Session IPA

What's the deal with the whole session thing? Well the obvious answer is to drink more of the same beer without having to worry about getting too drunk. But, what makes them so great? You'll probably start seeing a lot of commercial, micro and nano breweries putting out these session styles in the summertime, in light of easing more consumers into the craft beer world. Well, you don't have to tell me twice to try a new beer, but if half the alcohol means half the flavor then "No, thank you." Which brings me to American session beers that have a lot of flavor. Like, I don't know... an IPA perhaps... That's right, Session IPA. What is it? What goes into it? Hop flavors? Aromas? What does one expect out of a beer when they order a Session IPA at the bar? We'll get to that in second. But first, the reason why I like Southern California's take on an IPA is because it defies the "rules" of building recipes... Other parts of the country, and even world, boost their ingredients at similar rates. I'm talking about hops and malt characters. Outside of California, it's pretty easy to find these IPAs relatively balanced between bitterness and sweetness of the malt. Even further, its very common to sip on an Imperial IPA on the East Coast that can easily be confused with an American Barleywine. I guess that's why I like Socal beers so much, the hops are always showcased in the beer despite the style. Going back to IPAs, us Californians tend to back off on the malt complexity a bit when designing beers and trek on to find the best hops to feature in our beer. Well if you ask me, it's a perfect time to brew the IPA. Oh and for those who are completely lost at this point, IPA stands for India Pale Ale. If you want to know where the name comes from you're going to have to read "IPA: Brewing Techniques, Recipes and the Evolution of the India Pale Ale." I mention that book because it's a little more accurate to what was actually happening at the time.

Anyway, let's answer that question on what to expect from a Session IPA. Now, I understand everyone is partial to what they feel is their preferred beer but putting that all aside, I think we can agree on a few things... The first element would be the malt, or lack of. The beer should be clean and refreshing with minimal caramel malt character to keep the beer honest but not obtrusive. Next the alcohol needs to be kept relatively within session guidelines. I don't like saying guidelines because it hinders creativity but leave that for the main event. To put a range on ABV, I would suggest flirting in the 4.5-5.5% range, with a slight deviation. The beer should be clean, meaning the yeast should be thorough and well attenuated without any ester profile. Color can range but in order to keep from confusing the consumer, the beer, in my opinion should be relatively light. Ok, so we have light body, low ABV, clean yeast strain, light color, what are we missing?

HOPS! Ah, yes the bride herself. Well this is the one ingredient that you should feel you can be the most creative with. Of course, that means you can also do what ever the hell you want... Or sort of... Don't go tossing the whole vine in but keep it relative to what flavor and aroma profile you are trying to achieve. And let's not forget about the bitterness either, were still talking about an IPA here... Going back to the topic of hops and malt, keep in mind that its almost exponential in regard to adding hops to a low density wort. A little bit goes THAT much further now. Keep the bitterness level honest but don't push the 100+ IBU in a 4% beer... You're going to get much more than you bargained for and it's not going to be the next big thing. I would suggest sitting somewhere in the 40-65 IBU range. Ok, that's great but the biggest question of all needs be addressed, what type of hops? Ok, you're on your own for this one. Really, though. There are so many hop varieties that would work great in a session IPA, I personally like the citrusy/tropical hops in my lighter, drier beers. I went to Steinfillers, in Long Beach and asked them to order Mosaic, a somewhat newer hop variety. From the Northern Brewer website, "A new dual-purpose hop, bred from Simcoe. Mosaic is so named because it gives a range of aromas and flavors which are complimentary to other common hop aromas. Everything from citrus, pine, earth, herbal, mint, bubblegum, blueberry, lime peel, black pepper - the character seems to change depending upon the conditions it is in." Now, I don't know about all the bubblegum and what not, but this was a perfect hop for what I was going for. So enough is enough, here is my recipe I brewed a few weeks back.

obSESSION IPA 4.7% (6 gallons)

7g Gypsum
6# Pale Malt
2# German Pilsner
.5 # Crystal 60L
.5 # Dextrose

1 oz Mosaic @ 60 min
1 oz Mosaic @ 10 min
2 oz Mosaic @ 0 min
2 oz Mosaic Dry Hop 10 Days

WLP001 White Labs California Ale

Tasting notes to come...

Brett IPA

Yep, Brett IPA. What the hell is a Brett IPA? Well... it's exactly what it sounds like... IPA fermented with Brett. You can do that? Apparently. I just did. And actually, the more research I do, the more I find that these beers are far more common than I had thought. Ok, so... how'd this one pop into my head? It was several months back when I went on a camping trip with my Dad, who is a member of QUAFF (San Diego Homebrewing Club) where we headed out to the Anza Borrego desert and sharred beer, stories and trades all homebrewing related. It was actually pretty fun but amidst the drunken stupor I ran into a fellow homebrewer that was handing out pours of his latest beer. I actually can't remember his name -- go figure -- but he was telling me he made a 100% Brett IPA. I could probably go back and look up his name because I know he was talking about being involved with the start of a new brewery coming up pretty soon. I believe he said it was called "Toolbox Brewing" or something to that regard, but either way, he was telling me all about misnomers of Brett. He went on to tell me about how Brett can really be a clean strain when used properly. By the way, Brett is short for Brettanomyces, a yeast that is slightly different from tradition brewing yeast. It's not that it's more temperamental, if anything is less but mainly because it thrives in so many extreme environments. Unlike Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, which works well in a smaller temperature parameter, Brett works in a much broader range without having nearly as many negative byproducts. In fact, Brett works very thoroughly in it's attenuation but the only downside is that it takes it's sweet, sweet time. Brett is really known for its funky, leathery or horse blanket like notes that are found in many Belgian beers, but as this guy was telling me that Brett has so many other benefits to beer, I had to look further into it.

There are so many different offshoots of Brett strains but the one I was focused on was the "Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois" or the WLP644. Directly from the White labs website, "This Belgian strain, used traditionally for 100% Brettanomyces fermentation, produces a slightly tart beer with delicate characteristics of mango and pineapple. Can also be used to produce effervescence when bottle-conditioning." I chose this strain mainly because I've never used it before and I liked the idea of having the Brett quality on a slightly Belgian platform, yet assertively hopped for an added dimension. Here's one issue though, you absolutely need to propagate Brett in order to have enough cells to pitch. I put together a 1.5 litre yeast starter that lasted about 10 days, then pitched.

Brett IPA (Brett Brux Trois) 7% Brewed on 4/18/13 (6 Gallon)

12# American 2 Row
.75# Carapils
.75# Crystal 40L
.5# German Wheat

1.75 oz Chinook @ 60 min
.5 oz Cascade @ 30 min
1 oz Cascade @ 15 min
1 oz Amarillo @ 0 min
2 oz Amarillo Dry Hop (Whole Leaf)

WLP 644 White Labs Brettanomyces Bruxellensis Trois

Here's the scary part. Brett is very, very tough. Cross contamination is almost guaranteed if you reuse the same equipment with Saccharomyces strains. I know this from personal experience as well as all the other info I've read on Brett. I have my Brett IPA now sitting with the dry hop in my closet at about 78 degrees. I usually ferment all of my beers around 68 for a clean profile but I eventually ramp the temps up toward the end of primary fermentation to really get the off flavored byproducts absorbed back into the yeast. Because Brett eats pretty much anything in front of it, this shouldnt be a problem, but as it stands, the Brett IPA is at 78 degrees until ready for transfer.

Now the question, to bottle or to keg....? I don't want to risk any more cross contamination so we'll see... I'll be watching this beer quite closely to keep tabs on its progress, because again this beer may take quite awhile to thoroughly ferment. I would like to end somewhere around 1.004 - 1.008 terminal gravity and dry dis' bitch out. Tasting notes to come!

Anyway, Cheers!

Habañero Black IPA

Originally I was going to make this recipe an Imperial Black IPA but leave it to brewday complications to shift the beer style a bit... I've been tweaking this recipe for a few weeks now, trying to decide the best hop usage as well as dark malts, knowing I wanted to use the back stock of Sinamar I had. For those of you that don't know what Sinamar is -- it's a food grade coloring used to mimic the SRM of the wort without lending too much, or any roasted malt character to the beer. Weyermann makes a pretty good product so I decided to order some online a while back. Anyway, I first heard about Sinamar from Jeff Bagby, from his "Black Lie" Black IPA, which he had a lot of success with. I went back and forth on how much to add to the boil, but I can safely say I added enough. As I was putting together the recipe I felt I wanted a little bit of the dark malt character so I last minute decided to add some black patent just for the ashy flavor that certain carafas gives off. The idea behind using Sinamar is to get away from too much roasted flavor from the darker malts. I'm aiming for a clean bitterness from the hops and not too much astringency from typical highly modified dark malts.

The recipe was complete. I had a pretty smooth going brewday until the bittering hop addition got away from me due to chatting with some neighbors. My first hop addition didn't make it into the boil until 15 minutes late. Now that I had a far too condensed wort I added some water to dilute it a bit. I over did it. I then added some corn sugar and tried balancing it out once more. I was close enough. Instead of hitting the 1.080 I ended up with 1.072 OG. Regardless, it smells incredible.

Habañero Black IPA Recipe (not including the corn sugar or water top up) 75 min Boil Brewed on 4/29/13

15# Pale 2 Row
2.25# Rye Malt
1# Crystal 60L
.5# Black Patent
8oz Sinamar

2oz Magnum @ 60 min
2oz Amarillo @ 15 min
2oz Simcoe @ 0 min

WLP 090 (White Labs - San Diego Super Yeast)

I plan to add the habañeros after I transfer to a secondary fermentor. Still deciding on how much to add.. this one may just be a guess and check. I'll do an update on this beer in a week or so...

4/30/13 Here is a shot of the primary fermentation at initial krausen. Probably sitting around 66-68 degrees inside the fermentor.

5/1/13 It's been about 36 hours since I pitched the yeast and the blow off was definitely necessary. I had to clean up a little bit but for the time being, it's only going to keep making a mess...

Russian Imperial Stout

Earlier in February I had the idea of brewing a 12 gallon split batch of Russian Imperial Stout with the intention of changing a variable or two between the beers. Around that time I stumbled on a facebook page that linked me to a site that was selling 5 gallon whiskey casks on the cheap out of Texas. I have never bought one before but did some pricing and decided to pull the trigger, ended up being around $80 before shipping. In about a week or so later I came home to the Blue Corn Whiskey cask and after doing some more research on how to cure the wood (or soften and expand, sealing the staves), I was ready to brew. I went back and forth on which style I wanted to do before I landed on a Russian Imperial Stout. My goal was the brew the 12 gallon and age 5 gallon in the cask while leaving the remaining 5 gallon as a control and ultimately a beer to blend with the cask beer in case it was too overwhelming. I decided to name this beer after ManBearPig, the rogue creature from another dimension in the South Park series. This recipe was inspired but the Great Divide Yeti so I wanted to pay tribute with another mythological animal.

ManBearPig - Russian Imperial Stout (12 gallon) 10.5% Brewed on 2/18/13

29# Pale 2 row
5# Flaked oats
2# Chocolate Malt
2# Roasted Barley
2# Flaked Rye
2# Flaked Wheat
1.5# Crystal 120L
12 oz Molasses

4 oz Chinook @ 60 min
2 oz Warrior @ 30 min
1 oz Centennial @ 15 min
1 oz Centennial @ 5 min

WLP 090 (White Labs San Diego Super Yeast)

Needless to say, brewday was almost a disaster. My calculations were slightly off and I didn't account for enough room in my mash tun. It wasn't a total failure but I ended up having to cold steep the dark malts separately in order to fit the remaining mash grist into the tun. As a result of last minute changes I ended up with an efficiency that was slightly lower than anticipated. I then added some corn sugar to boost the OG up to 1.099. I was a bit nervous for this move because I feared it would dry out the RIS, leaving the body light and ruining the mouthfeel. The beer fermented thoroughly and

quickly, finishing at 1.020 (10.5% abv) which is about what I was hoping for anyway. The beer was pretty hot for the first few weeks, lots of fusal notes but eventually mellowed out nicely.

Finally, it was time to transfer to the barrel. As it currently stands, the beer is still in the whiskey cask and it has been 10 weeks since brewday. I will be kegging this beer very soon while storing a few in bottles to lay down.

So what happened to the other 5 gallons of control? Well, I gave in an decided I didn't want to just have a big Russian Imperial on tap without any special tweaks. I picked up some cacao nibs and Sumatran (4 oz each) coffee beans and aged the beer on them for about 7-10 days. Of course I did lot's of research on coffee and cacao before doing so and learned that a little bit goes a long way (in many respects), and that it's better to add more for a short amount of time and age longer to mellow the flavors. The added acidity of the roasted beans and cacao contributed to the bitterness already suspended in the beer from the hops. After a few weeks of maturing this beer, I kegged it up and within just a couple weeks it was almost gone. I was very pleased with the outcome but I will definitely do some things differently next time. Mainly the mashing technique/efficiency need to be reworked. Lastly I sent in this beer to the National Homebrew Competition and got my results back just the other day. 'ManBearPig' - Russian Imperial Stout aged on coffee and cacao nibs received a 36 (very good). Not bad after an almost disaster brew day.

Getting back on the Horse

I'm going to give this beer blogger another shot. As we approach the warmer summer months, I will have plenty of brews that will need documenting. I want to shift away from using Facebook as my only social media medium to document my beers and tasting notes. I will be including pictures of my current brews and regularly update my thoughts and impressions of my homebrews. I missed out on documenting the last 6 months of my brews but in summary a lot was learned and will be applied to my future homebrewing. I do want to mention that I will be participating in many more homebrewing competitions this year to see if I can get some professional feedback. Other than this post, my first update will be shortly after this one on my Russian Imperial Stout split batch. Cheers.