StarTropics ‘22

My dog enjoying play time during the brew day

Yet another rebrew of a recipe that I’ve enjoyed in the past. As with my last brew (Breakfast Stout) I attempted to aim for my favorite of the versions I had previously made but there’s no guarantee I’ll get the same results. This hazy/New England style IPA recipe has changed a lot over time but for this attempt I’m going back to the version that was co-crowd favorite at the DCHB BBQ at 3 Stars brewing many years ago. While I did make a blog post about that beer and have what seems to be the recipe (it was only labeled as StarTropics and I've lost most of my recipes over the years) I don’t have a lot of my notes, including the water profile, mash temperature, and the temperatures for the hop rest. I’m also not sure these were the exact hop additions used, including the ratios being different than I remember and the 60 minute hop addition seeming fairly large. With the hoppy saison I recently brewed already tasting more hoppy and bitter than expected I decided to lean towards a less hoppy recipe for this one and cut the 60 minute hop addition (in this case a first wort hop addition) from 1.5 oz to .5 and used the Comet I have on hand in place of Nugget. I considered cutting the boil hops entirely but did not want to stray too far from the previous recipe and didn't particularly care for the last no boil hop NEIPA I brewed.

Due to the lack of notes from that recipe I decided to take detailed brew day notes this time in case this batch also turns out particularly well (or to have a reference if there’s things to improve upon).

Tasting Notes:

This beer never fully turned around (detailed process notes below) but I'll do a full set of tasting notes anyway.

Appearance: Nice golden hue and substantial, but not offensive to my tastes, levels of haze. Finally pours with a small head though it recedes to a small ring fairly quickly. Looks the part of a hazy IPA in most ways.

Smell: Sweet overripe fruit (melon, papaya) and earthy, hay-like, sweet malt dominate with a light touch of citrus peel and pine.

Taste: Subtle fruity and dank characters lead with a big sweet malt middle finishing with a piney and herbal bitter ending. Touches of lemongrass, pine, earth, and melon throughout but none of the big, bold, tropical fruit character I would expect from the hops used. Adding the acid and calcium chloride seems to have knocked out most of the rough edges but may have also tampered down on the desirable hop characteristics.

Mouthfeel: Relatively low carbonation but moderate body, there's a lingering effect in the mouth that I believe is due to the calcium chloride but may also be from the oats or hops. While it could still probably use a little more carbonation it's not unenjoyable at this level.

Overall: A relatively disappointing beer. Far from the worst I've made but the hops just don't pop with the fruity, juicy, tropical character that they should and instead the overall impression feels a bit green and lackluster. Next time I will likely cut out the sugar and golden naked oats and use all 2-row rather than Maris Otter to keep the malt bill more straightforward (though I might add some wheat), shift to using more of the hops in the boil and late hop stand and filter more of the hops during the transfer to the carboy in order to reduce the grassy/green/polyphenol characteristics, and probably adjust the water chemistry to use less calcium chloride or at least less in proportion to the amount of gypsum. In the end I don't hate this beer and have no plans to dump it but it doesn't excite me like the best versions of my StarTropics recipes have.

3/18/22
Weighed and milled grain in preparation for brewing today. Collected 4 gallons and added 2g CaCl and 1g Gypsum for the mash water. I had planned to use twice as much of each but ran out of gypsum. I also collected another separate 4 gallons for the sparge and added a quarter campden tablet to each.

All grains for the mash bill mixed together

3/19/22
Brewday

Mashed in with 3 gallons of 180F strike water hitting my target 155F.

Hop smells from freshly opened 2021 hop pellet bags from Hops Direct:

Comet: Light pineapple and mango, some other tropical and citrus aromas. Light grassy and earthy aromas.

Citra: more pungent papaya and mango. More lemongrass than grass/earth.

Azacca: again similar with some light pineapple and red papaya. Lighter earth/grass than comet but not really the lemongrass of Citra.

Galaxy: very different. Still some pineapple and tropical fruit smells and lemongrass but with a pungent pine/dank/funk character

All 4 smell enjoyable and carry similar tropical fruit notes. After walking out of the room the hops were in then re-entering I was hit with a huge blast of tropical fruit hop aroma, hopefully some of this makes it into the beer.

After 55 minutes I added about 1 gallon of water at 180F to the mash, stirred and then let sit for 5 more minutes. After vorlauf first runnings were run into kettle with 8 oz Batey’s turbinado sugar and 0.5 oz Comet hops. Stirred occasionally to well mix sugar during run off. Added last 4+ gallons of sparge water to mash and let sit for a 5 minute batch sparge before running off. After about 15 minutes of running off the kettle had reached 6.5 gallons and was put back on the burner to boil.

Preboil gravity of 1.042. As with my last batch this is a touch lower than estimated but shouldn’t be too far off by the end of the boil (estimated 1.050 instead of the expected 1.055). 45 minutes into the boil I added the immersion wort chiller. 15 minutes later I cut the flame and began chilling.

Overshot chilling slightly at got down to 170F before realizing. Cut chiller and added first 3 oz hop dose. Let sit for about 25 minutes before returning. Temperature had fallen to 150F so I added the second hop dose and started the chiller again. Stopped chiller after about 5 minutes and let sit at 120 for another 10 minutes. After chilling to just under 80F wort was transferred to a 6 gallon carboy and a pack of Wyeast London Ale III pitched. OG measured as 1.052, just a touch below expected. I'll need to either tighten my mill or just slightly lower my efficiency expectations going forward. No filter was used when transferring from the kettle so this one has a lot of hop particulate, hopefully this only helps provide additional character and doesn't cause any issues.

3/20/22
Showing active signs of fermentation about 24 hours after pitching. Turbulent and brightly green in appearance, there is plenty of hops moving around in this one.

3/21/22
Still bubbling with a big krausen nearly taking up all the head space. May need to remove the bung temporarily if it gets any bigger. Inspecting the recipe further after brew day I recognized that the recipe shows only a 45 minute boil, so maybe the 1.5 oz of hops were used in the past batch but not boiled for a full hour, if so this beer should be lower in bitterness than that batch.

3/22/22
Bubbling has slowed, may be in part due to the ambient temperature cooling off some. Still a large krausen though not as voluminous as yesterday.

3/24/22
Gravity at 1.017 so it should still have a little ways to go. Taste is a bit harsh and more bitter than expected but not terrible. Hoping the harshness is just due to the amount of yeast and hop particulate in the sample at this point and fades with another week or so of fermenting and some conditioning. Added the first dry hop dose directly to the carboy.

3/28/22
Gravity down to 1.012 which is the expected FG. Taste is alright but more piney and astringent than desired without the level of tropical fruit character intended. I might keg this one sooner than expected to get it off the hop material, although I do plan to add keg hops.

3/29/22
Added 1g CaCl boiled in 100mL of water and 2mL 88% lactic acid. The acid addition was inspired by this post from Scott Janish showing a possible reduction in the grassy and astringent bitterness character when pH is reduced. I'm hoping these additions improve the beer but I intentionally went fairly low on each as I can always add more during or after kegging.

3/30/22
Transferred to keg in 31F keezer with last 3 oz. dose of hops in a stainless steel tube. Taste is a bit muted and overly harsh but not terrible. Hopefully some time at cold temperatures will help it clean up and the keg hops can add some brightness but I don’t think this one is going to fully turn around.

4/2/22
Was able to serve this at a housewarming party. Probably the least popular of the 4 beers on tap and definitely a bit undercarbonated. Not bad but not a particularly good hazy. We'll see what a little more time and carbonation does for it.

4/12/22

Tasting date, tasting notes above.

StarTropics 3.0

What makes a beer a beer? I don't mean to ask what beer is so much as what makes a particular brand of beer that brand.The bottle of beer in my hand is, at some level, chemically different than any other beer with the same label even if from the same six pack. At the professional level brewers work hard to have quality control so that every Budweiser tastes like a Budweiser and every Heady Topper tastes like a Heady Topper, but even then there is an acceptable level of variability.

When I first set out with the goal of making StarTropics I envisioned it as a cross between a red IPA and a Brettanomyces saison. The goal was to get a beer that had a gorgeous red color, tons of tropical fruit hop character, fruit and slight funk character from the brettanomyces, with a finish that was dry, slightly spicy, and refreshing. Over time the goal has been somewhat pared down, first transitioning to a 100% brettanomyces beer to reduce some of the funky and spicy character, then to dropping the brettanomyces all together. Today I am brewing a beer that has little in common with my original design: it is no longer intended to be red, or have a large amount of yeast derived characteristics. So is this still StarTropics or just a New England IPA that uses a hopping bill that I liked? Does any of this matter? Not really, but it's fun to think about the recipe creation process from all angles and sometimes the branding can be one part of what shapes a recipe.

This beer came out almost exactly how I had hoped for: light colored and fairly cloudy with huge hop aroma and flavor and only moderately high bitterness. The beer won (well tied) for crowd favorite at the DC Homebrewers annual BBQ competition where I got lots of great feedback. I likely won't change much about this recipe the next time I brew it except possibly to increase the dry hopping rate.

Doing a tasting after over a month in the keg, the cloudiness and hop aromas have faded some but still an enjoyable beer.

Appearance- Deep gold, moderately hazy, some hop particulate noticeable. Head is large and pillowy

Smell- Tropical fruit and pine lead the way giving - mango, papaya, resin, grapefruit. A little more typical American IPA and less complex than when fresh but still a nice mix.

Taste- Hop flavor - again tropical, light pine, citrus fruit - lead the way, some malt sweetness - not caramelly or malty as just a light sugar sweetness, followed by a moderate bitterness that builds slightly in the finish to fully balance and then overtake the sweetness.

Mouthfeel- Super smooth and silky medium body. Hard to tell how much the oats contribute versus yeast and other grains but the balance works great regardless. Carbonation is medium - the beer has been at 10 PSI in the mid 30s for a while now.

Overall - Even over a month old this beer is drinking very nicely. It's not the best NEIPA I've had (we can't all be Scott Janish) but it's one of the best hop dominated beers I have brewed.

Brett IPA (Or how to dump a batch)

While I've made a number of moderately hoppy beers recently (including multiple takes on my Mosaic Grisette) I haven't had a true IPA on hand. Part of the reason is that I haven't had time to brew much and have devoted most of that to perfecting a few recipes. Part of it is just that I don't brew IPAs that often. And part of it is that I haven't been in love with IPAs recently.

While IPA has never been my favorite style I've gone through waves of hating them, loving them, and being fairly indifferent to them. Part of my issue recently is that I've found that the IPAs (and to a large extent pale ales) I've had recently tend to fall into 2 categories: overly dank and bitter or underwhelming all around.

StarTropics is a name I've used for several very distinct beers and I want to use the moniker once again because it has the 3 things I really want in this beer: super tropical-fruit aroma and taste from both hops and yeast, beautiful bright red color, and refreshing, not assaulting, bitterness.  Past attempts at this beer have missed the mark, with one being a Brett saison that became way too heavy on the Brett and the other being a "Brett" Trois based IPA that felt too malty and surprisingly tame in terms of fruit character. This time around I needed to do another radical overhaul.

I liked my previous 100% Brettanomyces beer, but I wasn't sure BKYeast's C2 strain was ideal for an IPA. Having read a lot of Bear-Flavored and Mad Fermentationist posts about Brett C for 100% beers I decided it had the descriptors I was looking for with fast fermentation and bright fruit characteristics.

In order to keep this beer from being as malty as the last version I decided to keep it focused on Pale Ale malt with just a touch of Golden Naked oats for a light sweet, nutty complexity. The color is coming almost entirely from 3 oz. of Carafa III, which I hope will be the right amount to provide a bright red look without too much roast character.

2/5/2016
Friday post-work brew day provided for some challenges. The cold weather made it take longer than usual to hit my strike temperature, and then my mash-in temperature was 4 degrees low. Added another couple gallons of hotter water to bring up to 151 after about 15 minutes. Had a smaller sparge due to the mash water correction and ended up getting my first stuck sparge. A number of things (stirring, adding more water, opening valve wider) didn't help but shoving the top of the dip tube to one side seemed to clear it and was able to run off enough to reach 6 gallons of reddish brown wort. Added the hopshot and bittering additions were added as First Wort with no other additions added until post boil, with the first addition added at flame-out and another added less than 10 minutes later once the wort had cooled to 160. After a 20 minute hop stand at 160 the wort was cooled down the rest of the way to 75.

2/6/2016

Unfortunately a two day starter didn't seem to be enough to get the yeast to the levels required and after 24 hours I pitched a slurry of Brett L + C2.

3/5/2016
I didn't want to admit it for a lot of reasons but...this one is my first full batch dumper. The Brett ended up creating a LOT of plastic flavor that outshines the otherwise pleasant hop characteristics. I am assuming that this is likely due to not having enough yeast at initial pitch and the long lag time experienced by the Brett C. I feel like this is a recipe that had some promise if done correctly but I failed to deliver and need to start over. Once again this recipe teaches me a lesson but fails to produce adequate beer.

4/2/2016
Gave this one a month to cleanup, but I needed the carboy so it got fed to the compost. Disappointing but at least I got the impression that this hop bill worked.