Brewing a similar beer to Brewdogs 9.2% IPA???

[daveb]

Hi am not new to home brew..i have brewed many wines for as long as i can remember, but i am very new to the world of home brewed beer...

I love the many new special craft beers and attention to taste, Usually higher Abv's and lots of hops etc....in other words i like full bodied rich, aromatic hoppy beers as opposed to the usual boring run of the mill supermarket offerings...

There are a few exceptions...one that i particularly enjoy is Brewdogs 9.2% IPA...its not perfect by any means but i would love to be able to brew something similar..

Now here's the problem..i have NEVER brewed beer using dry ingredients like grains or hops...only ever canned kits...What i would like to do is buy 2-3 cans of liquid malt extract maybe in a recognised kit style for IPA..then add my own hops to achieve a taste and full flavoured high Abv imperial IPA style beer...so for 5 galls i could purchase 2-3 IPA liquid malt kIPA kits and add my own hops to improve the aroma and taste....

Is this a feasible or realistic option as i dont really feel confident at this early stage to start using PROPER grains and malted barley etc.....

If i could create an Imperial IPA beer around 10-12% Abv what would be the best way forward using canned malt, the best yeast, hops etc etc...any advice or help would be very very much appreciated guys...thanks..oh i would be bottle conditioning it in my newly built up collection of Grolsch bottles....thank you.

 

[Dunfie]

First off I will state that I am an AG brewer so cannot really advise on which kits would best to use in this experiment.

There is a thread on Brewdog Hardcore IPA that might be worth a read before you get going.

Aleman has done a lot of the legwork for you in his cloned Hardcore recipe so we know the hops that are required.

So to get the appropriate gravity you simply need to take your kits and add the appropriate amount of DME.

The tricky bit is getting the hop character and I am afraid you are going to have to do a bit of boiling to convert the alpha acids in the hops to bittering units. You are going to need a big stock pot for this. The simplest method would be as follows:

1, Take a stock pot and fill it 80% with water and dilute your DME.
2, Bring to the simmer (you are going to simmer for 90 mins)
3, At start of boil add your first hop addition (Aleman suggest 50g of Simcoe for a 23l batch)
4, After 30 mins add you second addition as suggest (just follow the recipe)
5, When all of the additions are finished, let is stand for a few minutes, then strain the contents of the stock pot through a sieve into your fermenting bucket (you don't want the hops in the fermenter).
6, Now make up your kit as normal.

Take your Gravity Reading - you will be looking for something in the high 80's.

Yeast - you want to use an American Ale Yeast so Safale US-05 is the one to get. If you really want to give a good change to ferment out I would use 2 packets.

Finally bottling. Now that you are using real hops you now need to avoid the beer getting spoiled by UV and causing the beer to skunk. Unfortunately green bottles are no use for protecting the beer from UV so you will need to ensure that they are kept in a dark place. Alternatively get a load of brown bottles.

 

[calumscott]

I will be watching this with great interest!!!

I too love the Brewdog guys' mental hopping. One thing to bear in mind though, and it was comment from James in some argument of craft beer Vs real ale on their blog around force carbing that he and the Brewdog brewers believe that you need a big fizz to cut though and balance the weight of hop. So clearing, killing and force carb in a cornie might be required for this. Or maybe just racking, resting and a bigger than normal (more lager sized) bottle prime might do the job?

 

[daveb]

Thank you Dunfie....sounds like something even i can attempt...I may start this brew next week, am getting the bug again...thank you for your kind advice!....i will take some pics of teh whole process and the finished results...cheers again!. :thumb: