Monday, February 18, 2013

Charger's session iPA



This is my second version of a session IPA or an iPA, named after my french bulldog Charger. He is older now, but this high flavor, high hopped, low alcohol IPA fits him perfectly. I really want a beer that I can a number of at night after work and not feel the effects of. I essentially just lowered my basic IPA recipe malt bill, and added as many hops as I would in a stronger Pale Ale or a smaller IPA. The last version was bitterer with Warrior and then Hopped with Nelson at 10 minute intervals the last 20 minutes of the boil. I also dry hopped the original with Nelson. The beer got some good feedback at a homebrew club meeting, but some said to call it an IPA it needed to be more bitter. I don't normally like IPAs that are too bitter, I enjoy the late hops that give aroma and flavor, but I guess that their opinions have some merit. For this version I kept the alt bill the same, but for the hops I wanted a slightly different hop profile. I really wanted a more tropical and citrus profile. I bitterer with Falconer's Flight to get a tropical and citrus background, with enough bitterness to call it an iPA. I then used a blend of Motueka, Rakau, and Amarillo at 20 and 10. The Motueka gives citrus notes of lemon and lime with a tropical fruit aspect as well. The Rakua gives more tropical fruit (this hop smelled fabulous when I opened the bag) especially passionfruit, and possible peach. I may use the Rakua as a single hop for my net 100% Brett beer. I used the Amarillo in these two add-ons to add some orange/citrus to round out the fruity profile. The last addition was just 50/50 Motueka and Rakua. I also plan on dry hopping this beer with these hops.

Recipe: US 2-Row, Honey Malt, White Wheat, Hops (see above), US-S05.

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