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