Advice on developing clone of Mast Landing "Windbreaker" NEIPA?

[faithie999]

I have become a fan of Windbreaker from Mast Landing (Westbrook and Freeport Maine). it is an NEIPA, ABV 6.3%. I sent an email to the brewery asking for advice on their recipe. The reply was rather cryptic, as I thought it might be.

>> I'm happy to share some details. Windbreaker hops are citra, citra cryo and Idaho 7. The malt bill has 2-row pale ale, flaked oats and flaked barley. We ferment it with omega british V ale yeast.<<

I followed up with a question about IBU, and here is the response:

>>We don't measure IBUs for our beer because we find that it's not a consistent measure for flavor and actual bitterness. That being said, I can tell you that we add an almost negligible amount of bittering hops to the boil (60 min) and more citra and idaho 7 to the whirlpool.<<

So, based on that information, and reference to the BJCP guideline on bitterness, here is my first pass at a recipe for a nominal 5-gallon batch:

10# pale ale malt
1# flaked barley
1# flaked oats
.3 oz Citra, 60 min boil
.75 oz Citra, whirlpool
.75 oz Idaho 7, whirlpool
1 oz each Citra and Idaho 7, dry hop 7 days
1 oz each Citra and Idaho 7, dry hop 3 days
Omega British Ale V yeast, boosted with a 1L starter

Beersmith calculates OG as 1064, and IBU as 40.

my somewhat unrefined palate says that this is not a "hoppy" beer, but enough bitterness to balance the malt flavor.

advice is welcome!

thanks

Ken

 

[day_trippr]

[shrug] Seems like the opposite of "cryptic".

Anyway, fwiw, most of my neipas are doubles and come in just under 60 IBU, but I do have one 60 pointer at 45 IBUs...

Cheers!

 

[G_robertus]

I agree, this is quite a lot of information. I'm not familiar with the beer, but I would maybe increase the flaked stuff by 50%. Then again you might be spot on. I'd also increase the total DH to 7-8 ounces (around 10 g/L or ~1.36 Oz/gal if my head math is correct). You can increase your WP to about 4 ounces as well I think. As that might increase your perceived bitterness, you may want to decrease the initial charge too. To me NEIPA is all about spamming hops and I think you're a bit on the low side of things.

 

[Bobby_M]

10# pale ale malt
1# flaked barley
1# flaked oats
.3 oz Citra, 60 min boil
.75 oz Citra, whirlpool
.75 oz Idaho 7, whirlpool
1 oz each Citra and Idaho 7, dry hop 7 days
1 oz each Citra and Idaho 7, dry hop 3 days
Omega British Ale V yeast, boosted with a 1L starter

Beersmith calculates OG as 1064, and IBU as 40.

A bit light on the hops still.

Increase the whirlpool hop amounts to 2 full ounces of each hop, whirlpool at about 185F for 15 minutes.
Switch the Citra in the dry hop to 1oz of Cryo Citra (which is like a total of 2oz in each of the dry hops.
Increase the Idaho7 to 2oz per dry hop.

If you can, I recommend soft crashing to 55F the day before the second dry hop to help avoid hop creep and diacetyl.

 

[poptarts]

I would do a single dry hop and bump that citra charge in the dry hop up to like 6oz + some citra cryo