Hoppy Session beers???

[David R]

Last weekend while on holiday in Wellington I was reading a Beer Advocate magazine at Hashigo Zake and stumbled across an article I found very interesting, called "With a Little Help from My Friends, British and American Craft Brewers Find Common Ground" and described as "Hoppy UK Session Beers" on the cover. I love the super-hoppy 8%+ double-IPAs as much as anyone, but I also love the "drinkability" of the mild English bitters (Galbraiths Bob Hudson is a favourite), so when the article spoke of brewers taking the best bits of both and creating something that still has the good strong hop flavours of an American IPA but in balance with ~4% ABV to create a session beer for hop-heads that isn't going to get you trollied after a couple of bottles, I thought 'I've gotta have a crack at making one!'.

So while I feel I'm starting to get the hang of this brewing thing, I still have a long way to go before being knowledgeable enough to develop a recipe from scratch. The last brew I did was an extract + partial mash based on the recipe for Yeastie Boys Digital IPA and after tasting it yesterday while bottling I've got a sneaky suspicion it's going to be my best one yet by a long shot, love the fruity aromas of the NZ hops! What I'm thinking of doing is make a scaled-down version of that recipe with the ABV reduced from 7% to 4.5% with the hops scaled back accordingly but really need some ideas/suggestion about the malt and grains. I'm also thinking that spreading the hop additions out rather than just at 60, 10 and 1min would be a good idea for this beer.

And if anyone has a recipe for a hoppy ale under 5% I'd love to see it!

Cheers,

David

ps here's the Digital IPA recipe I used; http://hopville.com/recipe/1690237

[G S]

Am with you on this one. As fantastic as the 'braver' beers are, would be great to nail a recipe for something that I can enjoy more than 2 bottles of. Mind you, I suspect that my beers made at home, 6% +, hoppy as I can, have only just enough flavor to cover up the numerous misdemeanors going on in my brewing process.

[Ralph]

David, just drop the amount of malt going into the brew and keep the same hops. Something like Digital IPA should still come out fantastic at 5% if you just drop the amount of each malt going in so that you keep the alcohol lower.

[David R]

How does this look; http://hopville.com/recipe/1690302

I reduced the bittering hops as I think the 77IBU of the Digital might be a bit much for this kinda beer, does 32IBU seem more in line with the reduced malt/ABV or should I bump it back up a bit?

[Matt Smith]

I would personally drop the IBU. You will still get huge hop flavour and aroma from all those late hops. At 77 IBU there is a danger of the beer coming across and too bitter and thin. Even at a calculated 32 ibu, unless you can chill your wort below 80 degrees within a couple of minutes, with 135g of hops at the 1 minute mark, I would estimate your beer coming in at more like 40-45 ibu anyhow, so plently of bitterness there.

[Ralph]

If you wanted to keep the 77IBU then I would leave all the specialty malt at the original 7% beer level to give some sweetness to balance the beer. If dropping all the malt proportionally I would drop the bittering additions to somewhere about where you have with that recipe. Keep the flavour additions the same for that big hop flavour.

[David R]

Cheers. Matt I'm thinking about doing a few half-sized brews for the sake of experimentation, so cooling it quickly shouldn't be too difficult. Not only that, I've been struggling to empty the bottles fast enough with two fermenters making 20-23L batches!

I might also have a go at making a similar recipe with US hops, something safe and simple like Cascade + Amarillo should be good for this kind of beer, I think.

[Matt Smith]

Yeh I love doing smaller batches, variety is the spice of life right. I don't think i'll ever upgrade my 5 gallon to a 10.

[Dougal]

One way to keep the bittering consistent in a lower gravity version is to calculate the BU:GU ratio. If you keep that figure the same in the lower gravity version, then the beer tends to have the same balance of bitterness as the original. 

[jt]

Ralph's got it right I reckon
I'd hold the specialty malts at the same level and drop the base malt down.
You can keep the hops at the original level, think Hallertau Minimus.
Never tried the real thing, but I've had a bottle or two from Banksy from his take on it

[jamie roberts]

I'm on a similar path to you.

My thinking is that by just reducing the grain bill the beer might end up thin tasting.. Maybe some beefier spec grains might help, maybe melanoidin and/or carafoam?
I was also going to mash really high (like 70-71) to try and get  the unfermentables in my wort. And use a good attenuating yeast so it's not too sweet like 1056 or us05
Hops would mostly be late and dry.

Am I on the right track, If I ended up with a minimus or low-rider I would be very happy?

[Ralph]

I think you will find that some sweetness equals some body, but if you are going for big hoppy you probably want some sweetness to prop the hop bite up.

I would be aiming for 1.012 or so. You can either mash high and use an attenuative yeast or you can play around with specialty malts to add unfermentables and use a normal sort of yeast.

[jt]

Use your usual yeast. The high % of specialties and a higher mash temp will help limit your FG