've never had the exact black IPA you're talking about, but Stone's recipe is base malt with 5.5% Carafa III (debittered black) and 5% 60L. Chinook bittering, Simcoe/Amarillo to finish and dry hop.

Stone's did this for their 11th anniversary ale and now they still make it -- it's called Sublimely Self Righteous. Theirs, according to their website, is 8.7% ABV and 90 IBU's, so they must start out around 1.08.

I brew mine starting at 1.072. IMHO this makes it very drinkable (maybe too drinkable). The hop character in this beer changes so fast I think it's best drunk within 2-3 months.

 

according to the inventory list:


1 oz Summit (60 min)
1 oz Simcoe (15 min)
1 oz Centennial (10 min)
1 oz Cascade (5 min)
1 oz Amarillo (0 min)
1 oz Ahtanum (dry hop) discard.

I'm a little put off by northernbrewer's use of dark liquid malt extract. I always use light extract.

 

Here's my recipe for CDA. It turned out GREAT. More hoppy than W'10, and similar to Hopworks Succession. I'm brewing a modified imperial version this weekend.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/excellent-so-far-cda-recipe-165841/

 

W'10 is pretty good, but doesn't hold a candle to some of the small brewpub versions there are out there. Deschutes makes a really nice one that is occasionally on tap at their public house in Bend. The best one by far I have ever tried is made by a small brewpub in Baker City. Absolutely fabulous experience.

I made a clone, but it needs some minor adjustments before I post in the recipe section.

 

You're talking about Barley Brown's Turmoil. My favorite as well. SO freaking good.

 

Yep. Great beer. Have you tried the Chaos (double version)? Another amazing beer, but really big. I believe about 11%.

 

Brew a 2.5 gallon batch! It's easy in the kitchen.

 

2.5 gallon, hmm. can i half the all grain recipe and still be ok, i mean, i was afraid that it was not linear?

 

i was just at deschutes, but they didn't have one at that time

 

Too bad you missed it, I was there about 2 weeks ago and had one. Of course it's tough to go wrong at Deschutes.

You should be able to scale the recipe in half and be very close on a 2.5 gallon batch.