I like IPAs and I tried my hand at brewing one during Lockdown. I wanted something around 5% ABV but with the hoppy punch of a stronger IPA. I made 5 different batches with varied results, but they generally tasted good! My friends who were forced to drink them said they enjoyed them…didn’t they?!

I brew all these from LME (Liquid Malt Extract) because I simply didn’t have the setup to properly extract from grain - we had a tiny oven with a terrible hob. The advantage of this is the recipe tweaking was all down to the hops so I could keep a consistent backbone throughout my experiments. I arbitrarily chose a combination of Coopers Light LME and Mangrove Jack’s LME which worked well to give a nice rich colour and flavourful, balanced backdrop to the bright hoppy flavours. I chose Mangrove Jack’s US West Coast M44 for the yeast to aim for that crisp IPA finish.

N.B. I have written this up from hastily scrawled notes taken during the brews so some ideas and tasting notes are incomplete! I have a few photos but not many, as I never intended to write this up like this! But we live and we learn.

Lockdown IPA #1

started 21/07/2020 (UK date format)

Malts

• total volume => 19 L
• Malt 1: Coopers Light LME => 1.5 kg
• Malt 2: Mangrove Jack’s LME => 1.2 kg

Hops

Amarillo, Chinook and Simcoe pellets

• Bittering

  • 20g Chinook
  • 10g Amarillo

• Flavouring

  • 20g Chinook
  • 10g Amarillo

• Aroma

  • 20g Chinook
  • 10g Amarillo
  • 20g Simcoe

Yeast

• Mangrove Jack’s US West Coast M44 - 10g

The Recipe

• 11.5 L of Edinburgh Water (the best water imo) to a massive pot
• added 1.5 kg of Malt 1
• brought to a rolling boil (no easy feat on that hob..)
• started timer (t is time in minutes)
• t=0 - added bittering hops
• t=35 - flavouring hops
• t=40 - pitched yeast to a jug of 35° Water
• t=50 - added 2/3 of aroma hop pellets
• t=57 - added 1.2 kg Malt 2 to pasteurise
• t=65 - added final 1/3 of aroma hops
• start cooling wort (no chiller - took a long time)

The Brew

• O.G. = 1.040
  • initial taste was very sweet and very bitter
• pitched yeast at 26-27 Celcius
• bubbling started and krausen formed around 24h mark
• temperature stable at 20 C
• krausen dropped back in around day 3
• bubbled for 5 days
• temperature remained at 20 C until bottling
• bottled on 11/08/2020 (UK Date format) 21 days after pitch
  • F.G. = 1.015
  • ABV approx. 3.2%
  • taste had cloying bitterness and not much aroma at this stage
  • bottled with 1 carbonation drop per 500ml bottle
• tasted on 15/08/2020
  • less bitter
  • still heavy and sweet
  • no foam
• main taste on 20/08/2020
  • little bitter
  • better foam
  • not as heavy
  • …but not bad (according to notes!)

This is unfortunately all I have from my notes, but I remember the beer improved a lot over time. After 3 months the taste was fairly consistent between bottles, with a hoppy taste despite there being less of an aroma that I would have liked.

Lockdown IPA #2

To be continued…