Review of a smokey IPA

[gibbiem]

Areet!

Wanted to put a post on about this brew. Its one I mentioned on here and the advice was not to brew it haha! or change the hops. I wanted to do something like a porter, something smokey and use the big fruity hops! As I'm a complete rebel I ignored the advice and brewed it anyway haha! Here is the recipe:

Smokey Cenntenial IPA
American IPA (14 B)Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 25.000 l
Boil Size: 32.500 l
Boil Time: 90 min
End of Boil Vol: 25.000 l
Final Bottling Vol: 23.000 l
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage
Date: 12 Jul 2013
Brewer: Gibbiem
Asst Brewer:
Equipment: 90 minute boil

Mash Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU

5.200 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 72.5 %
0.500 kg Smoked Malt (17.7 EBC) Grain 2 7.0 %
0.420 kg Oats, Flaked (2.0 EBC) Grain 3 5.9 %
0.400 kg Dark Crystal Malt (240.0 EBC) Grain 4 5.6 %
0.350 kg Carafa II (811.6 EBC) Grain 5 4.9 %
0.300 kg Chocolate Malt (886.5 EBC) Grain 6 4.2 %

Hops

50.000 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 7 50.2 IBUs
45.000 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 22.8 IBUs
30.000 g Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 9 1.3 IBUs

1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04)

Target: 1.064 SG

First thing I want to say is that this is probably the best beer I've made to date! its exactly what I was after and it has a feel of Mikellers breakfast porter. Its well balanced, its bitter and sweet, it has a slight smokey undertone, its like a really good 70%+ chocolate! It's been in FV nearly two weeks and its at 1010. Dont really want it to go much lower (started life at 1050). Really glad I did rebel on this one and would say to anyone who is after a big American style dark beer/porter style, give this a go! Will report back once bottled and conditioned

[barry44]

sounds good mate, ill be looking forward to hearing how it turns out.

[Rookie]

Looks like a real good recipe to me, but isn't it a bit dark for an IPA? Or did you mean it's a black IPA? I prefer the term Cascadian dark.

[gibbiem]

Yeah it's more of a porter. It started off as an IPA then it got Smokey and then it got black ha ha

[seymour]

Sounds awesome, mate. Way to stick to your guns!

[gibbiem]

Cheers Seymour. It's tasting pretty decent now. Is the first dark porter style I've brewed and quite impressed