Long Form Content
Figure 1: The Varied Hues of West Coast IPA
American IPA:
Style, Sub-style and Recipe Formulation
West Coast IPA
Stretching parameters through experience, knowledge and creativity.
“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” - Pablo Picasso
‘There’s only freedom in structure, my man. There’s no freedom in freedom.” - Branford Marsalis
Alternative music, over the years, developed myriad sub-genres roughly descendent from punk rock. Post-punk, Britpop, Grunge, Noise, Indie, Industrial, Goth, Shoegaze and even Post-Grunge fall under the incorporating rubric of Alternative. From Punk, and a few precursors, emerged an overall genre with many off-shoots.
Like Alternative music, the now overarching category of IPA has developed sub-styles such as White, Rye, Belgo-American, Session, Black, Double, Triple, Imperial, New England and Brut with future iterations surely ripe for development. The commonality and cohesive quality between each sub-style is a propensity for hop intensity in the finished beer. Whether the extreme sensations confronting the drinker’s palate occur as bitterness, flavor or aroma or varying combinations of all three often depends on the brewers taste and decision making during recipe formulation and procedure choice.
An old maxim still holds in the music business: all blessings flow from the artist. Meaning, without the talent of the artist, the technicians, promoters, record labels, agents and various hangers-on lack the singular organizing agent to perform their own tasks in the music industry. In the realm of beer, style acts as the organizing agent. Ingredients and brewing techniques employed to brew a particular style emanate from the boundaries of said style. In other words, without style guidelines, the brewer is deprived of foundation and limitations. Style restrictions allow brewers to create beer with a specific set and range of ingredients and techniques, potentially summing to a delicious, yet recognizable whole. Parameters of style provide structure while creating the space for the brewer to play freely and produce a beer identifiable, but unique at once. As Punk Rock once inspired a proliferation of sub-genre’s, the British India Pale Ale has spun forth a whole range of substyles. One of those versions is the West Coast IPA.
For creating a stylistically accurate but distinctive West Coast IPA, understanding the specifications and proper technical procedures to brewing this particular style allows the brewer to more fully achieve the desired outcome. Having an idealized version of the beer in mind allows the beer maker to better hit the targeted color, mouthfeel, flavor, aroma and finish and after taste. As I have explained to many a student in my advanced brewing classes, one should be able to taste the beer in the mind prior to ever tasting it in the glass. Gaining a better understanding of individual malts, hops and yeasts affords the brewer the ability to fully and more accurately match the final flavor and aroma profile with a version imagined during the process of recipe formulation.
West Coast IPA was derived from the classic British IPA with lineage tracing back to the beers produced from Burton-on-Trent. In the United States, the historically produced Ballantine’s arguably makes the most obvious connection from the British to the American version of the IPA Style. Having been derived from an English version of the style, Ballantine’s, in many ways, was the antecedent to modern craft IPA. Arising in California, the Americanized version of IPA spread as the craft brewing revolution expanded across the United States. Now, the myriad variations of IPA exist as a staple of most craft breweries everyday offerings.
According to the Beer Judging Certification Program (BJCP) BJCP, the craft version of American IPA’s origin story begins with Anchor Liberty. Since the classic beers introduction in 1975, the style has developed, morphed and/or bifurcated from time to time into the sub-styles previously mentioned. Brewers have explored the parameters of the style, sometimes strictly observing the guidelines (West Coast), pushing past them (Black IPA) or thoroughly exploding them (NEIPA). Just as Punk rock offered a basic “set of rules” for musicians to explore and sometimes shatter, the IPA form has proven flexible enough for experimentation and sometimes radical transformation.
As the style and subsequent substyles have evolved through brewer exploration and sometimes temperate rule breaking, so too has consumer taste. Each newly introduced substyle gains a certain level of popularity, attains a certain percentage of market share prior to either becoming an everyday offering in a breweries line-up, a seasonal beer, an occasional offering or is discontinued altogether due to a dearth of sales.
For the West Coast or Traditional American IPA, the style maintains a place in the craft beer world as a steady sales leader due to the simplicity of the styles mission: Hop Delivery Device!
With the styles typically stripped down grist of 2-Row malt, possibly another base malt of some type, such as Golden Promise, UK Pale, Vienna or Munich and perhaps a coloring caramel malt, the modern American Traditional or West Coast IPA provides enough malt backbone, sweetness and counterpoint to undergird the intensity of the hops in the finished beer. Fermenting the beer with a relatively clean or slightly fruity yeast strain allows the hops to sing the dominant notes while still adhering to style.
As the American IPA styles have evolved from a hop profile with the classic citrus qualities of lemon-lime, orange and grapefruit toward more tropical notes such as, passionfruit, guava, lychee, mango, pineapple and even papaya, hop charges often involve more recently developed and once esoteric varietals such as Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic, Ekuanot, Azzaca, Denali and Vic Secret.
Recipe Formulation
When approaching recipe development for a West Coast IPA, I begin with the water. As beer contains approximately 90% H2O, it deserves a full measure of respect and attention as the medium containing the composition of the beer. Typically, for IPA, I aim for the following,
Target Water Profile: Ca: 190 ppm, Mg: 12 ppm, Alkalinity as CaCO3: 102 ppm, Na: 8 ppm, Cl: 66 ppm, SO4: 327
Since West Coast IPA’s owe lineage to the water profile of Burton-on-Trent and favorable flavor profile gained by high sulfate content, Chicago’s water requires a bit of alteration to achieve similar numbers. While Burton-on-Trent’s mineral content is now commonly seen as excessive, Burton water was critical in the original development of the IPA style in Britain. (Foster pg. 204) (Steele pg. 188)
Comparing the target versus the actual mineral composition of Chicago water as shown above indicates a certain amount of salt additions will be required to meet said targets. To calculate the proper mineral salt additions for the style, I utilize the Water Adjustment spreadsheet from How To Brew by John Palmer. Click on the previous link and scroll down and, at the bottom of the page, download the spreadsheet of choice in either US Gallons or in Liters. Reading the spreadsheets instructions and his chapter on water will provide a proper introduction to the topic of water adjustment in beer making. And, if an even deeper dive into the subject is desired, Palmer’s book on Water from Brewers Publications certainly delivers depth and detail on the topic.
In regards to the malt portion of a West Coast IPA, BJCP style guidelines specify a “restrained use of crystal malts” to achieve the styles range of 6-14 SRM. I prefer to utilize a combination of base and caramel/crystal malts to achieve a color on the golden end of the styles range. My versions of West Coast IPA typically vary in color from 6-9 SRM.
For realizing the above hue, I begin with base malts, choosing between a small list of appropriate barley varieties to achieve the color, aroma and flavor profile. Suitable malts for producing West Coast IPA can include differing varieties of American 2-Row brewers malt with a color rating of 2 – 4 Lovibond (L). Each should contribute a clean malt flavor, light color and excellent fermentation characteristics. To develop the structure of the beer in the recipe, I will typically include a significant portion of Golden Promise to the malt bill. The barley varietal provides a clean flavor profile, ever so slight biscuit quality, bright golden color, superb fermentability and mouthfeel appropriate for the style.
To further enhance coloration, flavor, aroma and mouth feel of the completed beer, different types of specialty malts may be employed. Singularly, or in combination, caramel/crystal malts across the color range can effectively impart the proper tint to meet style guidelines.
My personal preference for further coloring of the finished beer usually sticks to the lower Lovibond (L) range of caramel/crystal malt types, somewhere between 10 – 40 L. Examining the 101 IPA recipes, across many substyles, I have created over the past 10 years of brewing, I found 55 in the classic West Coast style. I specified 10 L caramel/crystal or Cara Malt on 18 occasions, 20 L caramel/crystal in 19 recipes. 13 times I specified 40L or 45L caramel/crystal malt. For a handful of IPA’s 60L or 80L caramel/crystal malt were added into the overall malt bill. When caramel/crystal of 120 L and above were specified on 13 occasions, the percentage ranged from .5 – 1% strictly for purposes of color correction and typically utilized in conjunction with the lighter hued caramel/crystal malts.
My reasoning for employing the caramel/crystal malt on the lighter side of the spectrum rests with the desire to create a flavor profile light on malt sweetness. Caramel/Crystal malts on the lower range of the Lovibond scale generally contribute a flavor more akin to the caramel flavor found in Twix candy bars rather than the more roasty, toffee and raisiny flavors of caramel/crystal of 60L or above. The lower hued caramel/crystal malts provide a more aesthetically pleasing flavor and aroma in the style and, most importantly, do not clash with the real star of West Coast IPA, the hops. I usually limit the overall amount of caramel/crystal malt to no more than 3% of the malt bill. And, if I wish to break the rules on coloration, I will eschew the caramel malts altogether and create an IPA in the 4 L range, creating a version not yet accounted for in the style guidelines except in the catch-all category of Specialty IPA. For an even more mind bending book on the direction of IPA, check out Dick Cantwell’s Eclectic IPA and the style stretching and outright rule breaking to create a whole new alternative category of the overall style: Esoteric IPA!
To further enhance fermentation and add a bit of drying character to the beer, 8 oz. of corn sugar is added to the boiling kettle for a 5-gallon batch.
Figure 2: West Coast IPA with notes of peach skin, apricot, resin, pine and citrus.
Hops and Hopping
In the beginning, the West Coast IPA drew, generally, from the portfolio of hops known colloquially as the C hops: Cascade, Centennial, Chinook, Columbus and Crystal. These C hops often bore a resinous and piney quality along with citrus notes such as grapefruit, several varieties of orange, lemon and lime. Over time as more hop varietals were developed and introduced with flavors and aromas amenable to the style, brewers began incorporating those hops into their recipes to create novel flavors. Hops such as Citra, Amarillo, Simcoe and Mosaic offered sensory characteristics of tropical and/or stone fruits along with citrusy notes. As time passed, those newer qualities became accepted into the possible range of flavor and aroma attributes of the West Coast IPA. Now, hops such as Denali, Azzaca, Galaxy and Ekuanot impart suggestions of a variety of tropical fruits, including pineapple, mango, papaya, passionfruit and guava. Each varietal has found a place in the IPA universe in recent years.
Over 20 years of brewing, my own predilections regarding hops and hopping strategies have shifted with the introduction of newer varietals. My current approach toward bitterness, aroma and flavor in IPA revolves around gaining a balance between all three but with a definitive drive toward enough bitterness to undergird the robust flavors and aromas of the hops while still balancing the residual sweetness remaining in the beer post-fermentation.
My present and favorite strategy for the hops portion of an IPA recipe involves adding hops at first wort to gain not only bittering but also, most importantly, flavor from the essential oils of the hops. First Wort Hopping (FWH) techniques imply placing hops into the boiling kettle prior to mash run-off and onset of boil. While the value of FWH remains a topic of debate, my personal belief in the distinctive richness of the flavor gained from FWH is derived from years of experimentation in utilizing the technique across numerous styles. Personally, I believe the depth of flavor from FWH cannot be obtained through any other method of adding hops to the wort or through dry hopping. While much has been written about only utilizing the FWH technique with less bitter styles, my own experience finds just about any beer style benefits from the use of the approach.
Yeast
For fermentation, choosing either a clean or a slightly fruity American yeast strain will produce excellent results in the finished beer. The American Ale, Wyeast 1056, ferments cleanly, allowing the malt and hops to dominate. Using the American Ale II 1272 from Wyeast produces a subdued fruitiness, complementing and accentuating the fruity hop flavors and aromas in IPA’s. Presently and, in the past, the 1272 strain is and has been my favored yeast for creating West Coast IPA. The yeasts fruity tinge provides a sturdy background for a whole range of hops with citrusy, tropical, stone fruit, piney and resinous qualities, harmonizing the smooth malt backbone to the assertive bitterness, flavor and aroma attributes of the hops. Various other yeast strains, perhaps 9 – 10 other varieties, are available for producing acceptable results. The American and American II are the strains I find most favorable for generating the style.
Brewing Notes
One of my favorite recipes for West Coast IPA blends a mixture of hops from differing periods of the American hop revolution. Columbus from the classic C hop era exudes a highly resinous and piney character along with lemony citrus and pepper. Introduced in the early 2000’s, Amarillo brings flavors and aromas of apricot, raw peach skin, grapefruit, orange and spice. Lastly, Citra was released in 2007, but gained real momentum in utilization during the 2010’s. The widely-used hop epitomizes the shift toward tropical fruit notes with rich pineapple, lychee, citrus and gooseberry.
If you’ll notice, the style guidelines for American IPA outlines a range of 40-70 IBU’s. The following recipe calls for a Bittering Units level exceeding the listed parameters with total bitterness reaching a robust 83.5 IBU’s. Yes, I am breaking the rules here, but experience and full knowledge of the styles parameters allows leeway to gently push outside the boundry’s with excellent results.
In the recipe, a significant amount of the IBU’s (27.8) is infused with 10 minutes remaining in the boil, thereby making the bitterness softer on the pallet due to the shorter boiling time. Increasing the overall flavor and aroma of the IPA is the goal and the final IBU’s won’t deliver the same bittering punch of the hops placed in the wort earlier in the boil. Finally, dry-hopping the beer for 3-days prior to packaging will serve to further enhance flavor and aroma. Following carbonation, the finished beer will deliver an IPA with a pleasing hop intensity, undergirded by firm bitterness and a supportive malt foundation. In other words, we will have met our final goal: Hop Delivery Device!
Figure 3: Finished West Coast IPA and Ingredients
West Coast IPA Recipe
Malts and Sugars
UK Golden Promise 8lb. 2 oz.
US 2-Row Malt 5 lb. 2 oz.
Cara-Malt 10L 4 oz.
Double Roasted Crystal Malt 2 oz.
Corn Sugar (Start of Boil) 8 oz.
Hops
Amarillo 7.7% A.A. .85 oz. First Wort
Citra 12.8% A.A. .55 oz. First Wort
Columbus 15 % A.A. .25 oz. 60 Minutes
Amarillo 7.7% A.A. 1 oz. 10 Minutes
Citra 12.8% A.A. .75 oz. 10 Minutes
Citra 12.8% A.A. 1.5 oz. At Turn Off
Amarillo 7.7% 1.25 oz. At Turn Off
Citra 12.8% A.A. 2.00 oz. Dry Hopped 3-days
Amarillo 7.7% A.A. 2.00 oz. Dry Hopped 3-days
Columbus 15% A.A. 1.00 oz. Dry Hopped 3-days
Other Ingredients:
Gypsum
Calcium Chloride
Lactic Acid
Yeast: Wyeast American Ale II 1272 1 pkg. in 1 – 1.5 L starter culture depending on pkg. date.
Procedural
Fill Mash Tun with enough water to provide a grist to water ratio of 1.35 qt./1 lb., of malt (~19 Qt.). Calculate mineral salt additions to achieve the following,
Target Water Profile:
Calcium 190 ppm
Magnesium 12 ppm
Alkalinity as CaCO3 102 ppm
Sodium 8 ppm
Chloride 66 ppm
Sulfate 327
Utilizing a single infusion schedule, target a mash temperature of 152 F. Hold for 60 minutes. Following mash conclusion, place the First Wort Hops at the bottom of the boiling kettle. Sparge the mash with water mineralized like the mash water and treated to pH of 6.0 at 68F with lactic acid. Allow the wort to flow into the kettle and inundate the FWH. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops and corn sugar according to recipe schedule. Chill wort to 70 F and transfer to fermenter. Ferment between 64-68 F. After Krausen becomes visible, wait 3 days and raise the temperature to 70 F, permitting the yeast to finish out the fermentable sugars. Following fermentation, age for 2 weeks in secondary. Dry hop for 3 days prior to packaging. Siphon beer into bottling bucket. Boil 2/3 cup corn sugar in 1 cup water. Add to bottling bucket and, using a bottling wand, fill each bottle and crimp on bottle caps. Allow the beer to carbonate between 7-10 days. Refrigerate and enjoy. Cheers!