American Hops, American IPA

I really started my serious brewing last year in the midst of a 500 year hop shortage. As such, I felt like it was a little odd to try brewing an India Pale Ale, because hops were in short supply, and really expensive.

I ordered some some supercharged American hop varietals recently from Freshops, and it seemed like it was time to let loose with a hop bomb.

IPA-

Fermentables-
Marris Otter- 7 pounds
Two row Pale Malt- 2 pounds
Flaked Barley- 8 ounces
Crystal 40- 8 ounces
Victory Malt- 8 ounces

Hops-
Chinook- .5 ounces- 60 minutes
Simcoe- 1 ounce- 15 minutes
Simcoe- .75 ounces- 5 minutes
Simcoe- 1 ounce- Dry hopping in the secondary

Yeast-
Wyeast 1056- American Ale yeast- 1200 mL starter- pitched right off the stir plate

Mash-
153/167 mash out- hot water infusion

Gravity- Target/Actual/Final/ABV
1.058/1.057/1.015/5.51%

I had written this recipe up last week, but I completely changed it around after a conversation with Ted about using hops which blew my beady little brain as to how I use hops. The Chinook hops are a classic American IPA hop. The Simcoe hops instantly became my favorite variety when I popped open the bag. They smelled so fresh and fruity, almost with peach undertones. The grain bill is a larger sized version of what I made a few weeks ago for a pale ale. I added some Victory malt to give the beer a bit more malt flavor. I've been reading a lot of Randy Mosher lately, and he's an advocate of getting most of your color from the base malts for the Pale Ale family, so Marris Otter is the backbone of this one.

As far as brewing goes, I could not have asked for a better day to make beer. The weather was absolutely beautiful, and I was able to finish cleanup right before the rain started. Great day, and hopefully a great beer.

Coming up are my favorites to brew: Belgian beers. I'm so excited to be getting back into the Dubbels, Saisons, and start using the crazy expressive Belgian yeasts.