Limitations: Beer 3 (IPL)

This post is one in a series following five brewers limiting themselves to a select set of ingredients and brewing several beers each with only those ingredients. The goal of these limitations is to push creativity and to see what can be done within the confines of a single set of ingredients. More about this concept can be found here. The ingredients chosen for this project were Maris Otter, White Wheat (malted), Light Munich, Amarillo, Nugget, WLP810 San Francisco Lager and WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast. The brewer must use all ingredients (with the exception of choosing one yeast strain). The rest of this series can be found here.

Author: R. Goyenko

I had so much fun with the Stout project that when this project was presented to me, I subscribed pretty much immediately. I liked the idea of limited ingredients, but it took us a while to decide what limitations we would have and what ingredients we would use. While the ingredients I voted for mostly didn’t get selected, I didn’t mind since the exercise is to try to work within those limitations.

Once we had decided on the ingredients and I started considering my first recipe, I started my thinking with the yeast—yeast choice makes a big impact on the resulting beer. We had WLP090 San Diegog Super Yeast and WLP810 San Francisco Lager Yeast to choose from. I wanted to try making a Pale Ale type beer or an IPL with the San Francisco Lager Yeast, so that’s where I started from.

The malt choices also played into the consideration of what I could make. We chose Maris Otter, Light Munich, and Wheat Malt, and all three malts had to be used. I thought a pale ale or NEIPA-type malt bill would work well with these three malts.

I wanted to achieve a clean, malty, and hoppy beer with Maris Otter and Munich providing the backbone of the malt and the wheat malt providing some body and nice foam. I have been brewing some pale ales recently and have been experimenting with malt bills. For reference, some of the recent malt bills for my (5 gallon) recipes have looked like this:

I wanted to make this beer a bit maltier than my recent brews since I was planning for more hops and I know that lager yeast produces a cleaner fermentation profile; I wanted the malt to support the hops since the yeast wouldn’t provide the typical fruitier ale flavor to support the hops.

The hops we chose to use were Nugget and Amarillo. I decided to bitter with Nugget and use Amarillo in the whirlpool and dry hop. Since Amarillo is a nice hop that can provide floral, citrus, and tropical fruit aromas/flavors, I decided to use it in the whirlpool and as a dry hop.

The recipe I ended up with looked like this:

• Mashed at 152°F for 60 minutes
  • 50% Maris Otter (6 lbs.)
  • 41% Light Munich (5 lbs.)
  • 9% White wheat malt (1.1lbs.)
• Boiled for 60 minutes
  • 0.5 oz. Nugget (30 min.) at 14% AA (21 IBUs)
  • 2 oz. Amarillo (0 min.) at 8.6% AA (23 IBUs)—whirlpool at 212°F for 30 min.
  • 2 oz. Amarillo (dry hop) at 1 day after start of fermentation
  • 2 oz. Amarillo (dry hop) at 4 days after start of fermentation
• Pitched WLP810
  • Fermented at 63°F for 3 days
  • Raised temperature to 65°F for 1 day
  • Raised to 68°F until fermentation was complete
• OG: 1.050
• FG: 1.010
• ABV: 5.3%

Brew Day

I brew using the brew in a bag method, and for this brew day I decided to try low oxygen method, so there was a bit of alteration to my normal process. As a first step, I wet the grains before milling to condition them, using 1-2% of the weight of the grain, and mixed the grains up until it was spread out. I let the malt condition for about 20 minutes to absorb the water. After that, I milled the malt; I noticed that wetting the grains indeed affected the crush—the hulls were almost intact but the cores were crushed. I then prepared the water for the mash by pre-boiling it and treating with potassium metabisulfite (which was part of low oxygen process, though I also add potassium metabisulfite to remove chlorine from my water). After chilling the pre-boiled water, I lowered the bag of grains into the water (trying not to disturb it too much), mixed the grains, and covered it with foil to prevent oxygen ingress.

After mashing for an hour, I removed the bag and brought the wort to a boil, adding the hops as specified in the recipe. I didn’t boil too vigorously to prevent oxygen mixing with the wort. The wort did look different—there were clumps formed that I hadn’t seen before, but I am not sure if it’s a function of it not being mixed a lot by the calm boil or the low oxygen things I tried. One thing that happened as the result of not mixing my grains much, trying to avoid squeezing the grain bag too much, plus not boiling the wort very vigorously, I undershot my OG. Instead of 1.056 like I expected, I ended up with a wort of 1.050. I thought about it a bit, and it was still within the range for pale ale/IPL, so I decided not to modify anything about it.

During fermentation, the beer produced a lot of sulfur starting around day 4-5. I was worried a bit, but was told that’s expected from this yeast and that it would clear up (it did). When fermentation was almost, done I tasted several samples and it was overwhelmingly malty and grainy. I was worried that the hops didn’t come through as much as I wanted, even though I added a decent amount (4 oz. total at whirlpool and dry hop), so I decided I would add another 2 oz. into the keg.

Tasting

• Aroma: Malt and hop combination – bready like a fresh baked bread, passion fruit from hops, orange, herbs, and spice.
• Appearance: Deep gold, very clear (it was hazy at first, but cleared by itself over two weeks in kegerator), head is frothy, about 2 inches, and lasts for a while.

How it started

A couple weeks later

• Flavor: Hops are dominating – citrus (orange) skins with its bitterness; herbal, fresh, and spicy, but malt comes though too – bready with a hint of biscuit. Finish is dry and bitter with bitterness lingering for some time. The flavor is pretty clean—there are no detectable esters; it’s all malt and hops.

If I were to brew this again still using only these same ingredients, there are a few things I’d consider changing. When I was testing the beer in the fermentor, it was very malty—overwhelmingly so. I think bottom of the fermenter had somehow accumulated the malty part of the beer, and usually I would get hops there, which is why I decided to add a dose of dry hops to the keg. I think I could have omitted that dry hop charge—the beer ended up a bit too bitter, and I think it would have been better with less hops.

I actually was aiming for a higher gravity beer at first, so I might try brewing this at the original expected gravity as well—I think it would have been more balanced with the bitterness. Another thing I might try is to change the ratio of Maris Otter to Munich malt to see how the malt profile changes. I’d like to try it both ways, where the ratio favors the Maris Otter and then where the ratio favors the Munich to see which I like better. It is a pretty malty beer, and it cuts through the big hop charge, but I would like to see how it changes with a different ratio. Also, I didn’t use any Nugget in the dry hop, and I think it could be interesting to see how it works for this beer.

The beer actually kept changing as I tasted it—at first there was a big malty/grainy taste that I assume came from the MO/Munich malt, but it rounded out as time passed, and the hops and malts melded and rounded out more. It also had a much more bitter finish that was a bit unpleasant at first, but after some time that went away and actually ended up being really nice. I like this beer a lot.

If I were to brew this beer again with no limitations, there’s honestly not much I’d change. I actually like this beer, and I like the cleanness of the yeast and how it brings the malty and hoppy flavors out. It makes the bitterness come out more, but I like bitter beers so there is a challenge there to make it balanced. I don’t think I would change much—just try to find a golden ration in the malts and exactly how much hops to add. That said, the one thing I might do is to try this recipe with different hops. I think they really come through here, and you don’t need as much as you do in an IPA for them to shine.

Recipe Comparison

 Note: Some disparity in IBU contributions for flameout and whirlpool additions will exist in the chart below due to variation in recipe calculator software amongst contributors.