Homebrew Recipe: Shadow of the East Black IPA (Extract)

The black IPA is kind of like the liger of the beer world.  Except lions and tigers are at least kind of similar.  Black IPAs fuse two styles that really just don’t seem like they would work together.  So naturally, I was a bit apprehensive when I was putting this recipe together.  I didn’t want it to be dominated by hops, but I didn’t want it to just be a bitter stout either.  So, the only thing really to do was to jump in and give it the ol’ college try. 

Recipe

Grain Bill

6.6 lb Light LME

1 lb Crystal 60L

0.6 oz Chocolate Malt

0.6 oz Carafa II

Hop Schedule

(60) 2 oz Centennial

(20) 1 oz Nugget

(15) 1 oz Nugget

(1) 1 oz Simcoe

Yeast:  White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Boil Volume:  6 Gallons

Fermentor Volume:  5 Gallons

Forgot to take OG/FG readings (oops) but as this is an extract recipe there is minimal brewer impact to this.

Procedure:  Steeped grains at 165F for 30 minutes.  Added LME and brought wort to boil.  Added hops, cooled using wort chiller and cold water bath, transferred to fermentor, pitched yeast.

Fermentation/Packaging:  Fermented for about two weeks in primary at about 68F.  Transferred to secondary for a week, kegged and force carbonated.

Tasting Notes:  Turned out to be a really nice, big beer with a lot of flavor.  Very dark in color with a tan head.  The hops dominated the aroma, and the roasty flavors shone through in the first taste.  The finish was all kinds of hops (as I wrote back when I took notes on this beer a few years ago, “…the hops go Mount Doom on your taste buds with lingering bitterness.”  I—I don’t even know what that means, but somehow I wrote it and it seems to work.  Don’t judge me.)

Improvements/Tweaks:  Because this is such an interesting style, there are a lot of little things to tweak that could really change the beer a lot.  The first idea would be to back off on the bittering hops a bit to let the chocolate flavors hang out in the finish a little longer.  I would either go with 2 oz of a lower alpha acid hop (something like Goldings or Saaz), or slide one oz of the Centennial up to maybe 30 or 40 minutes.  Additionally, I think it would be incredible to dry hop this beer with an ounce or two of something floral and citrusy.