Duck Island IPA

[arturobandini]

Been awhile but finally have some time to knock a brew together. It's essentially a Goose Island IPA cloneish but not close enough I would imagine as I largely flew by the seat of my pants in creating it. The name is part homage to the most hilarious of MP expenses claims and partly because it may turn out to be a Lame Duck. I took inspiration from a number of recipes flying around and from the Goose Island Website.

OG 1.064
FG 1.012
60 IBU
ABV 6.7%

05.10 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 91.9 %
00.45 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (118.2 EBC) Grain 8.1 %
22.00 gm Centennial [11.50%] (60 min) Hops 23.0 IBU
18.00 gm Centennial [11.50%] (45 min) Hops 17.3 IBU
15.00 gm Centennial [11.50%] (10 min) Hops 5.7 IBU
40.00 gm Fuggles [3.80%] (10 min) Hops 5.0 IBU
19.00 gm Cascade [6.00%] (10 min) Hops 3.8 IBU
12.00 gm Cascade [5.50%] (15 min) Hops 3.0 IBU
11.60 gm Fuggles [3.80%] (15 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
30.00 gm Centennial [11.50%] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
30.00 gm Styrian Goldings [4.50%] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
01.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min)

I've just done the dry hopping this morning and it looks insanely leafy in the FV. I have only ever dry hopped English Ales really and the amount I used was pretty conservative; something like a slack handful. Unsure of whether I should just leave the big pile of hops to soak in or give them a bit of a stir with a sanitised paddle? Also, would it be useful to scoop most of the herbage off before I siphon for bottling on Wednesday?

I probably could've diluted this a little before fermentation but it just felt wrong to miss out on a nice high gravity.

[Garth]

sounbs very good Arturo, I'm so into beers like this at the moment.

[simco999]

Holy hop bomb Batman.

[monkeyboy]

I'd be interested to find out how close this gets - please report back in once it's done. I had a bottle of Goose Island IPA a little while ago and thought it was one of the most amazing beers i'd ever had.

[arturobandini]

Cheers Guys.

I think I missed some Styrians in the last 10 minutes of the boil so will wait to see what affect that has. I can't wait to bottle it and get it maturing so I can get some down around Christmas time. I've not done much brewing in the last week but I've been belting out the winter brews lately for a saturated yuletide. I gave myself a budget to brew enough beer to take me through Christmas and into the spring. This is my 5th brew out of six and I'm bottling all but one; the ESB I've just set on to boil!

Garth, I love these beers as well and I'm a big enough man to admit I was totally wrong about American beers. When everyone was w@nking on about all these American Hops I was firmly in the 'Why do I want my beer to taste like a Delmonte fruit salad?' camp. It was the opinion of the uninformed but I was relatively new to drinking any beer other than Lager at the time. It was a bottle of Brooklyn Lager that turned my head and I never looked back.

That said, I do think these are more spring/summer beers and that is why I only allowed myself one hoppy beer out of my Winter selection. The other brews were Hobgoblin, Theakstons Old Peculier, Batemans Salem Porter, Fullers ESB and Guinness.

[greenxpaddy]

Had a bottle of this last night. At first I thought there was elderflower in it until its clear on the label its only hops. Wow is all I can say - not had flavours like that in a UK ale. Think I better earmark this one for AG#7.

Not dry hopped yet. Will they all settle out or better I use a sterilised hop bag?

Cheers

[WishboneBrewery]

Use a Sterilised hop bag weighted with something equally sterilised