Rob's House Session IPA

This is my house beer that always occupies 1 of my 2 kegs. Reasons why it's good:

Highly modified base malt isn't prone to off flavours, contributes a good amount of flavour and body and is suitable for no chill.
2-3 weeks from grain to glass.
Nicely balanced and low abv so great for session drinking, quick consumption keeps hops fresher between batches.
Economic on hops - no change in IBU if you no chill.
Easily stands up to craft brands like Brewdog, Cloud water, beavertown, etc.

Recipe here:

Vitals:
1.038 OG - 1.008 FG (approx 3.6%-4% abv)
27 IBU
Light Gold colour (around 8 EBC when brewed)

3.5kg Vienna Malt (or Maris Otter)
200g Carapils

1 pack US-05 yeast (or similar American ale yeast)

30g Magnum 8.2% @ 60 mins (27 ibus)

100g - 200g US/NZ/AUS Hop pellets when fermentation subsides - 5 day dry Hop, then transfer to keg with a siphon with filter attached.

You can use more or less any bittering hop, just use this calculation to get the Ibus right:

30 / (aa% of new Hop) X 8.2

Don't worry about the hop haze, flavour difference is minimal.

Last night I bought a 3% IPA from Northern Monk. This is really unlike me as I tend to drink 5%+ even on session times!

I was expecting very little but I was very pleasantly surprised. I always thought low ABV beers would suck and have no personality but I think last night changed my mind.

I'm only a small guy so prefer to drink even sub 4% if possible. As long as attenuation can be controlled by the brewery there's no reason a beer can't taste the same as a higher abv beer. Low attenuating yeasts are great for that, although less economic on malt vs abv, but we don't care about that :d

Last night I bought a 3% IPA from Northern Monk. This is really unlike me as I tend to drink 5%+ even on session times!

I was expecting very little but I was very pleasantly surprised. I always thought low ABV beers would suck and have no personality but I think last night changed my mind.

My 70 Shilling was only 3.5% but had good body and flavour - very sessionable. It changed my mind about low ABV beers. That was a 70C mash.

My house New World hopped ale is similar to this but the last batch I no chilled 15 litres of it in one cube then 5 litres in a smaller cube along with 50g of Mosaic. Another 50g went into dry hop. 1.042, that was a great beer. Do you find this is missing anything because it's just the dry hop and no late hops, Rob?

Does it taste/smell of anything else other than hops ?

It's a perfectly nice modern beer, doesn't lack in flavour or aroman at all. At 100g dry hop it's quite balanced and depends on the intensity of the hop you're using.

sounds like a nice beer. my house apa is similar but i add diubke the crystal to zombie dust it up more and im on my second sack of Minch malt. which needs a few kettle fineings as it produces a murky wort. I only use 50g of pellet hops but dont use a hop bag..do you ?

Naw, just lob them in then attach a fine filter to the syphon on racking. I'm not keen on hops bags as I like the pellets to break up and have free movement in the beer. Cold crashing them out is another method but I don't have the cooling to do that

Sack of Vienna malt arrived yesterday, dpd left it outside in snow which was dumb as I was in. Half a kg of Magnum and same of Amarillo also received so I'm planning a few iterations of this recipie. Might start with a lager yeast cos it's so cold outside and I like to live dangerously.

Mash temp ? The centre of my mash tun is around 65 after an hour and the edges at 62 using my normal approach ..... 67 strike and a few blankets..70 is mentioned above. Sounds sweet.

70 mash will only push the FG up a few points, I routinely brew with us-05 and get 78-80% attenuation out.

Brew is on; 3.5k Vienna, 0.25 Carapils, treated water, 37g 5% EKG at 60 (I thought it was cascade), 1/2 Whirlfloc at 15(work of the devil). 20 litres approx, swamp cooled to 'quite warm', 2 tsp dry Saf 05. Off to a good start. Lets see what happens.

Good luck! What you dry hopping with? My latest was Chinook and Hallertau Blanc.

Amarillo.

Would a60 min boil suffice for this? I usually boil for 90 mins. Bit of a late start today so trying to save some time. Bittering with Bravo and 100g dry hop of Galaxy.

Cheers
B

For sure. Drinking one tonight, very nice!

Drinking one and likeing the smoothness of the malt, 150g of Amarillo pellets doesn't seem enough but I only left them on the hops a couple of days

Yeah that'll be it, you probably need a week.

Maybe but I read Peter Wolfe's thesis on dry hopping, he is big in ABinBev now, he says a day is fine. However I think a few more are required.

What do ABInbev know about dry hopping! Haha. Most of the brands they own have never seen a hop in their life.
Honestly though he's probably referring to a recirc/hop cannon type thing where good dry hopping can be achieved within hours. Sitting and letting the beer stew is a really easy but time consuming method.

Well it was his thesis before he joined that circus and in the details he said it was constantly stirred...so yeah I probably should have left it longer.

BATCH 2 is on same as before but Golden promise instead of Vienna and Admiral at 60. Has been 2 days on 100 g Amarillo and 50g of Admiral...the later cos so fresh and yum looking .

I'm wondering if this brew needs some hot side fancy hops....or longer on the dry ones.

Batch 3,
3.5K Vienna .025k Chateau Cara Claire 5 ebc, 1.5 hours mash strike in at 75C all treated, out at 65C 2 batch sparge. 15g 10% Centennial at 60, whirlfloc at 15 and another 35g Cent at flameout. Saf05. 100g Amarillo pellets dry for a week. It been in bottles for 10 days now, dropped bright, pours a bit cloudy. Its a lovely beer, there is a smoothness from the Vienna that I really appreciate and there is no heavy use of cara or crystal to get in the way of its flavour. Its quite dry which works well. The Amarillo comes across as aromatic elegant and restrained. Plently strong enough for me but didnt measure it. Best one yet.

I've been brewing variations of this all summer. By variations I mean different mash and boil times, trying to see if 15 mins less in the boil or in the tun makes a difference. Frankly I'm not seeing clean correlations but I'm now totally in love with vienna malt I used abbey malt instead of cara pils on some of the brews, it darkenend the brew and brought a wonderful malt backbone to the table. For hops I've been slowly working down to 0.5 grams per litre of Magnum pellets in the boil as a minimum. This quantity works in my system with out need of spiders or bazooka it's lost in the hot break. For dry I've also just been dumping pellets in the fv, 5 to 7 grams a liter, for 5 days, mosaic works really well as does simcoe and citrate. I get more bottles filled by using pellets as cones act like sponges.

70 mash will only push the FG up a few points, I routinely brew with us-05 and get 78-80% attenuation out.

The usual 7 % beers in my house are wreaking havoc on my waistline so I am going to have a play with this one. What is your mash temp please Rob?