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

[David R]

Thanks Grant, I guess with the evaporation I should under-estimate it and top up in the fermenter if necessary, rather than ending up with not enough evaporation and a more diluted wort. I was planning on just a single step mash to keep things simple, but also considering doing the mash part of it in a cooler to keep the temp constant and then sparging in the pot, sorta like you described above.

I did have a refractometer when I was keeping a saltwater reef aquarium, kinda kicking myself for giving it away when I got rid of the set up! Oh well, they're cheap enough...

[David R]

Cheers, can't be rushed on brew day, that was one of the first things I learned!! Need to start reading up on mash temps etc, really looking forward to it!

[TBone]

Might be a bit late... but I've had my eye on this recipe. 

Pliny the Toddler

Worth while to check out this new Blog as well... Chip did a brew day and made a modified version of that recipe. 

Link to Chop and Brew

[David R]

Thanks for the links, will watch the video tonight. The Toddler recipe looks good, no dry hopping tho? A scaled down Pliny was one of the first things that came to mind when I though about a mini-IPA, I've been meaning to have a look at the recipe and try come up with a scaled back version. I'll be interested to hear what you think if you brew it.

[Reubs]

This recipe from The Mad Fermentationist looks pretty damn tasty! 

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/2012/01/vienna-malt-session-ip...

Crazy to see he used around 300 grams of hops for a 3.6% ABV session IPA!

 

 

[Grant R Baker]

yeah.. $30-$50 of hops in one beer... and they are all so late.. no bittering hops.

Quick FYI David: the brewing refractometers have a gravity guide in them for beer.. I have seen some for other uses that do not.  TM

[jt]

I did some late hopped beers a couple of years ago, recipe suggestion at the time from Jo. Nice and smooth with plenty of hop flavour.

Though I ended up adding a small bittering addition in as I did a few more.

The hops end up adding to the body or mouthfeel of the beer, really nice.

Another one to look for is the Pot Kettle Mild.

[Reubs]

I'm a big fan of plentiful late hop additions. 

Some of the recipes for the PKB Weemix look really good. You would still have some decent maltiness and hoppy aromas. Have you made one yet? 

[David R]

That recipe looks fantastic! At work yesterday I was pondering the notion of only doing a short boil but with a large enough amount of hops to get enough bitterness so you get loads of aroma, so that recipe has just jumped to the top of my to-brew list.

Cheers for the link to the refractometer Grant, looks just like my old one but with the SG scale, certainly a worth-while investment.