Complex Hop Bill In Lighter Ale?

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waggastew

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Looking for some advice on hop bill for a light bodied pale ale (4.5%ish). Basically I want hop complexity ala multiple hop types/AIPA but balanced within a lighter, crisp ale.

Thought was to create a hop mix using equal quantities of several hop types (centennial, galaxy, citra) but only use smaller quantities of the mix at a few points in the boil.

Any thoughts/experiences/guesses if this will work? Is it going to be too muddy?

Cheers

Stew
 
I made a 4.5% AAA, more like a mini red IPA, recently with 4.5g/L centennial/cascade/apollo/galaxy in the cube, and 5g/L apollo/bravo/CTZ/chinook in the dry hop and it came out very well. Not with a light grain bill though, it was mostly munich II with some crystal and special roast, though I'm planning to make one lighter in the future.
 
Use some gypsum in the boil and you will lift the profile beyond muddy/hoppy.

Small amount for bittering, then loads of small, frequent additions (eg 5 g of each every 3-5 minutes) after 20-30 mins. 2-3 hop types all up, make sure at least your aroma hop and dry hops have equal amounts of all.

Don't use a hop at any point that you're not happy to taste.
 
I made a 4.5% AAA, more like a mini red IPA, recently with 4.5g/L centennial/cascade/apollo/galaxy in the cube, and 5g/L apollo/bravo/CTZ/chinook in the dry hop and it came out very well. Not with a light grain bill though, it was mostly munich II with some crystal and special roast, though I'm planning to make one lighter in the future.

Am i counting right? 10 hop types? Most i have used is 6... You *******!!

There are some big hops in that lot.

Noice
 
Good question.

I had a crack a low (around 4-4.5%) APA, off memory Galaxy, Citra, Cascade and maybe Nelson Sauvin - sort of a sessionable version of the Lord Nelson Citra Cascading out of this Galaxy Pale Ale.

I got the balance completely out of kilter. Totally. IIRC, I mashed high, finished high and then had the hops too low for it.

From my musings, I reckon you'd attack this problem two ways:

1. Low OG (1.040 or so) and a decent whack of crystal, mash high, finish high and up the hops by about 20% of your chosen IBU to cover the extra hoppiness needed; or
2. Do it about 1.045-1.048, with a light malt (say pilsener or a light ale malt) a bit of wheat, mash low, get a highly attenuating yeast to render it dry and then up the IBU by about 10-15% which will be eaten up by the extra attenuation. One 60 min addition at about 10-15 IBU, and hit it at 10 minutes with all the hops you really want.

But this is, in light of my failure last year. Having said that, one does learn more from failure.

Goomba
 
Looking for some advice on hop bill for a light bodied pale ale (4.5%ish). Basically I want hop complexity ala multiple hop types/AIPA but balanced within a lighter, crisp ale.

Thought was to create a hop mix using equal quantities of several hop types (centennial, galaxy, citra) but only use smaller quantities of the mix at a few points in the boil.

Any thoughts/experiences/guesses if this will work? Is it going to be too muddy?

Cheers

Stew

You could do worse than an American Wheat Whale Ale lookalike, bitter with something bitter :p but also residually aromatic such as Mt Hood or Columbus, then finish off at flameout with Cascade. Works every time for me.
 
Am i counting right? 10 hop types? Most i have used is 6... You *******!!

There are some big hops in that lot.

Noice
Yah, partly to clean out some old stock, and partly because I got a ton of mixed hops from Nikobrew recently. :D
 
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