Inspiration
This series is based off of the one that I had while I lived and worked at Crannog Ales. This recipe is one that I really couldn't believe that existed when I found it. One of my favorite breweries called Verdant Brewing recently released their house yeast commercially, and as part of that release, hosted a competition to brew one of their beers. I missed the competition, but have now brewed a Pale Ale version of the recipe they posted. But what makes this recipe so exciting, is that they laid out details of their pH schedule, dry-hopping times and temperatures, and water profile in a way that I've been searching for from other breweries for ever. So, I followed everything as closely as I could, and also now have a fridge to be able to ferment and control temperature in.
From Verdant:
To celebrate the launch of the new Verdant IPA Yeast on the 28th of July, the guys at Lallemand and Verdant Brewing Co got together, with the team at The Malt Miller and BrewCon London, to set the challenge of who can brew an IPA in the style of Verdant. The goal, to see which home brewer can brew the best IPA in the style of Verdant Brewing Co.
From Verdant:
To celebrate the launch of the new Verdant IPA Yeast on the 28th of July, the guys at Lallemand and Verdant Brewing Co got together, with the team at The Malt Miller and BrewCon London, to set the challenge of who can brew an IPA in the style of Verdant. The goal, to see which home brewer can brew the best IPA in the style of Verdant Brewing Co.
Recipe
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 15 liters
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 5.4%
Fermentables
Crisp Extra Pale 60.8%
Golden Promise 14.7%
Oats, Flaked 8.2%
Carapils 8.2%
Wheat 4.1%
Flaked Wheat 4.1%
Hops
Warrior 2 g @ FW
Citra 40 g @ Whirlpool for 30min
Galaxy 20 g @ Whirlpool for 30min
Citra 137g @ Dry Hop
Galaxy 63g @ Dry Hop
Mash Guidelines
67 °C for 45 min
Yeast
LalBrew® Verdant Brewing
Water
Amsterdam Source
5.5g CaCl, 1 gram Canning Salt
Notes
Supposed to:
I think we first brewed this beer in early 2016 on a 200L kit! We had just managed to get hold of some rare as rocking horse shit Galaxy hops and it was a no brainer to pair it up with Citra in a NEIPA. The aim for the beer was and still is to be pretty full on flavour and aroma wise, not shying away from the aggressive nature of Galaxy. It’s a pretty brash hop, harsh bittering qualities coupled with mega high dry hop polyphenols makes for a very ‘green’ experience early doors. Skilful use of the hop and a bit of patience helps bring the tropical and creamy nature to the fore. In my experience different hop varieties make for differing amounts of haze or ‘murk’ in the finished beer. With sharks we use the top 2 murk producing varieties out there! Expect an opaque light yellow creamy/yoghurt affair that has a soft smooth body leading to an assertive finish. Aromas should leap out, flavours should fully saturate and if brewed well it should have a lovely fluffy white head on it that lasts.
With regards to a suitable water profile for ESNW I would encourage home brewers to experiment. Get a good accurate water report for your area specifically focussing on ppm’s for Calcium, Chloride, Magnesium, Sodium, Sulphate and Bicarbonate. Down in Cornwall we have predominantly soft water ranging from ‘moderately soft’ to ‘very soft’. This basically means ppm’s for all the cations and anions are very low, it also means we have a great base line water source for building style profiles. I know some brewers who utilise reverse osmosis techniques to almost entirely demineralise their water, but I like the fact that all we do is run it through a sediment filter and then a carbon filter. This removes any rust or debris from old mains water pipes and also the volatile low level chlorine used to kill bacteria. Working with the water in your area, in my opinion, is one of the most exciting parts of brewing that’s similar to the concept of ‘terroir’ in farming. With sharks we push Chloride up to around 230ppm, we leave Sulphate at base mains level (10ppm), we elevate Sodium to around 50ppm. The Sodium Chloride is added to the boil and the Calcium Chloride to the mash. By doing this we create a very soft mouthfeel but without elevating Calcium levels above 100ppm. You don’t need to try and emulate this profile though, in fact I would suggest not too if your base line is too far off initially. It’s far more important to work with what you’ve got and tweak from there.
Other tips for success with a NEIPA would be to monitor you PH’s. Mash should be 5.2-5.3 at 20 degrees C. Pre-boil 5-5.1, post boil 4.9-5.05, sparge 5.5-6, post ferment 4.3, post dry hop 4.5-4.8. Oxygen will ruin your beer faster than anything else. Trying to mitigate this at home-brew level is going to be tricky. I would suggest closed transfer under pressure to separate purged vessel for dry hopping, force carbonating and not bottle conditioning. Do not hunt for biotransformation, wait for the ferment to finish, make sure it passes a forced diacetyl test, soft crash to 15 and then dry hop. You will avoid hop creep this way. Hop creep is something we don’t like at Verdant, it makes for an over attenuated beer that that has far more diacetyl to clear up.
Regarding our yeast, pitch at 18 and let rise to 19 and hold. Free rise to 22 for D rest once gravity is at about 1.030. The dry yeast version rages! Expect a massive krausen and potentially higher than anticipated attenuation on generation 1.
Reality:
Brewed on: 10/10/2020
Mash pH: 6.12
Add 7.1ml: 5.25
Pre-Boil: 18L/1.045
Pre-Boil pH: 5.37
Add 4ml: 4.90
Post-Boil: 1.054
Post-Boil pH: 4.85
Damn, made some mistakes with the pH towards the end of the brew day, and ended up with too much water (15L instead of 12L). I also messed up the gravity by about .010 points, so have more of a Pale Ale on my hands now.
11/10/2020: The fermentation fridge I just bought used was broken, so fermentation began at 20 and ramped up to 21 for first day
12/10/2020: I managed to buy a new fridge on the second day though, and it's now at 19 where it's supposed to be.
13/10/2020: Gravity @ 1.020, Raised temperature to 22C, Tasting really incredible and juicy already. Easily the best I've tasted an IPA being at this stage in the process.
17/10/2020: Soft Cold Crash 15C and Dry Hop @ 1.012
18/10/2020: Cold Crash
20/10/2020: Package Beer
Batch Size: 15 liters
Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 5.4%
Fermentables
Crisp Extra Pale 60.8%
Golden Promise 14.7%
Oats, Flaked 8.2%
Carapils 8.2%
Wheat 4.1%
Flaked Wheat 4.1%
Hops
Warrior 2 g @ FW
Citra 40 g @ Whirlpool for 30min
Galaxy 20 g @ Whirlpool for 30min
Citra 137g @ Dry Hop
Galaxy 63g @ Dry Hop
Mash Guidelines
67 °C for 45 min
Yeast
LalBrew® Verdant Brewing
Water
Amsterdam Source
5.5g CaCl, 1 gram Canning Salt
Notes
Supposed to:
I think we first brewed this beer in early 2016 on a 200L kit! We had just managed to get hold of some rare as rocking horse shit Galaxy hops and it was a no brainer to pair it up with Citra in a NEIPA. The aim for the beer was and still is to be pretty full on flavour and aroma wise, not shying away from the aggressive nature of Galaxy. It’s a pretty brash hop, harsh bittering qualities coupled with mega high dry hop polyphenols makes for a very ‘green’ experience early doors. Skilful use of the hop and a bit of patience helps bring the tropical and creamy nature to the fore. In my experience different hop varieties make for differing amounts of haze or ‘murk’ in the finished beer. With sharks we use the top 2 murk producing varieties out there! Expect an opaque light yellow creamy/yoghurt affair that has a soft smooth body leading to an assertive finish. Aromas should leap out, flavours should fully saturate and if brewed well it should have a lovely fluffy white head on it that lasts.
With regards to a suitable water profile for ESNW I would encourage home brewers to experiment. Get a good accurate water report for your area specifically focussing on ppm’s for Calcium, Chloride, Magnesium, Sodium, Sulphate and Bicarbonate. Down in Cornwall we have predominantly soft water ranging from ‘moderately soft’ to ‘very soft’. This basically means ppm’s for all the cations and anions are very low, it also means we have a great base line water source for building style profiles. I know some brewers who utilise reverse osmosis techniques to almost entirely demineralise their water, but I like the fact that all we do is run it through a sediment filter and then a carbon filter. This removes any rust or debris from old mains water pipes and also the volatile low level chlorine used to kill bacteria. Working with the water in your area, in my opinion, is one of the most exciting parts of brewing that’s similar to the concept of ‘terroir’ in farming. With sharks we push Chloride up to around 230ppm, we leave Sulphate at base mains level (10ppm), we elevate Sodium to around 50ppm. The Sodium Chloride is added to the boil and the Calcium Chloride to the mash. By doing this we create a very soft mouthfeel but without elevating Calcium levels above 100ppm. You don’t need to try and emulate this profile though, in fact I would suggest not too if your base line is too far off initially. It’s far more important to work with what you’ve got and tweak from there.
Other tips for success with a NEIPA would be to monitor you PH’s. Mash should be 5.2-5.3 at 20 degrees C. Pre-boil 5-5.1, post boil 4.9-5.05, sparge 5.5-6, post ferment 4.3, post dry hop 4.5-4.8. Oxygen will ruin your beer faster than anything else. Trying to mitigate this at home-brew level is going to be tricky. I would suggest closed transfer under pressure to separate purged vessel for dry hopping, force carbonating and not bottle conditioning. Do not hunt for biotransformation, wait for the ferment to finish, make sure it passes a forced diacetyl test, soft crash to 15 and then dry hop. You will avoid hop creep this way. Hop creep is something we don’t like at Verdant, it makes for an over attenuated beer that that has far more diacetyl to clear up.
Regarding our yeast, pitch at 18 and let rise to 19 and hold. Free rise to 22 for D rest once gravity is at about 1.030. The dry yeast version rages! Expect a massive krausen and potentially higher than anticipated attenuation on generation 1.
Reality:
Brewed on: 10/10/2020
Mash pH: 6.12
Add 7.1ml: 5.25
Pre-Boil: 18L/1.045
Pre-Boil pH: 5.37
Add 4ml: 4.90
Post-Boil: 1.054
Post-Boil pH: 4.85
Damn, made some mistakes with the pH towards the end of the brew day, and ended up with too much water (15L instead of 12L). I also messed up the gravity by about .010 points, so have more of a Pale Ale on my hands now.
11/10/2020: The fermentation fridge I just bought used was broken, so fermentation began at 20 and ramped up to 21 for first day
12/10/2020: I managed to buy a new fridge on the second day though, and it's now at 19 where it's supposed to be.
13/10/2020: Gravity @ 1.020, Raised temperature to 22C, Tasting really incredible and juicy already. Easily the best I've tasted an IPA being at this stage in the process.
17/10/2020: Soft Cold Crash 15C and Dry Hop @ 1.012
18/10/2020: Cold Crash
20/10/2020: Package Beer