Denny's Rye IPA/choosing hops

[Enoch52]

I'm a fan of hoppy beers and IPA's in particular, but I'm new to brewing and even newer to designing/modifying recipes. I'd like to take a stab at Denny's Rye IPA, however.

Any thoughts on why the recipe calls for Mt. Hood and Columbus? I've read that it complements the spicy rye very well, but it's not clear to me why. It's certainly not what I would have picked. Why are these hops a better combo than, say, a spicy hop?

 

[Rerun]

Wow, I just printed out this recipe from Beersmith yesterday. I have been wanting to brew a rye beer for a while now, and it looks like I will be brewing this on Sunday (10-28). To answer your question, being an uneducated guess, is if you wanted to compliment a spicy malt you wouldn't want to add more spice. Think about a plate of hot wings. You wouldn't want to compliment them with a bottle of hot sauce. You would want some ranch to mellow the spice but still get the "kick". Having said that, the Beersmith description of Columbus says "pungent, spicy" so I could be wrong

 

[inhousebrew]

I don't know, but I'd take Denny's word for it and everyone else who has brewed this and loved it including myself. This was a great beer and I've been meaning to go back to it at some point but all my own recipes keep getting in the way.

 

[thirstyutahn]

Not having brewed Denny's rye but having brewed a rye pale ale with all Columbus I can tell you it works. Columbus is very resinous and it works very well together with the spice of the rye. Its like pb&j they are different tastes completely but they work so well together .

Complementary tastes are what brewing is all about for me. Some stuff tastes awesome seperately but terrible mixed and others go hand in hand.

Denny rye ipa happens to be on my.list of must brews...along with 1,120 other beers haha. Too many beers not enough time.

 

[Enoch52]

Yeah, I'm starting with the assumption that they *do* work well together--I've heard nothing but raves about Denny's and this combo in particular, so I figure it must work. I'm currently an extract brewer (two whole batches!), so I can't do the recipe as written, but I'm playing around with a modified recipe using Northern Brewer's rye malt extract. It looks like it follows Denny's recipe relatively well, and with some specialty grain additions I'm hoping I can get something similar.