25-10-08: Hopmongrel (IPA)

[spearmint-wino]

This was today's effort with sneaky style change and a tweak on yesterday's recipe as I had more fuggles than I thought.

Hopmongrel
8-C Extra Special/Strong Bitter (English Pale Ale)
23l

Original Gravity: 1.056
Est. Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Alcohol: 5.6% ABV
Bitterness: 41.3 IBU

Ingredients:
5500 g Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
250 g Dark Crystal Malt I
250 g Wheat Malt
50 g Fuggle (5%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
10 g Challenger (6.1%) - added during boil, boiled 45 min
25 g East Kent Goldings (4.2%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
25 g Challenger (6.1%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
30 g East Kent Goldings (4.2%) - steeped after boil

Need to do some system tuning as I had 23l in the kettle at the end of the boil, but only got 19l in the fermenter. With topping up to make target gravity that made it a more respectable 22l but still, 2l of beer sitting in the hop soup could be 2l of beer in my corni! Still, nice to fit a rare brewday in - don't seem to get that chance to brew all that much anymore

[oblivious]

Looks like a nice solid strong bitter, what yeast did you use

[edit1now]

Hop soup?

[spearmint-wino]

Looks like a nice solid strong bitter, what yeast did you use

I used Nottingham, and mashed at 67°c to keep a bit of sweetness. Unfortunately I didn't have a yeast with a little more character on hand

[prodigal2]

Looks like a nice solid strong bitter, what yeast did you use

I used Nottingham, and mashed at 67°c to keep a bit of sweetness. Unfortunately I didn't have a yeast with a little more character on hand

I think Nottingham will allow the hops to read well, and I imagine there will be enough residual maltyness.

I hope you will be stashing a couple of bottles to one side for the January LAB meet, it would be interesting to see how all those hops work together.

P2

[spearmint-wino]

There will no doubt be some around for a Jan tasting at LAB, although tbh, as most of the hops will only have an effect in a bittering capacity it will probably end up as a strong Challenger/EKG bitter. . We'll see. So you're going to make it along to Jan LAB then? Yay!

[spearmint-wino]

OK, first pint(s) tonight, thought I'd feed back. The fact it has taken several attempts to type this much indicates good things. Thank god for spell-check

Really good hop flavour - lots going on, really quite complex but nothing overly dominant. Sweet malt in the mouth with buckets of hop flavour and a clean but pretty firm bitterness. I quite like it this way, it might mellow just a little if I left it a few weeks longer but stuff it, its an IPA, its christmas and I'm gonna drink it . Even if the thread title originally had it as an ESB . Not sweet enough...

[pokerswazi]

sounds nice... and strong. i like your attitude to crimbo and drinking, my IPA should have more time but i'm gonna start drinking it next week too. all the family will be here so all my beer is gonna get drunk. cheers