DC Homebrewers Club Blending Day

Sampling and taking notes of the available beers

This post is a summary of a blending day held by the DC Homebrewers Club in November 2017 and what led up to and came out of that day. It took me a long time to finish this post and it doesn't have as much info as I would like due to lack of access to the finished beers and limited notes/photos from the day (more on that later). If there is one takeaway from this post I think it should be that having a blending day like this is extremely fun and can result in very good beer. For a different perspective on the blending day and some better photos check out Luis's write-up in his blog Cerveza Artesenal: translated to English or the original in Spanish.

My contributions. About 25 gallons in total.

A little background on this blending day: For a long time I wanted to get together with some people to do a blending session that could create variety and complexity that had been missing from even my best homebrewed sour beers. Before I moved to California I realized that I had over 20 gallons of assorted mixed fermentation beers that varied in taste from enjoyable but not overly exciting to interesting but highly flawed. After mentioning that the beers would probably be better blended than bottled individually a friend from the DC Homebrewers club  mentioned that he also had a large number of sour/mixed fermentation beers that needed to be bottled and would be happy to host a blending session at his house. After a few more discussions and emails on the topic we were able to set a date for a DC Homebrewers Club blending session and also to have the DC Homebrewers' Anniversary Beer be one of the beers bottled at that time, two birds with one stone.

Each sample was labeled and assigned a paper for notes to be taken

Prior to the blending day we determined who would be able to attend and asked people to bring funky beers (unfortunately none made it) or some cleaner dry Saisons (we did get a couple) that could be added to the mix to complement the predominantly sour beers being used. In total around 10 people and about 20 beers were on hand and samples were pulled from carboys and barrels to be used in the tasting session (plus one homemade wine from Mike Tonsmeire).

There was a wide range in the beers and samples were tasted by all the participants with each person adding notes for each beer. These notes would be used later when it was time to determine blends. A couple of the beers (admittedly mine) were determined to be essentially unusable due to high acetic (vinegar) or nail polish (ethyl acetate) character but most were up to snuff and had at least some characteristics that could be interesting in a blend, even if not great on their own. The beers ranged from hop forward, to heavily fruited, to highly acidic, to having interesting fermentation characteristics. Over the course of a few hours and lots of test samples, we were eventually able to decide on 6 blended batches to bottle, plus two others that were kegged.

I tried to make a few test blends, not all of them worked

Having a basement full of sour beers helps

Once each blend was determined in a small sample (usually 20-40 mL) a 4-6 gallon blend was calculated using the same ratio of constituents and the proper amounts pulled from each carboy/barrel. This blend was then sampled and sometimes adjusted before adding to a bottling bucket with sugar and fresh yeast then bottled and capped or corked.

Instead of details of every blend or the beers that went into them I think it is more useful to give some takeaways and recommendations for those looking to do a similar blending session:

1) Plan ahead. While there was some good communication and planning leading up to this event we weren't 100% sure what beers would be available until the day of blending due to a few people backing out of bringing beer and a few late additions. More importantly there weren't enough clean bottles to package the beers and a large part of the day was spent de-labeling and cleaning the insides of bottles. Having every person who attends a session like this bring clean and sanitized bottles could certainly speed the process. Having a smaller selection of only the best beer options would also have helped and in hindsight I should have dumped a few of my worst contributions rather than drag them along.

Two of the barrels of beers that went into blends

2) Have good equipment. I brought a large bag of 5 mL pipettes I had ordered on Amazon for fairly cheap. These were great for taking small samples of the individual beers and for formulating small test blends prior to deciding on the final blend. Also of use in a blending session are LOTS of tasting cups/glasses, extra bottling buckets, multiple cappers/corkers, and plenty of healthy yeast for bottle conditioning. Aside from the lack of clean bottles we had a decent selection of equipment but that was with multiple people bringing things, one person's normal setup probably wouldn't cut it.

Lots of bottles to de-label, clean, and sanitize

3) Have a wide range of beer. Most of the beers I brought and to some extent the other ones on hand were moderately sour with low Brettanomyces character and low to moderate oak. Having some clean Saisons and other things (wine, juice, flavor extracts) helped to give more complexity to the blends but very Brettanomyces funk forward, highly lactic, or super oaky beers could have been useful.

4) Plan for a full day. We started in the early afternoon and the blending session easily went into the night. Understand the limits on your time and the limits on the number of blends you can make.

5) Pace your drinking. This was a fun club event with a lot of homebrewers/beer nerds. Outside of sampling the individual beers and the sample blends we also drank all types of sours from Cantillon to Rare Barrel plus a lot of clean commercial beers including Belgian Quads and IPAs and lots and lots of homebrew. I brought some sanitized vials with me to try and capture some of the yeast/bacteria from both the homebrew being blended and commercial beers being enjoyed but between drinking, cleaning, blending, and more drinking I entirely forgot about them. I also wanted to take detailed notes and lots of photos but lost track of time and only got a limited amount of info. In the end I stayed sober enough to make it to the end of the day and help out in multiple ways but I should have passed on a few of the beers and had a few more waters.

6) Have a goal (or a couple goals) set ahead of time. There were a few conflicting goals to this blending session and how we were going to hit each wasn't fully discussed ahead of time. There probably ended up being a few too many things we wanted to achieve which may have limited the overall blends in terms of both variety and quality. As a club we wanted to make the DC Homebrewers Anniversary Beer, have at least a few different blends, get some interesting variations, and finish with great beers. I wanted to use up as much of my beer as possible since I wasn't taking it with me. Others had other goals for the beers they had brought. A few of my beers that could have been used more in blends stayed largely untouched and, due to the previously mentioned time constraints, exuberant drinking, and lack of clean bottles, we didn't get quite as many different blends as we could have or use quite the right amounts of specific beers that others had planned. While I think we did a decent job in the end of meeting the conflicting goals and producing good beers, establishing the goals more clearly ahead of time and not having so many could have led to an easier day and better results.

Tasting Notes:
Below are the compositions of the final blends. I also jotted down some quick notes from a couple months after the blending day. I didn't get to try the two kegged versions and the tasting notes were hurried during a brief time at my parent's house where I was able to sample the bottles. I hope to get more detailed notes and photos of each blend in the future when they have had more time to develop in the bottle and in some cases finish carbonating.

Blend 1 (DC Homebrewers Guild Anniversary Beer):
3 gal Barrel Aged Sour Tripel with White Grape Juice

Thoughts- a tasty base beer with good oak and grape/wine character. This was a good base for many of the blends. Highly carbonated but almost no head retention.

Blend 2:
2 gal Flemish Red w Cherry/Raspberry
1 gal Kriek
1 gal Barrel Aged Sour Blonde
1/2 gal Acetic Red
1/2 bottle Red Wine

Thoughts - a bit disappointing. Overly acetic (the acetic red should probably have been cut down if not cut entirely). The blends of fruit (cherry, raspberry, red wine grape) is nice but a bit lost by the vinegar. Not carbonated, possibly due to acid shock, hopefully it just needs more time.

Blend 3:
2 gal Cuvee Blonde
1 gal Wild #2
1 gal Saison

Thoughts- Oak forward with moderate brett and acidity. More tart than sour. More subdued than others but quite enjoyable.

Blend 4:
2 gal Flemish Red on Peaches
2 gal Barrel Aged Sour Tripel with White Grape Juice
1 gal Cuvee Blonde
1 gal Funky IPA

Thoughts - a fairly nice and enjoyable blend. Very fruity on the nose but less fruit forward and more subtle but interesting in taste.

Blend 5:
3 gal Barrel Aged Sour Tripel with White Grape Juice
1 gal Brett Saison
1 gal Lambic
1/2 gal Bootleg Biology beer

Thoughts- I really enjoy this one. Probably the most gueuze like with a nice complexity of funk, acidity, fruitiness, and oak.

Blend 6:
2 gal Barrel Aged Sour Tripel with White Grape Juice
1 gal Cuvee Blonde
1 gal Bootleg Biology beer
3/4 gal DC Beer Week beer
1/2 gal Wild #2
1/4 gal "Dregs" (my stepped up mix of assorted commercial dregs)

Thoughts- lots of stone fruit and white grape character. Some citrus but just mild sourness and funk.

Blend 7 (keg):
2 gal Flemish Red w Raspberry/Cherry
1 gal Flemish Red w Peaches
1 gal Mariage (this was itself a blend of homebrews leftover from my wedding)
1/2 bottle red wine small bottle white sweet wine
32oz cranberry juice
~1/2oz vanilla extract

Blend 8 (keg):
5 gal BA Sour Tripel

2oz Nelson dry hop

Ube Wit

Ube is a type of yam that has a very bright purple color that is often used as a sort of natural coloring, in addition to being used for its flavor, mainly in the Philippines but also in other South East Asian countries and increasingly around the world. It is typically eaten as a dessert in ice cream (including the sundae type dessert halo-halo), halaya (a sort of jam), and many types of pastries including cakes, rolls, cookies, and polvoron (shortbread). The best description I can give for ube is a nuttier, earthier, coconut. In addition to coconut, other descriptors I've seen are pistachio, white chocolate, and sweet potato.

Last spring I was at a party and tried ube ice cream for the first time. I'm typically not a big dessert person and have disliked seemingly savory foods that are used in desserts in the past (taro and red bean come to mind) so I had always passed on ube dishes but decided to give the ice cream a try. After a small scoop I wanted to eat the entire container because the flavor was so delicious, new, and interesting. Since that day I've consumed ube in just about every format I can find and taking my honeymoon in the Philippines and Bali meant there were a lot of opportunities!

Since the first time I tried ube I've wondered if the flavors would come through in a beer. While I've seen a few examples of ube beers they certainly aren't very common and I haven't found a recipe. I decided to make up my own using a Belgian Witbier as the base style due to it's dessert like creaminess and citrus characters that should meld well with the ube's flavors. 

Wit is also a style with a light enough color that (may) give the ube a chance to show up. Like many blue/purple colored fruits and vegetable ube gets its color from anthrocyanins. Unfortunately, anthrocyanins degrade with pH, which tends to cause beers with these fruits and vegetables to turn red or pink, not vibrant purple and blue.

The recipe was roughly an amalgamation of potato beer recipes I've found and some recipes I've seen for Allagash White. I used three pounds of pre-cooked frozen ube (I would have liked to have found fresh ube it seems to be hard to come by in the US) which seemed like a decent but not overwhelming amount. I also added a pound of basmati rice that I boiled prior to the mash. Other than that the beer was a pretty typical wit with half of the rest of the ingredients being malted wheat and the other half being 2-row. I went on the low end of hops and spices with just one ounce of saaz and a quarter ounce each of bitter orange peel and Indian coriander added at flameout.

1/23/18 Brewday

I had intended to brew this beer earlier but suddenly had to work over the weekend and postponed it to today. Mash had a slight purple hue but gave a beautiful medium purple color during runoff and after the boil the beer still showed a light violet tone. This was my first time using my new mantis chiller from Jaded Brewing and I was able to chill to pitching temps in about 15 minutes just using a kitchen sink for the water supply, so I'm very happy with it so far. OG measured at 1.043, about what I expected despite not knowing what to expect for the ube's gravity contribution. 

2/5/18

This beer has gone through a bit of a strange fermentation, with a quick and aggressive first krausen that quickly faded with the beer only down to 1.030. After a few days with slight fermentation it suddenly burst back to life, blowing off the blowoff tube on multiple occasions before slowing after another couple days. It's now down to 1.010 which is hopefully as far as it falls but I will give it a few more days given the previous resurgence. Taste is pretty good, citrusy and on the sweet side, but the ube is subtle and the color has faded to the point of being a red color in the carboy but just a pale magenta in the hydrometer tube.

3/3/18
I've been sitting on this one for a while, making slight alterations in hopes of bringing it to where I want but at this point I'm going to call it what it is: a fine beer but nothing special. After kegging the beer was a bit lacking in both ube and wit character. I made a few different extracts (trying both vodka based and hot water "teas") of coriander, orange peel, and ube powder. Despite adding what seemed to be large amounts of each of these extracts the beer only had very minor increases in perceived flavor and color. In the end, adding a little of a vodka based ube tincture to the glass seems to give the best combination of flavor and color.

3/11/18
Tasting:

Forgot to take a picture until halfway through the tasting. d'oh!

Appearance: Moderately hazy with the slightest of pink/orange hues that seems to come from the ube, though I might just be biased. The color, haziness, and a medium sized white head with good retention make for an appealing beer

Smell: There's an earthy and potato smell that leads the way, mixing with some more complex vegetable, herbal, and floral components to give the impression of a fresh tilled vegetable garden. That said, the smell is fairly soft and subtle and the classic wit citrus aromas don't stand out as intended.

Taste: Less earthy than the smell, the flavor leads off moderate sweet with some light dough and spice. The ube seems more hidden in the background with just a little earth and vanilla/coconut noticeable on the swallow. The finish is semi-sweet with just a light lingering bitterness and tough to describe herbal characters.

Mouthfeel: Fairly full bodied and creamy with low carbonation. These levels don't help the spice/yam characters pop but make the beer super easy drinking and go well with the subtle characteristics of the flavorings. The mouthfeel is probably the best part of this beer.

Overall: I haven't given up hope for an ube beer but this one doesn't quite do what I had hoped for. Using ube extract, adding vanilla, and/or moving the ube to a later addition than the mash all seem like possible ways to increase the flavor and potential of this unique ingredient and using fresher coriander and orange peel, and maybe adding some chamomile, should increase the wit character. I went fairly subtle in a lot of aspects of this beer thinking that I would be able to correct post-fermentation but that may not have been the case in this case. There's nothing bad about this beer but with a few other pale, subtle, moderately interesting beers on tap (kveik blondes and my latest maisonette) it doesn't do anything to call me to it.

Kveik Blonde Ales

In November I received a package from DeWayne Schaaf of the Kveik World Order Facebook page and blog. It turns out I was one of the lucky winners of the lottery for kveik's he was sending out which were at the time not commercially available. Kveik is a word used for yeast/yeast blends from certain regions of Norway as documented by Lars Marius Garshol on his Larsblog. I tried reaching out to DeWayne for any other information he could give on the yeasts (attenuation, recipe ideas, etc.) but never got a response so I decided to design a recipe that was versatile enough to handle a wide range of possible yeast interactions.

I used a strain from one kveik blend before when I put the Sigmund's Voss Kveik in a Norwegian influenced version of my Maisonette grisette. That particular beer turned out very interesting, more earthy and subtle than typical for the beer and with a nice orange peel character. The three strains/blends I received are completely different from that batch but I decided to do a somewhat similar beer with moderate gravity and moderate bitterness, but a decent amount of whirlpool hops to keep it interesting while also letting the yeast show through.

After reading some comments about the Ebbegarden potentially having negative interactions with hops/bitterness I decided to use the two other strains for this batch. Terje Raftevold's Hornindal Kveik is said to contain non-souring bacteria and a large number of yeast strains and a blend of some of these strains is available (at least in some capacity in Canada) from Escarpment Labs. The Midbust blend comes from Odd H Midtbust in Stordal and is available (possibly?) from Mainiacal Yeast who describe it as having "stone and tropical fruit notes as well as a light smokiness and acidity".

I chose the Pekko hops for this batch due to having some on hand and seeing them used in a few Saison/farmhouse style recipes and otherwise designed the beer to fall in the American Blonde Ale range.

1/31/18
Brew Day: Heated 7.75 gallons untreated water and mashed in at 156F. Added 2 tsp 10% phosphoric acid. Performed a hybrid sparge to collect 6.75 gallons water at 1.038. Added .6 oz Aramis hops after 30 minutes, then boiled another 30 minutes before adding 2 oz. Pekko and whirlpooling down to 100F. Split the batch between two 3 gallon better bottles and pitched the small tube of each yeast. Underpitching is said to be an important aspect of Norwegian brewing and helps the kveik produce esters during fermentation.

2/1/18
12 hours later Terje half showing signs of fermentation, Midtbust half not so much. After 24 hours Terje is reaching high krausen, still no real life from Midtbust.

2/2/18
Midtbust half showing some krausen, Terje still fermenting heavily.

2/3/18
Both beers look about done fermenting after only about 72 hours since pitching.

2/5/18
Midtbust - Gravity down to 1.010. Taste is bright, citrusy, fruity and with just a mild herbal character and a small amount of bitterness that builds after the finish.
Terje - Down to 1.011, very similar to Midtbust but with maybe a touch more herbal/hoppy flavor.

Both beers taste good but I may have overwhelmed the yeast character with the hops.

2/9/18
Kegged both beers and set to 15 PSI at 48F. Both smell very good, still bright and citrusy. The densest/most stable yeast cakes I've ever seen, to the point that it was hard to transfer the yeast to containers for storage. I can see how this would dry well.

2/15/18
Side by side tasting.

Midtbust
Appearance: Cloudy blonde body, looks like a NEIPA. Moderate white head fades fairly quickly but has maybe a touch more head retention than the Terje version.

Smell: Moderate orange peel and pineapple and sweet grainy malt. Some subtle pine, lemon, herbs, and hay.

Taste: Orange peel and pineapple again lead with some cherry and light grainy malt sweetness. The finish is a low but refreshing hoppy bitterness with a lingering herbal character.

Mouthfeel: Low to medium body with low carbonation. After nearly a week on tap I expected more pop but with the low gravity this works alright.

Overall: A fairly restrained but enjoyable beer. It goes down easy with enough citrus and hop character to be refreshing and keep me coming back for more. Higher fermentation temperatures and more hops might make for a more interesting beer but enjoyable as is. I don't get any of the acidity or smokiness noted by Mainiacal.

Terje
Appearance: Nearly identical to the Midtbust version, with a head that's a touch smaller and fades faster but that could be the glass or pour as much as anything else.

Smell: Again, orange peel is apparent but there is a also a light earthy/funk quality just barely in the mix. Over time I pick up more and more of a processed fruit (fruit snacks/fruit leather) aroma that I've never experienced in a beer. There's a hint of honeysuckle but otherwise no real herbal/hoppy characteristics.

Taste: Rounder and more fruit forward than the Midt version. Again, there's citrus peel but the processed fruit character is somewhat pronounced and fills in the rest of the palate. Less apparent malt graininess and sweetness and less apparent bitterness though it still finishes refreshing with a light lingering herbal character.

Mouthfeel: Feels a touch thicker than the Midtbuster but with similarly low carbonation. This version could definitely use a little more CO2.

Overall: Again a somewhat subdued beer but what's here is good. The 'fruit snack' like character is different from what I've experienced in most beers but might be a bit too strong compared to the other flavors. Overall, a decent and enjoyable but not exceptional blonde-ish ale.

Wheat Beer Split Batch Tastings

I had originally planned to do separate tastings of the two beers that came out of my wheat beer split batch but life has gotten in the way recently and after a few attempts to write about each in half asleep states that ended with half legible notes I decided to use a day off to taste each and get a full description down.

Pink Dream Hibiscus Wit:
Appearance - Medium red in color with great clarity, probably the best I've had in a beer without finings. The head is the palest shade of pink, just off white, and has decent retention for a sour but fades to a small ring after a few minutes. More red than the pink I was aiming for but part of that is the base beers darkness and it's still a really pretty beer. Redder and clearer than the picture above would indicate.

Smell - Fruit (cherry, lychee, mixed berries) with some lower floral character. Light toasty and caramel malt in the presence.

Taste - Moderate tartness washes into sweet raspberry and passionfruit juice character that finishes with just enough sourness to balance the sweetness. Not noticeably salty but with a slight lingering note that might be the sodium.

Mouthfeel - Low to moderate body and carbonation, not as carbonated as I would like. The sweetness could probably be cut by more carbonation but it's not offensive.

Overall - A refreshing beer with no off flavors and plenty of fruitiness but not quite as sour or salty as I would like from a gose. The Lychee and Passionfruit extracts came across extremely strong and artificial in the first few pours but haven't been noticeable in the mix since. Were I to label the beer as having those elements I would need to use more, but with the hibiscus as the focus the subtle fruit approach worked. If I were to brew this again I would probably up the salt by 50-100% and give the lacto another day. I would also like to use a more subtle base (no caravienne) to cut some of the sweetness.



Green Spree Hoppy American Wheat:
Appearance - Deep coppery gold. Moderately cloudy, though some pours are fairly clear. Changing CO2 tanks and re-carbonating seems to have shaken up some hops. White head is small but steady with lots of lacing and small bubbles.

Smell - Green apple, pine, and lime lead the aroma with caramel and toasted malt.

Taste - Leads with citrus and apple that lead to a pine needle, citrus peel, and sweet caramel sugary middle before finishing with peach, pine, and a strange mix of lingering bitterness and sweetness.

Mouthfeel - Medium heavy in body and medium low in carbonation. Could use more carbonation and a lighter body but works okay as is.

Overall - This one doesn't quite work. While each of the elements seem to have given what I had looked for the blend just doesn't come together as well as I anticipated, with the sweetness of the malt and the strong apple and pine characters seeming to drown out the other elements. I can see why this base would work better with more citrus and tropical character of Fortunate Islands. With some time the hop flavors have harmonized some with the citrus coming more into focus but the sweetness of the malt and orchard fruit of the yeast still leave it a little candy like and strange. Not a bad beer but one that I won't brew again without significant adjustments.

Wheat Beer Split Batch (Green Spree Hoppy Wheat and Pink Dream Fruited Gose)

I love doing split batches when I homebrew. It allows me to double (or more than double) the number of beers I'm able to create with almost no increase in effort or time. Another proponent of splitting batches is Michael Tonsmeire who spoke about this very topic on the Experimental Brew's Brew Files podcast. This was perfect timing given that I was making a similar split batch (1/2 hoppy, 1/2 sour) and using the grain bill from one of Mike's recipes (Fortunate Islands) to do it.

Green Spree is inspired by both Mike/Modern Time's Fortunate Islands recipe and Mike's business partner Scott Janish's flavor descriptors for El Dorado hops as tasting like "Green Spree" candy. To up the green (in my mind this means sour apple but also lime, grass, and pine) character I added Warrior (which I found to have pine, grass and lime) and Centennial (resinous and citrusy) hops to the bill. The goal for this recipe is to sit somewhere between the light-to-moderate bitterness and hop character of my Pilsner and the heavily hopped West Coast NEIPA I have on tap, while still giving a chance to explore some new hops that I've been holding onto for a long time.

Pink Dream is a take on the classic Leipziger style featuring salt and a lactobacillus driven sourness but with the twist of orange peel instead of coriander plus an increased sweetness and darker color from the Caravienne malt. I also plan to add a hibiscus tea and possibly lychee or passionfruit to the beer to up the fruitiness and quenchability. The gose formulation (especially in terms of salt levels) and hibiscus addition (in terms of dosing and method) were inspired by Mike's Gose and Hibiscus Wit.

Not surprisingly the two beers appeared very different in the fermenters with the Green Spree half being hazier and having a more vigorous krausen while the Pink Dream half had little foaming even during the peak of fermentation and was much clearer and looked darker due to this.

Green Spree (Hoppy Half):
12/14/17 Brew Day
Expected OG: 1.045
Actual OG: 1.053
Expected Efficiency: 75%
Actual Efficientcy: 85%
Expected FG: 1.012
Actual FG: 1.015

12/18/17
Added dry hops to Green Spree. Gravity down to 1.015 (7.5 Plato refractometer reading). Tastes fairly sweet but also moderately hoppy and tasty.

12/22/17
Transferred to 3 gallon keg. Tasting hoppy but a bit grassier and harsher than expected.


Pink Dream (Gose Half):
12/14/17 Brew Day
Expected OG: 1.045
Actual OG: 1.042
Expected Efficiency: 75%
Actual Efficientcy: 70%
Expected FG: 1.013
Actual FG: 1.010

I pulled off 3 gallons for this half just after the combined wort hit a boil. This was then cooled to 100F and Lactobacillus Delbrueckii was added. Prior to pitching the Lacto I pre-acidified the wort with 3 tablespoons of 10% phosphoric acid in hopes to minimize the protein denaturing. After 12 hours I pitched a GoodBelly Straightshot due to concerns with the Lacto Del's souring capacity. 24 hours later I pitched a pack of S-04. I left my pH meter in Maryland so I had to just use taste of the sour wort and other people's experience to determine timing.

12/18/17
Pink Dream half down to 1.010 (5 Plato refractometer reading). Moderately sour with a noticeable but not overwhelming saltiness and some sweetness.

1/2/18
Added hibiscus by adding 1.5 cups of nearly boiling water to 1 oz. hibiscus poured into carboy. 1/2 oz each Amoretti Lychee Compound and Passionfruit Swirl added to keg with the beer then racked on top. Has good color, strong fruitiness, but it comes off slightly artificial. Hopefully the first pour just had more of the extracts than the rest of the batch and with some time the flavor will meld more.

1/16/18
Brought a swing top bottle of this to a San Francisco Homebrewers Guild meeting. Mostly positive response with several noting low salt levels (intended but below style requirements) and a mixed response to the hibiscus levels (some saying too high, others thinking it was a subtle enough touch to not overpower the beer).

Westward On (West Coast NEIPA)

NEIPA has taken the brewing world by storm. It's all at once loved, reviled, overrated, misunderstood, poorly made, perfected, singular, and widely varying. The main rules for making an NEIPA are: it has to be hazy and it has to be hoppy. There are some secondary characteristics including fruity hops, thick mouthfeel, and sweetness/less IBUs than a traditional IPA that are generally, but not always, desired. There are also a wide range of approaches to all of these characteristics

After moving to the West Coast I was strongly considering brewing a classic West Coast style IPA: bitter, dry, aggressive, piney, dank, citrusy. As I started making the grain and hop bill for this recipe I realized I could have a lot of those things but still take the best of NEIPA (less bitterness, less caramel malt, more body) and make a beer that I would truly want to drink.

Another part of my direction in brewing this IPA (and a few other hoppy beers I have planned) is the abundance of hops I have accumulated that made it to San Francisco with me. Over the years I have bought pounds of hops at various times and rarely finished a full bag. For this beer I decided to use the last 1/2 oz of an old bag of Amarillo, and decent amounts of Citra and Nugget that I had bought full pounds of in the past couple years.

A large portion of my hop collection also came from a mix of 2 oz 2015 hop packs from Yakima Valley Hops as a prize for my win in the DC Homebrewers BBQ competition (maybe not surprisingly with an NEIPA). Since then I have only brewed a small handful of hoppy beers, and have not ventured into the world of many of these hops, so I decided to include Comet in this recipe.

With these things in mind I created and brewed my first West Coast IPA (West Coast in brewing location if not style) and I'm really excited about it. Based on recent research by Scott I opted to go light on the oats, moderately heavy on the carafoam, fairly high on the calcium chloride, and high on the mash temperature with just a touch of caramel malt and sulfate to show some classic IPA character. For bonus points I named the beer after a lyric from a Bay Area band.

Westward On IPA Recipe
Expect OG: 1.061
Actual OG: 1.064
Estimated Efficiency: 75%
Actual Efficiency: 79%
Expected FG: 1.014
Actual FG: 1.013
Apparent Attenuation: 79%
ABV: 6.7%

 

Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Bright golden color with moderate haze. Voluminous white head that sticks around for a while and leaves pretty lacing all the way down the glass. A pretty photogenic beer that makes me crave a sip immediately. Probably somewhere between West Coast and NEIPA in terms of haze and color, certainly not milkshake-y but only moderately translucent. Has gotten clearer with time in the cold chest freezer but probably won't get much clearer than this.

Smell: Grapefruit, candied orange peel, Christmas tree pine, fall foliage, light touches of tropical/papaya and apricot yielding a mostly classic IPA hop character. There's some slight malt with caramel/toast mixing in with the leaf character. Not as fruit forward and tropical as I like but a pleasant mix that smells like an IPA.

Taste/Mouthfeel: This one goes down easy with just some light citrus up front followed by a lot of pine, papaya, and orange peel that lingers into a fairly dry and strongly bitter finish that draws me back for more. The carbonation level feels much lower than I expected for the 15 PSI it has been sitting at and the body feels full but not as creamy as an NEIPA and with a dry but refreshing finish. There's both a little bit of a weird onion character and some astringency in the mix but not enough of either to ruin the beer in anyway.

Overall: Sometimes I have a hard time determining whether my beers are good or not. This is especially true of IPAs and this one certainly falls in that category. The beer looks great and I have found myself easily downing a pint (or more) while trying to determine how I feel about it. I think it's probably a pretty solid IPA that just doesn't hit the high notes of my favorite NEIPAs or my favorite hoppy beers in general. That said, it does seem to do a pretty solid job of straddling the line between East Coast and West Coast IPAs with plenty of bitterness but also some haze and body. This yeast blend, and other features of this beer, may not be ideal for really bringing out the sweet and tropical characters I am looking for but they turned out a solid IPA.

 

12/11/17 Brew day notes: Did not hit the high mash temperature I was going for, as I forgot to correct the calculator's strike temp for my system (I always hit ~5 degrees less than expected) and only mashed in at 154. I did a fairly thin mash and a hybrid fly sparge.

1/4 oz. Columbus hops were added during the sparge, with 1/2 oz. Amarillo added 30 minutes after the boil, 1 oz. Nugget added 15 minutes later, 10 minutes later I turned off the electric stove and added the Citra and left on the same burner for 5 minutes at a near boil. Whirlpool hops were added in several additions in the middle of chilling, from around 200 F to around 160 F.

Chilling in multiple ice baths for 3 hours was only able to bring temperature down to 75. Pitched 800mL starter of my current "Inglés" yeast blend and an old, but not yet expired, pack of Nottingham dry yeast.

12 hours later the beer is fermenting heavily and airlock was replaced with a blowoff tube. Surprisingly not a ton of hop aromas coming off. Beer temp down to 69 F.




12/18/17
Added dry hops. Gravity down to 1.013 (7.5 plato refractometer reading). Smells a bit solventy and harsh but taste is more of a classic Pale Ale/IPA piney hoppiness.

12/22/17
Racked to 5 gallon keg with 2 more ounces of Citra and my stainless steel filter over the out tube. Less volume than I planned (noticeably less than 5 gallons) given the 5.5 gallon recipe size and relative volume in the fermenter but a decent amount was lost to trub and hops as expected. Tastes strongly hoppy but the balance isn't quite right. Hopefully a little time on the keg hops will help.

1/5/18

Tasting notes above.