IPA - Your thoughts please

[J_P]

Friday evening saw me sampling a pint of IPA. It got me wondering why anyone would want to brew IPA in this day and age. Hear me out on this one.

I understand the historical reasoning behind the style. I was just wondering why you would hop a brew to hell and back and then leave it 12 months to allow the bitterness to fade? What does this add to a brew that you can't achieve by using a lesser quantity of hops and leaving it six weeks to mature as you would any other brew?

This could be the scribblings of a beery heathen but I'm not sure I see any point to it unless of you're after drinking a beer true to original style. What are your collective thoughts?

[Seveneer]

How old was the IPA you tried?

If it was an old (12 month plus) IPA and you didn't like it then maybe it's just not your bag. Personally, I love the complexity of the hops that comes form this kind of beer.

That said, I am also very fond of my IPA when it's fresh. The bitterness is extreme as is the aroma and flavour. I just love those hops

/Phil.

[J_P]

It was a commercially available Golden Pipin IPA so I doubt it is anything like how a real IPA would taste. Probably due to what I've heard SteveD refer to as "accountant brewers"

When the bitterness fades do you have an aroma that is proportional to the bitterness or does this fade too? What kind of OG:IBU ratio would you consider puts a beer into the IPA category?

I must admit to toying with the idea of brewing one up and leaving it for a year however if all it's going to do is get me shedded after two pints whilst simultaneously nuking my taste buds then I may as well drink meths

[David Edge]

The difference is pronounced. James McCrorie's examples of mature IPA compare to simpler examples much as a £15 bottle of wine compares to one at £3.

The CBA's champion brewer in 2005 won with such a beer; the recipe for "Goodbye Mr Braincell" is on the website under "strong bitter".

http://craftbrewing.org.uk/recipes/

[J_P]

James McCrorie's examples of mature IPA compare to simpler examples much as a £15 bottle of wine compares to one at £3.

I see, so metaphorically speaking it's be like eating prime sirloin when all you've been used to is beef burgers . I may have to drag the brewery out of the shed tomorrow and brew up a small batch and stick it away until next autumn, at least that way I'll know what all the fuss is about.

Looking at Ralf's recipe it would appear that a good IPA needs to have an OG of around 1070 and an IBU level over 100 and be left for 12 months to mature? I hope with 12 months build up the resultant brew is worth it

[David Edge]

I hope with 12 months build up the resultant brew is worth it

It will test your sanitation! If you don't anyway you probably want to pitch two sachets of yeast at this gravity (unless you do a small batch). You can also sample it slowly as it matures better to see the changes.

[David Edge]

It was a commercially available Golden Pipin IPA so I doubt it is anything like how a real IPA would taste. Probably due to what I've heard SteveD refer to as "accountant brewers"

Steve's not being fair. A good workman never blames his tools and I'm sure he wouldn't blame a bum note on the strings. You can't blame the accountant any more than you'd blame an error in a spreadsheet or a dirty cask for ruining the beer. It's the brewery manager's job to use the tools appropriately - to audit the calculations, the cleanliness of the casks. A brewery management does what the owners - the pension funds that lend them our money to play with - tell them. If they can make 15% lending the money to someone in Taiwan and 5% lending it to someone in Yorkshire then there will be no breweries other than those funded by workers' cooperatives. Perhaps no bad thing, but when did you last go into the bank and complain that the returns on your savings were too high?

Copper Dragon is an intertesting brewery. It was set up by Steve Taylor, founder of the Northern Craft Brewers after he won a homebrew competition. As he makes a good living from his day job - making aircraft components for Rolls Royce - he still treats it more as a hobby and does not draw an income from it - although he presumably has to service the capital. He did create a professional brewery though with high-quality plant from Austria and in a very few short years expanded from five to twenty to a hundred barrels. He employs two master brewers who used to work for Websters of Halifax.

One or two adventurous brewers can afford to tie up capital in long maturing beers. The example that springs to mind is Thornbridge who recently put some imperial stout into whisky barrels. The price was £12 for 3x375ml bottles - worth every penny in my opinion. But Thornbridge is also a sideline for somebody of substantial private means. No shareholder to service apart from SWMBO!

I'm reminded of the definition of an engineer - someone who can do for half a crown what any fool can do for a guinea. I think the master brewer's relationship to the hobbyist is similar. Anyway - get down the pub tonight and try and convince each of the locals to lend you £1000 each to set up a brewery. Promise them a return of 3% compound, first dividend payable in five years. And tell 'em the beer will cost £4 per pint. They'll love you.

cheers!

[dartgod]

Looking at Ralf's recipe it would appear that a good IPA needs to have an OG of around 1070 and an IBU level over 100 and be left for 12 months to mature? I hope with 12 months build up the resultant brew is worth it

I just got the book India Pale Ale by Roger Prost and Clive Le Pensee and reading through the recipes that are in it (historical scaled to homebrew versions) they are all made with only Pale Malt and have hopping rates of anywhere from about 165g to 500g (usually Goldings) per 5 gallon batch.....It also calls for most of them to be aged at least 8-12 months.....I'll probably brew one up here in a month or two for next year myself.........OG's were all over the place from 1.055 to 1.130....still ought to be an interesting experiment......

[J_P]

Steve's not being fair.

Eek Sorry, I'm not wanting to put words in Steves mouth here, especially when he's not around to put me right. I was merely referring to a post he did back in June where he brewed his "bog standard bitter" I seem to remember it was stronger than usual and I believe he made a comment stating that it would have been bog standard bitter 100 years ago but not now.

Re Thornbridge brewery, were they the brewers who made "Jaipur" IPA? That was a really nice pint with bags of grapefruit flavour iirc, a top IPA well worth trying to imitate. Perhaps I've just shot myself in the foot there and answered my own question, that'll teach me to play devils advocate with folks more knowledgeable than myself

[delboy]

Had some of that golden pippin at the beer festival at the weekend, i could hardly finish the half i got, from what i gather its a reasonably highly regarded beer and it must just have been a rogue cask or had been mishandled.

[David Edge]

it would have been bog standard bitter 100 years ago but not now.

Oh don't panic! But as for 100 years ago you have not accountants but Lloyd George and the Defence of the Realm Act to thank for the collapse of ale strength from 7% to 3% around 1914. However his teetotal moralising was also the making of the Scotch malt whisky industry, so a silver lining there.

Jaipur is indeed brewed at Thornbridge. They had to stop brewing it for a while because they'd used all of the hops from the last harvest. Can't remember the variety. Glad you mentioned grapefruit - I asked Brupaks to do a batch of NZ Nelson Sauvin which is grapefruity - and Clive said he expected them at the end of the month. Must see if they're in.

[subsub]

I've had a corni of IPA in the loft for 16 months now and it's still not ready. I reckon about another 6 months or so before I drink it proper. By that time it'll be a shame to drink it, but as I enjoy the complexity of the hop taste it'll be worth the wait

[mysterio]

It was a commercially available Golden Pipin IPA so I doubt it is anything like how a real IPA would taste. Probably due to what I've heard SteveD refer to as "accountant brewers"

When the bitterness fades do you have an aroma that is proportional to the bitterness or does this fade too? What kind of OG:IBU ratio would you consider puts a beer into the IPA category?

I must admit to toying with the idea of brewing one up and leaving it for a year however if all it's going to do is get me shedded after two pints whilst simultaneously nuking my taste buds then I may as well drink meths

Ray Daniels says the BU:GU ratio should be 1. So 70 IBUs in a 1.070 beer. Of course this information is fairly useless if you're ageing the beer for an extended period because the BUs drop something like half over 6 months.

I've been doing my IPA with all MO to 1.070 and and a fairly long boil to get some caramalisation. Then I put all Goldings in at 15 minutes, enough for 70 IBUs (a lot of Goldings). Nottingham yeast, aged for a month or two. You really get an amazing Goldings flavour/aroma this way, however it can cause troubles with my hop strainer due to the sheer bulk.

[steve_flack]

I asked Brupaks to do a batch of NZ Nelson Sauvin which is grapefruity - and Clive said he expected them at the end of the month. Must see if they're in.

If he doesn't then Ross at Craftbrewer is Australia has them in both flower and pellet form. A pound of the flowers is $26 AUD+ Postage - he also does 90g pack sizes. Apparently he can send 500g to the UK for $12.50AUD.

The Aussie dollar is worth about 42p last time I looked.

Link

[SteveD]

I must admit to toying with the idea of brewing one up and leaving it for a year however if all it's going to do is get me shedded after two pints whilst simultaneously nuking my taste buds then I may as well drink meths

Except.....it tastes a hell of a lot better than meths.