Krazy Kiwi IPA

[Dr.Evil]

Giving this a crack tomorrow:
AG#14: Krazy Kiwi IPA
All New Zealand hops

Brew length: approx 45L
7850kg Pale Malt, Marris Otter (from Warminster)
150g Torrified wheat
20L Mash liquor

Hot Liquor temp: 73ºC
Mash temp: 66ºC
Mash time: 90 mins


Boil time: 90 mins
500g white sugar
1 teaspoon of Gypsum

Hops :
50g Green Bullet, 13.7% AA (Brupaks 2009) at start of boil
50g Cascade (NZ) 7.6% AA (Brupaks 2009) + 50g Motueka 7.2% AA (Brupaks 2009) at 15 mins before end of boil
25g Cascade (NZ) 7.6% AA (Brupaks 2009) + 25g Motueka 7.2% AA (Brupaks 2009) on cooldown (steep 80C for 10 mins)
25g Cascade (NZ) 7.6% AA (Brupaks 2009) + 25g Motueka 7.2% AA (Brupaks 2009) dryhopped in FV at end of primary fermentation. Leave for two weeks before bottling.


Protafloc last 15 mins of boil
Aiming for OG 1060
Yeast: Danstar Nottingham x2 (hydrated)

[DarloDave]

That sounds lovely

[WishboneBrewery]

Thats a hefty hopped beer, one to bottle and forget for a while?

[Dr.Evil]

Thats a hefty hopped beer, one to bottle and forget for a while?

Yep, a pretty hefty 60 EBU according to Beer Engine. I'm quite a hop-head and enjoy a full-on American style IPA. Hopefully this won't be too OTT for the style. Agreed it will definitely benefit from a minimum couple of months in the bottles, I just hope I have the necessary self-control

[Dr.Evil]

The Motueka smell unbelievably good Kind of like spiced candied limes.

[DarloDave]

As soon as it dropped clear i'd be on to that, no aging

[Whorst]

I'm with you Borodave, drink it when it drops bright.

[adm]

Awesome - I'd be on it like a tramp on a hot dog.....but I'd also save some bottles for the long term test too.

[Dr.Evil]

Added the dry-hops today and noticed a distinct cheese aroma amongst the hoppy citrus smell from the FV. A bit of a surprise, hope it sorts itself out

[pantsmachine]

I had that once. For me it was a combination of Aurora hops and S04 yeast i think. Stopped using S04 after that and switched to nottingham and windsor. Now US05 is my main yeast. Not putting a downer on you or anything but in may case the cheese smell stayed. I binned the lot bar 2 bottles which i kept for a year and then tried and it was still there. Hope yours disappears as it reads like a damn good beer.

[Dr.Evil]

Good news! This has been in bottles for a fortnight now and has dropped bright. Time to try! The strange hint of cheesyness has gone away to leave a nice citrussy IPA with cascade freshness and notes of lime pickle. Bitter, but not excessively so even this young. Very happy! I think this brew would go very well with curry. Not sure how much of it is going to make it to maturity.

[Barley Water]

Well, I will reiterate what Whorst posted. If you want the full on American IPA experience, do as the Americans do and drink it fresh. Of course, I can tell by your tasting notes that you have already discovered what we know over here, it's great fresh. I rather doubt that beer is long for this world.

I had a very interesting experience at a really large contest over here last week concerning American IPA's. I entered a clone of Dogfish Head 60 which is an American IPA (in fact, it is one of the commericial examples cited in the BJCP style guidelines for that style). The beer had an O.G. of around 1.062 or so and a calculated bitterness of 60 IBUs. The beer is hop bursted with a combination of Warrior, Simcoe and Amarillo hops and it is also dry hopped with Amarillo and Simcoe. The beer had very big hop flavor and aroma as you would expect however it really didn't come off as that bitter since there was no hop astringency at all (which is why I liked it in the first place). Anyhow, the score sheets came back with comments about the beer not being bitter enough. At 60 IBU's, it was squarely in the bitterness ballpark for the style. One of the judges basicly said I should have been entered it as an APA. Apparently, if you want to do well in a contest over here, you'd best bitter your American IPA's like an Imperial IPA (it other words, it needs to be so bitter that it will take paint off the side of a barn). Frankly, after I tasted it, I pretty much knew that was coming but my point is that if you want the "American Hop Experience", it needs to be really bitter, reak of hops and have a gigantic hop flavor and oh yeah, it needs to be fresh to accentuate all of that. By the way, it doesn't hurt if you have little pieces of hops between your teeth after drinking an authentic example.

[Dr.Evil]

Yep, I tried Dogfish Head 60 whilst in the States last summer. Very nice indeed. Agreed that bitterness is good, but it is possible to have too much of a good thing. The guys I was with suggested I try something super-hoppy at a bar one night. I cant remember the name unfortunately, I think its was some kind of imperial IPA. It really wasn't that great IMO. It was really astringently bitter, with a flavour like I imagine pine-scented toilet cleaner probably tastes like!

What is the correct serving temperature for the A-IPA style? Trying to decide whether I should put the bottles in my 12ºC ale fridge or my normal 3-4ºC fridge before serving.

[pantsmachine]

Excellent, glad it turned out well for you.

[Barley Water]

Dr. Evil, I'm with you. At some point some of this stuff just gets way too much for me also. In our beer club, we have alot of folks who really get into that over the top stuff (Pliney the Elder, Stone Arrogant Bastard etc). I swear after sipping some of those beers, your teeth get infused with hops and you can still detect the aftertaste for about a week. Occasionally, I have a hankering for something with some hop but I never go as far as the imperial IPA's, I guess I'm just a wimp. By the way, most places around here serve the stuff a little too cold, around 45F or so. I thinks its better just a little warmer maybe 50F or so.

There are a couple of trends I am noticing over here in the land of the excess besides just the super highly hopped beers. One is the use of wild yeasts, I guess you would call them Belgian inspired brews. The other is wood aging, sometimes combined with the wild yeast. There is this event called "Dark Lord day" which is the yearly sale of Dark Lord which I think is a wood aged imperial stout (yet another over the top beer). To get some of this stuff, you need to prepurchase a "golden ticket", it kind of reminds me of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate factory. I know guys who stayed up all night just so they could get the maximum number of golden tickets. Anyhow, on the day this stuff is released, all the beer nerds travel to Cincinatti and pick up their allotment (it's like the haj) and I understand that they sell completely out in that one day. Anyhow, I bring all this up so you guys over there can see how crazy some of us Yankees are about the so called extreme craft beers.