Honey Brown Ale mixed with Bitter IPA?

[pinthead]

So my friends got me a beer kit over the holidays and I didn't want it to go to waste and have been thinking of doing this combo of bitter/sweet aka Honey Brown Ale mixed with some nice hoppy hops that come inline with my favorite style of beer IPA.

I was wondering if anyone had experimented in this area and if so what do you recommend for bitter hops during the boil and maybe dry hop to add a good mouthfeel to it?

The HBA calls for Northern Brewers Hops then Honey at the 30 min mark finishing off with small amount of cascade hops at the 5 min mark.

I do have some extra hops over from last brew, some warrior , centennial and mt hood..

any thoughts on what I could add during the boil or during dry hopping?

cheers!

 

[pinthead]

any thoughts or suggestions on this?

 

[weirdboy]

Centennial would go well with that recipe for dry hops and/or flameout addition.

I honestly haven't used Mt Hood before, so not sure what that tastes or smells like.

 

[Sippin37]

Centennial would go well with that recipe for dry hops and/or flameout addition.

I honestly haven't used Mt Hood before, so not sure what that tastes or smells like.

Agree, I think Centennial would be fantastic. I'm thinking this would come out similar to a Dogfish Head Indian Brown Ale maybe??? If you want more of a honey aroma and sweetness I would wait until late in the boil or even flameout before adding the honey and then let it steep for 10 minutes. I did a Honey Brown before that had me add it around 30 min. and I got no honey flavor or perceived sweetness in the finished product. That's just my opinion though. Good luck!

 

[pinthead]

Cheers guys.. yea I think Ill add Centennial, any idea if I should add some early in the boil, and I guess I feel embarrassed but I never tried to dry hop, im assuming a nice grain bag that goes into my primary or secondary.. ?

if so how the hell do you get the bag out of the carboy once its bloated

I do like sweet but more of a hop head..

 

[weirdboy]

I wouldn't bother adding any more hops early unless you want a much more bitter beer. Just from the extra late additions you will get much more perceived bitterness, even if the IBUs are not technically higher. And I am sure people will argue with me about that statement, but I stand by it after many personal experiments with dry hopping split batches.


I use buckets, specifically so that I can put my dry hops or whatever into a mesh bag and drop them in or take them out without too much trouble.

If you are using a bucket for primary, then you can just wait until fermentation is done, and drop a bag in there. If you are using carboys, I would drop the hops into the secondary vessel and rack the beer on top of them. Then you have to be a bit careful when you are siphoning off for bottling/kegging, but it's not too bad usually.

 

[Sippin37]

I've only dry hopped with pellets so I am just careful when siphoning to the bottling bucket not to pick up anything from the bottom of the fermenter. I usually dry hop for a week, pellets fall to bottom by then.

 

[pinthead]

Ok, maybe ill pick up some pellets, but I have heard issues of people trying to get the grain bag out of the carboy after dry hopping

Weirdboy, I could try to just keep the beer in the primary though the whole process but I usually like to put it into secondary.. but I guess its not 100% necessary..