IPA - India Pale Ale

So it's been a while since I've brewed anything as hoppy as an IPA, I'd have to dig through my archives but without doing that I can safely say that it's been at least one year since I've brewed an IPA, and in all reality probably more like 3 years.

Having said that I will say that I've really been enjoying the hoppier beers lately, which is probably due to 2 factors:

1) It's summer time..and hoppy beers are awesome when it's hot.
2) It's been around 2 or 3 years since I've OD'd my taste buds on IBU's...I can remember a time when I pursued the highest IBU beers on earth (but what home brewer/American beer geek has not right?) and those taste buds just may have grown back..who knew?

Anyhow I really wanted to brew an IPA because of my recent tastes as well as an excess of Cascade hops I had to use..I kinda stocked up last year during the "hop shortage" and saved them for a rainy day...as you can see from the pictures today was in fact a rainy day...so don't flame me for hording hops eh?


Pretty straightforward recipe, mostly 2 row with some German Vienna and crystal malt (medium and dark). The greatest factor in this recipe is the 3oz's of cascade hops I used. Like I said above it's been one hell of a long time since I've used anything north of 2oz in any given beer..and by doing this brew I quickly remembered how much of my precious beer is occupied by all those hops (3oz..Christ what was I thinking?). I wanted this brew to be drinkable in time for my buddies wedding so I didn't go overboard on the bittering hops but I did push the limits with the flavor and aroma hops. Don't get me wrong..I think this will be a delicious beer but honestly you need to brew a 10 gallon batch to get any mileage out of a batch like this since it will arrive around 5.2% ABV (not meant for any great amount of time for aging) and after I rack to the secondary I'm expecting to have around 3.8 gallons of beer to put in the keg.



Having said that I'm looking forward to putting this guy on tap. During the summer there are just a handful of beers that I want to have easy access to, and here they are:

-Berliner Weiss (well stocked up on New Glarus Berliner Weiss AND have my own bottled). Drinking on now!
-Pilsner (will be brewing my first within the month of July..so it'll be a late summer brew)
-IPA and/or APA (your reading about it right now)

I'll be sure to post some tasting notes after a bit. For now here is a video (sideways video..this is the dailyikura.com..not some professional brewing website so if you have a laptop turn it on it's side..if you have a desktop...well do the same). This is a short clip of my incredibly hop infused primary and the yeast kicking chunks of hops around the carboy while they do their thing..

Cheers!