11-20-16 IPA

I've cut back on drinking lately, so my beer hangs around longer. I brewed this beer on Nov. 20 and kegged it Dec. 11. The keg is mostly full, owing to drinking the veterans day ipa first, and to the fact that this one is a bit harsh.

I was going for the New England style. I'd say I nailed the appearance. It's certainly hazy, but not murky.

Low to medium-low aroma.

Flavor is generic fruit. Grapefruit. Orange juice. Where do these beer reviewers come up with all these specific terms? Mango, papaya, and what not. Most of the time they taste like some sort of unidentifiable fruit. Or grapefruit. As does this one.

Upfront this beer tastes fine. But the aftertaste is where it fails. As usual, I dry-hopped this beer in the keg, using a paint bag suspended with unflavored dental floss.

I had difficulty carbonating the beer. I set the PSI at 30 or 35 for a day or two and the beer simply would not carbonate. I have no idea why. Ultimately I decided to use the shake method. Unfortunately, when I did that, the hops leaked out of the bag. So now, the beer has bits of hops in it. And I think the hops are contributing the harsh character to the beer. Before I kegged it, I sampled it, and it was well balanced. Not overly bitter. Good fruity flavor. Nice maltiness. But now it's slightly harsh. I've never had this issue with harshness for prior keg-dry-hopped beers.

Anyhow, going forward, I'll be cautious about dry hopping.

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/11-20-16-ipa

Veterans Day (Galaxy & Citra) IPA

Coming off about seven months of lagers, I was ready for an IPA again. I felt inspired after trying some IPAs at Narrow Gauge in Florissant, MO. I've read a lot about the northeast style ipa (NEIPA), but I had never tried a real one, and still have never had one from the actual northeast.

But, again, I've read a lot of the research, so I felt like I knew enough to brew one myself (and this actually wasn't my first attempt). 

For this beer, I went with Wyeast 1318, oats, wheat, and galaxy and citra hops. The result is certainly hazy.

The keg just kicked today, and for a three-month old beer, it has held up amazingly well. Perhaps because I dry-hop in the keg and don't remove the hops. Which might also be my downfall for this and the beer just after this one.

As I recall, I used the shake method to carbonate this keg at least once. I guess that wasn't enough, because I know I set the PSI at about 30-35 for 24 hours just before Thanksgiving, which got the carbonation to the level I wanted. But anyway, the shaking somehow allowed a lot of hop matter to get out of the mash paint bag I use to dry hop.

The result is a somewhat harsh beer, and a lot of tiny hop pieces visible in the beer.

It tastes pretty solid though, if a tough astringent from all those hops. Galaxy dominates; maybe citra just a tad in the background? 

Pretty strong aroma.

Low clarity, as seen in the above picture, but that was taken a week or two ago, and the beer had cleared up substantially as of today. 

Brewed: 11/11/2016

Kegged: 11/20/2016

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/veterans-day-ipa-116ccc