Tasting: Hansard's Delight Red IPA

Hansard's Delight was brewed with and for my mate Luke on January 4. It was inspired by Little Creatures' limited run brew called Shepherd's Delight.

The label I made for Luke's embarrassment

Aroma: Pine, sweet fruit, juicy, flowers. Bready malt. Some toffee and roast that complements the hops.
Appearance: Fairly dark but clear, deep red heading towards black. Red highlights. Thick, sticky and slightly off white head.
Flavour: Generous hop flavour, plenty of juicy berry flavours which mingle nicely with the malt. Some herbal flavours going on in there as well. Clean finish. Fairly restrained bitterness. A little bit much sweetness, possibly too much malt.
Mouthfeel: fuller mouthfeel than I'm looking for in an IPA, good low-medium carbonation level, no astringency.

Red like it says on the box

I don't know why it is but Red IPAs or their equivalents seem to be so hot right now in Australia, or at least so hot last year. Two of the best IPA style beers I had last year were Mountain Goat's Fancy Pants Amber Ale and Monster Mash's Hopped Out Red. They were probably the freshest commercial IPAs I've had and I'd love to get my hands on them again. Little Creatures' Shepherd's Delight was also a good showing in the genre although it wasn't quite up to the standards of the first two.

When I was planning the recipe I was uncertain about whether I'd get the red colour I was after and whether the hops would achieve what I wanted, a combination of light fruitiness with a bit of extra bite. Fortunately both those aspects of the beer ended up pretty much exactly as I intended which was a nice confidence boost. It's very approachable with a good, refined hop presence for a first pass at the recipe. As I've mentioned before, getting better at crafting recipes is one of my priorities for this year. It's pleasing to get one close to spot on with the first try. That said, I've got ideas for how to improve it.

If I was only going to make one change, I'd probably turn the malt down a bit. It's nice but there's a bit much malt flavour and at times it can feel a bit overwhelming. Blending the Golden Promise 50:50 with Australian pale malt or something like that. I think I'd also enjoy it a bit more if it was a little more dry, at the least it'd be more drinkable. If I was being really picky about it I think I'd also lighten the colour a little bit and perhaps fiddle with the ratio of Columbus and Centennial in the dry hopping stage. That sounds like a lot of changes but they're still keeping the beer fundamentally the same. The changes are all tweaks to wring the most out of what's already there rather than change too much about it.

Next time: Reduce the malt flavour a bit by shifting to a 50:50 Golden Promise:Australian pale malt blend, dry it out a bit more, slightly lower the Columbus and increase the Centennial in the dry hopping. I'd probably also make it a touch lighter in colour.

Tasting notes: Playoffs Rye IPA

The Playoffs Rye IPA was brewed on December 28 for Jason's birthday BBQ, bottled on January 8. This tasting was on January 23.

OG: 1.062
FG: 1.012
IBU: 65
ABV: 6.6%

Aroma: Pine is the main impression then pineapple, mango, light floral notes, some sweet & creamy malt and a generic fruit aroma that's hard to pin down.
Appearance: Cloudy orange, dense white head that persists.
Flavour: fruity and sweet first up that finishes with some earthy rye flavour, some nice malt and a moderate, balanced (for an IPA) bitterness. A little yeastiness.
Mouthfeel: medium carbonation, probably a bit higher than I'd like it. A little chalky in the finish from the yeast in suspension.

I had high expectations for this beer and beneath the flaws, there's a nice IPA lurking. Unfortunately the cloudiness is a big problem. It harms the appearance firstly which is something I'd like to improve in my beers but much more importantly, it leaves a yeasty flavour and a chalky feeling in my mouth that seriously undermines the whole experience. The only bottles I have of this beer were the ones at the start and end of bottling and I'm not sure if these were particularly cloudy or if the whole batch was like this. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to cold crash the beer to get it reasonably clear. Next time, that's a priority.

The hop aroma and flavour are good but not great. The Columbus is dominant and while I like what it brings to the table, I wanted something more from the combination. This isn't the hop profile I had the first time I brewed it and I suspect it's a matter of seasonal variation.

It does have some things going for it though. The bitterness is well balanced, the malt flavour is great although it could do with some more rye. The hop flavour is pretty good even though it's not quite right. It's a shame that the cloudiness compromised it, this beer should be so much better. If I have the time I'll brew it again for the NBA Playoffs and see if I can get it right then.

Next time: Clear the beer! Gelatine, cold crash, time, whatever. That's the big problem with the beer. I'd also increase the rye to 20%, other than that the colour and malt flavour is great. The hop combination isn't bad, it just doesn't do heaps. I think that's because the Columbus dominated the Citra and Amarillo. Next time I'd probably go for a 1:2:2 or 2:3:3 ratio.

Brewday: Hansard's Delight Red IPA

My friend Luke enjoyed the Shepherd's Delight Red IPA, a Little Creatures Single Batch released sometime in 2013. He has a hunger for hoppy beers and asked me if I could brew a Red IPA. I said 'sure' and whipped up a recipe. That was at least 6 months ago and I never got around to brewing it. So I'm trying to mend my ways with my first brew for 2014.

The idea for this one is a deep red colour leaning towards black. People on the AHB forum recommend a combination of 5% CaraAroma and 1% Roast Barley to achieve a red colour so I went with that and made up the remaining 94% with Golden Promise and some munich malt. This was a chance to focus on presentation both in terms of colour and clarity so I hope it comes out with something that can be legitimately called red, not brown. The results during the brew looked promising.

For hops I went with a modest first wort hop addition and then added a heap of Galaxy and Centennial at the end of the boil for a hit of passionfruit, citrus and floral hops. Then there was another heavy dose of Centennial alongside Columbus for the dry hopping. I went for bitterness on the high end of the IPA scale (it's got an estimated 70 IBUs) to give it a decent bitter kick with the high level of malt flavour.

This was Luke's first experience of the brewing process from start to finish and it was fun to introduce him to the process behind the beer he drinks.

Hansard's Delight Red IPA (21L batch)

Luke very seriously adding the final hops

OG: 1.063 (1.061 measured)
FG: 1.011
IBU: 70 (estimated)
EBC: 34.2
ABV: 6.6%

79% Golden Promise malt
15% Best Malz Munich malt
5% Weyermann CaraAroma
1% Roast Barley

25g Columbus @ FWH min
60g Centennial @ 0 min
40g Galaxy @ 0 min
50g Centennial @ dry hop
50g Columbus @ dry hop

Starter of WLP 090, for an estimated pitch of 300 billion cells

8g CaSO4, 3g CaCl2, 3g MgSO4 went into the mash to get calcium up and raise the sulphate level to enhance the perception of the bitterness. I also added 2.5ml of lactic acid for pH correction.

Stepped mash: 64C (45 minutes), 72C (15 minutes) with a mash out at 78C

90 seconds of O2

04/01/14 - Brewed with Luke

Birthday Brew #3: Playoffs Rye IPA

This is the last of the 7 straight brews for the wedding and birthday! It's been a huge project for me with the planning, preparation during each week, the brewing and bottling. More than that, it's been great sharing the fun of brewing with friends and having their help with the physical side of brewing. I couldn't have done it without them.

The Playoffs Rye IPA had its beginnings in the month before the 2012 NBA playoffs when I realised that I'd need some very American beer to drink while watching basketball. There were some brilliant series along the way with LeBron James and the Miami Heat crushing OKC in the finals. The Playoffs Rye IPA was exactly what I wanted to go along with that. It was by far the best beer I'd brewed to that point and I was crushed when it ran out. I tried to brew it again later in 2012 but due to a couple of ingredient changes that were forced on me it ended up being a big disappointment. This brew is a chance for vindication and will hopefully go nicely with smokey pork ribs and pulled pork.

It's interesting to see how much has changed since I brewed this one the first time. At that stage I was brewing 1/2 size batches on the kitchen stove, I wasn't altering mash pH or water chemistry, I didn't always pitch enough yeast, I didn't have fermentation temperature control or the ability to oxygenate wort. It's great to be able to look back and see the improvements I've been able to make to my process over 18 months or so. The only recipe difference between this version and the first is that I used pilsner malt instead of Golden Promise to keep the malt flavour out of the way of the rye and hops. I debated raising the rye malt percentage to around 20% but in the end I decided to keep it the same as the first time around.

Huw and Will both came around to help me brew this one and it was awesome. They've both been around for several brews and they know the process well enough to be able to manage it on their own and help me to conserve energy. I've reached head brewer status!

Playoffs Rye IPA (21L batch)
OG: 1.062
FG: 1.011 (1.012 measured)
IBU: 65 (estimated)
EBC: 12.1
ABV: 6.7% (6.6% measured)

82% Weyermann Bohemian Pilsner malt
14% Rye malt
4% Caramunich II

20g Columbus @ 60 minutes
30g Columbus @ 0 minutes
30g Citra @ 0 minutes
30g Amarillo @ 0 minutes
40g Columbus @ dry hop
40g Citra @ dry hop
40g Amarillo @ dry hop

Starter of WLP090 with an estimated pitch of 300 billion cells

9g CaSO4, 2g CaCl2, 3g MgSO4 for a sulphate leaning, hop bitterness enhancing brew. Also adjusted the pH with 4ml of lactic acid.

Stepped mash: 62C (45 minutes), 72C (15 minutes) and a 78C mash out

90 seconds of O2 prior to pitching yeast

28/12/13 - Brewed with Huw & Will

05/01/14 - dry hopped with 40g each of Columbus, Citra and Amarillo

08/01/14 - Bottled

Birthday Brew #1: Brewdog Hardcore IPA Clone

For the past 3 years my friend Jason's birthday has been an occasion to gather a bunch of beer loving friends and share some interesting commercial beers. He loves good beer and has been one of my most ardent home brew supporters. This year is his 30th and he's going all out with around 20 people coming to a 2 day event centred on camping out and slow cooking some delicious BBQ.

My part in it has been to brew 3 beers for the event. Jason and I were talking about the possibilities a couple of months ago and it was obvious that hops were going to be a big part of things. Jason wanted a version of a Nelson Sauvin single hop Pale Ale we brewed several times 3 years ago so that was easy. I'd just bought Mitch Steele's IPA book and saw the Brewdog Hardcore IPA recipe. The Hardcore IPA was one of the early Imperial IPAs was available to us and it made a big impression so that seemed like a good choice too. Finally, I'd been itching to brew my Playoffs IPA again so I took the opportunity to add that one to the list. Lots and lots of hops. Unlike the wedding, this birthday is mostly made up of people I know who are relatively educated in craft beer and Jason himself loves the hoppy beer so I didn't feel like I needed to moderate my choices like I did with the wedding.

Part of the challenge of brewing a big and hoppy beer with the BIAB method and using a 40L urn is in planning for and managing the losses. As the planned OG increases, the efficiency of converting and extracting the sugars decreases. I planned for 73% efficiency, down from the 80% which is my normal level, and ended up with 72% so I was pretty close. The good thing is that this information allows me to plan some other big beers with more confidence. Along with reduced efficiency, more hops means more wort losses at the end of the brew with the trub and hop debris left at the bottom of the urn. So factoring all of that in I was aiming for 15.5L of finished beer instead of the 19.5-21.5L I normally get.

In addition to the quantity challenges, I've also found quality a bit lacking in the higher ABV beers I've brewed. They've tended to be good but not great, often suffering from off flavours. I've managed to get off flavours through an inadequate pitch of yeast, high alcohol levels or insufficient O2 stressing the yeast and high fermentation temperatures. I've collected the whole set. So with this one I was trying to do everything I could to make sure the yeast was happy and the fermentation was clean. I oxygenated the wort for 2 minutes, twice what I do for a beer in the 1.050s and I built up a massive pitch of yeast (an estimated 330 billion cells). Everything went quite well and the only problem with it was that it didn't ferment all the way down to the 1.014 I was after. With hindsight, I think I should have picked up some yeast nutrient to give them a little extra love and perhaps mashed lower than the 65C I went with.

Brewdog Hardcore IPA Clone (17L batch)
OG: 1.083 (1.082 measured)
FG: 1.014 (1.020 measured)
IBU: 148
EBC: 21.8
ABV: 9% (8.3% measured)

90% Maris Otter
6.5% Caramalt
3.5% Simpsons light crystal

25g Columbus @ 75 minutes
25g Centennial @ 75 minutes
12g Columbus @ 60 minutes
12g Centennial @ 60 minutes
33g Columbus @ 0 minutes
33g Centennial @ 0 minutes
33g Simcoe @ 0 minutes
50g Columbus @ dry hop

Estimated pitch of 330 billion cells of WLP 090

120 seconds of oxygen

I added 200g acidulated malt to correct the mash pH and added 11g CaSO4, 2g CaCl2, 3g MgSO4 as the recipe said to burtonise the water. I wasn't keen to push the sulphate levels higher than I did although I may test the limits of that another time.

Stepped mash: 65C (45 minutes), 72C (15 minutes) and a 78C mash out.

14/12/13 - Brewed with Huw

24/12/13 - Added 50g Columbus dry hops

28/12/13 - Bottled

Tasting notes

Wedding Beer Catchup #3: The Lorax Pale Ale

Earlier in the year I brewed a beer with my friends Adam and Will. It was a simple extract pale ale with some Weyermann CaraAmber for a bit of interest. It was hopped with Simcoe and Columbus and turned into an easy drinking, 4.6% pale ale with a huge tropical fruit juice flavour and aroma. When Adam asked me to brew for his wedding, this was one of the beers he wanted.

Instead of doing an extract batch, I decided to translate the recipe into all grain. True to form, I ended up playing with the recipe a bit so that the similarity between this recipe and the original is mainly in the hopping. I got some biscuit malt from Bill, a great bloke up in Launceston, who's been malting and roasting barley at home. Crackerjack, his biscuit malt reminds me heaps of Sao crackers we used to have growing up. My first batch using his malt got infected so I was keen to give it a shot here. I also increased the OG a little because the other wedding beers were all planned to be between 3.5-4.5% abv.

The Lorax Pale Ale (21L batch)

There's no real connection between the two except for the colour

OG: 1.051
FG: 1.011
IBU: 38 (estimated)
EBC: 10.1
ABV: 5.3%

95% Golden Promise
5% Not For Horses Crackerjack malt

30g Simcoe @ 60 min
30g Simcoe @ 0 min
50g Simcoe @ Dry hop
50g Columbus @ Dry hop

1.5L starter of WLP 090 (estimated pitch of 230 billion cells), fermented at 18C

60 seconds of oxygen

I added 8g CaSO4, 2g CaCl2, 3g MgSO4 to the mash to raise the calcium and get the sulphate levels to enhance the hoppiness and 125g acidulated malt for mash pH correction.

Stepped mash: 66C (40 minutes), 72C (15 minutes) and a 78C mash out.

30/11/13 - Brewed with Adam and Will

8/12/13 - Added dry hops

14/12/13 - Bottled

Tasted on 11/01/14

Brewday: Playoffs IPA 2.0

It's great to be getting back into the rhythm of brewing. Even though I'm in the middle of a month off drinking alcohol, I'm enjoying producing it and the anticipation for tasting these brews is high. Yesterday I brewed up a slightly modified version of the Playoffs IPA I brewed back in April. I was really happy with how it turned out the first time and I'm excited to get this version into the bottles and drinking.

I bought 1kg bags of Simcoe and Columbus hops a while back so I went a little crazy with the hop additions. Along with a dose of Amarillo they are the stars of the beer. I also reduced the pale malt percentage a little and increased the rye and crystal malts slightly. The beer is fermenting away in the fridge at a happy 18'C and it's making the whole room smell like tropical fruit punch. I'm going to dry hop it in a day or two with 40g each of Simcoe, Columbus and Amarillo.

Big bag o' hops

This was my second go at using my urn and it went better than the first time but I still missed some of my targets. I ended up with more pre-boil liquid than I was aiming for and needed a longer boil to get the gravity near what I planned. Still, I now have 18l of a 1.060 IPA (I was aiming for 1.062) doing its thing in the fermenter so things aren't too bad. Hopefully over the next couple of batches I'll get it dialled in properly.

Now the plan is to build up a starter of my saison yeast (WY 3725) and have that ready to go as soon as the IPA is done. I can't wait to get that yeast cranking in a beer at 27 or 28'C now that I have a temperature controller and see what flavours it gives.

Brewday: American Brown

I did a brew with Mark, a mate who just lives around the corner. We've lived near each other for about 2 years yet somehow hardly ever meet up. Among its many virtues, brewing provides a great opportunity to hang out.

We did a simple American Brown Ale. I went for extract + specialty grains instead of all grain for the sake of saving some time and helping him get familiar with that step in the brewing pathway. Colour came from some Carafa Special III, Chocolate malt and some crystal. I'm still trying to use leftover hops and I thought Citra would be nice with the darker malt flavour. I also added Columbus and Galaxy. 1.052 OG and 32 IBUs.

Simple and good. Hopefully.

Brewday: Playoffs IPA

I'm not generally organised enough to brew for particular occasions, even brewing things appropriate to the season is more accidental than planned. However, I'm looking for opportunities to brew now that I'm able and the NBA playoffs are fast approaching. My aim was to brew an appropriate beer to drink while watching the Grizzlies and Spurs make deep (hopefully) playoff runs.

The Grizz are the fun team to watch again this postseason

I wanted to brew a beer that's about as subtle as Chris Andersen's tattoos and I have lots of hops that need to be used so the Playoffs IPA was born.

Weighing and crushing grain

I used 2.8kg pale malt, 500g rye and 150g crystal (120 ebc) for the grain of this 11.5l brew. I've been wanting to use rye and I'm hoping it'll contribute a nice spicy character and full mouthfeel. The hops are Amarillo, Citra and Columbus. All big and bold and hopefully they'll play nicely together. Up to this point I've mostly done single hop beers as I'm still very much a beginner and learning about the different varieties and what they contribute to a beer. However, this time I was feeling up for a big hit of American hops so I chucked them all in. Additions at 60 min, 10 min and dry hopping to 70 IBUs with an OG of 1.062.

Raising the temp for mash out

The brew itself was mostly easy enough. Mashed in at 65'C and raised the temp to 75 for mash out. It's now in the fermenter with a dose of US-05 and we should be drinking it sometime in the first week of playoffs. Perfect. I will drink it and imagine I am there.

Playoffs IPA on its way!