Brewing a 120min IPA

[anotherbeerplease]

Hey all

I want to brew a super high ABV dogfishhead inspired ale,

I've seen plenty of recipes online detailing exactly how to clone this beer, and they all include ridiculous amounts of dry hopping.

HOWEVER
This is a beer that "ages well" according to dogfish head. And it's a beer I'd like to drink slowly over 2-3+ years. Of course as a beer ages the hop aroma fades. So what exactly is the point of so much dry hopping? It seems to me you are just wasting beer in the fermenter, filling it with hop residue that will go to waste in a year or so, when you could skip the dry hop and enjoy more of this delicious beer!

Any ideas here? Why do they dry hop this so much, then tell us it "ages well"?

 

[thehaze]

I think some of the beers that can age for years, have some sort of addtivives added, which preserve the beer and will feel fairly fresh when opened at a later time. Maybe som dry hopped beers are a subject to such an addition?

I think the heavy dry hopping is needed in a big beer, to balance the ABV and the malt flavours, which would be more present, due to the general use of Crystal malts in the grain bill. ( Crystal helps the beer not feel like a overly bitter, harsh hop water )

But I have never had the 120 minutes IPA, neither fresh or aged.

Maybe the " aged " beer will taste like a reasonably hoppy barleywine, after a while?

 

[anotherbeerplease]

The malt would balance the alcohol IMO... 1.020 is best case scenario for finishing, probably wouldn't get much below that at 16-20%abv. If you want aroma after 2 years just run it through a randall... am I off base here? I just don't see why you would want to pour so many dry hops into a beer that might easily age for 2+ years

 

[ESBrewer]

I don't know anything about the high-everything-IPA styles, but I suspect it's part of the aging character of the beer. Wines that are meant to be aged for years and even decades tend to be harsh and full of everything when young (often lacking in balance). When years go by, some compounds break and react further and the taste gets more balanced. If the beer would be too 'thin' at the time of bottling it would be just watery after couple of years. Hop aroma oils will have some half-life like any compound and the more hops you add, the longer the hop taste will remain in the bottle, balancing maltiness/sweetness and making it possible to age the beer for a long time. Hops also act as preservatives in beer as they prevent microbial (gram-positive bacteria) growth.

 

[anotherbeerplease]

Ok thanks for the input. Anybody here ever actually brewed something like this? I am planning to start with the newly released WLP Valut 066 yeast, good for hazy IPAs, then once that slows throw the WLP 099 super high grav yeast and let that take me to hopefully 18-20ish percent. After that throw it in a keg and slowly enjoy it over a couple years as it ages (I hope)

 

[anotherbeerplease]

Also, since I can't fit 40lbs of grain in my 10 gal mash tun, planning to do 2 mashes back to back, each one producing 3.5gal of 1.1ish grav wort, 7gal boil and at the end of it have 5.9gal into the fermenter. Then through fermentation, slowly add up to 10lbs dextrose to simulate og of 1.2+