Brewing A West Coast IPA: The anti-haze
Lore has it that IPA originated in England as a stronger, hoppier version of the pale ales that were around in those days. The intention was that it would be more likely to survive the long, hot trip to India that way. There is a legend that a ship laden with it sunk just off the English coast at the beginning of one of those trips, and as the barrels floated back to shore the locals grabbed them and loved the new type of beer. True story? Who knows . . . not even Denny is old enough to have been there! But he definitely appreciates that something happened to introduce IPA to beer drinkers! (Gentle reminder, readers — if history gives you a really great “clean” story, it’s highly unlikely to be true.)
Love it or hate it, India pale ale is arguably the most popular craft beer style around. Most bars have it on multiple taps. It’s the largest category in beer competitions. That popularity has led to a diverse range of IPAs as people try to carve out a niche for themselves.
Now, there are hazy IPAs, white IPAs, red IPAs, black IPAs, zero IBU IPAs, double IPAs, triple IPAs, quadruple IPAs (Drew just covered those on the podcast). Variations to make your head spin and your tastebuds quiver. Every week a new hop leads to new names, new takes, new cans. But we’re not gonna talk about any of those — this time. Nope, we’re staying true to our roots — give us the bitterness of the West Coast IPA.
What has come to be known as West Coast IPA evolved from what we both think of as the original American IPA, made by Ballantine’s.
What has come to be known as West Coast IPA evolved from what we both think of as the original American IPA, made by Ballantine’s. Their India Pale Ale was dark, burnished, and wood-aged for 5-12 months (time varied by how many pennies ownership was trying to save). The yeast Ballantine’s used has outlasted their IPA and its lineage is what many of us today turn to when we brew our American pale ales and IPAs. You know which one it is because it was the yeast many of the early craft brewers used. Ballantine’s may have been one of the key (and longest standing) versions in America, but the model for American IPA really got set with Bert Grant’s IPA and Anchor’s Liberty Ale, using what was for the time (1983) an insane amount of new-fangled Cascade hops. Along the way many other breweries, like Bridgeport, Harpoon, Steelhead and many more added their stamps to the style.
But changes have happened with American IPA over time and what some people picture in their minds when you say that term has become . . . well, muddled. When we hear “West Coast IPA”, we think: Clear, crisp beers with enough malt to support the hop load, a bracing bitterness, and loaded with hop flavor and aroma. No trendy techniques like all the hops at the end of the boil or fruit and vanilla additions. West Coast IPA is a very straightforward beer, using processes that have come through to us for generations.
And in our horrifically biased opinions, the best part is that they’re making a comeback after their presence was significantly reduced during the haze craze. Hazy IPAs aren’t going away, but it’s at least sharing the stage these days. Currently when you head into a brewery taproom or bar, you might actually face a 50/50 chance of getting a West Coast IPA when you ask for an IPA. So today we’re gonna give you our tips for brewing this classic style of beer.
West Coast IPA Grain Bill
Keep the grist simple — pale malt and crystal should be the majority of your grist. The classic West Coast IPA grist is 90% 2-row pale and 10% crystal malts. You can toss in some Munich if you like, but don’t go overboard. Shoot for an original gravity (OG) in the low 1.060s to mid 1.070s and a final gravity (FG) in the 1.010–1.016 range.
Don’t be afraid of crystal, just use it properly. 10% crystal 60L is common for a lot of West Coast IPA grain bills, but you can use 20 or 40L to lighten it up a bit. Go for 5–10% depending on your taste. Denny changes the type of crystal depending on the season. In colder months, he’ll go to 60L. For light, crisp summer IPA, he chooses 10L or 20L crystal. And note, this is where the story of the classic West Coast starts — over time, the grain bills have simplified with brewers eschewing any and all crystal in an attempt to clear all the room for the hops. A direction Denny definitely does not endorse. It can lead to a very one dimensional, dare we say “boring” beer. As an alternative to standard American crystal malt, consider Munich, Caramunich®, Cararuby®, Victory® or Special Roast. But in total specialty malts should not exceed 10% of your grist.
Don’t be tempted to do the classic homebrewer things . . . add wheat for “head retention” or dextrin malt for body. The polyphenols in the hops will bind the proteins from the grain and you’ll get plenty of foam. You don’t need to add more body than what the crystal will give you. Remember, you’re trying to turn the world onto hops in this older-school American IPA — not malt.
Hops Usage
Use at least a 1:1 bittering units:gravity units (BU:GU) ratio. So make your IBUs equal to or exceeding your original gravity (for example, you should target 60 IBUs or more on a 1.060 beer). Denny likes bittering hops that slap you in the face with a bracing bitterness, so Chinook is often his choice. Drew leans more to Warrior®, which isn’t quite as aggressive.
Use layered additions. At the very least use a 60-minute addition and back it up with a 5-minute addition. You can also go with 20, 10, 3, 0, whirlpool . . . whatever. Yes, a number of modern IPAs skip any kettle additions, but in both of our experiences it’s rare to get that 100% rock-solid bitter base without at least a touch of kettle-derived IBUs.
Use more than one variety to give the beer some depth, but don’t think you need a dozen varieties. Be sensible and think about the interplay between the varieties. The point is to create complex hop profiles that aren’t muddled. Be careful combining big American “C’s” and their citrus and pine with big doses of the New World tropical, fruity hops to avoid a conflict — that’s not to say you can’t, but be mindful. Pull the palate in too many directions and you’ll get a jumbled experience — hops don’t lend themselves to a “Wall of Sound” approach.
Even if you whirlpool, don’t overlook dry hopping. Denny has stopped using whirlpool hops in favor of dry hopping. His typical IPA hop schedule is 60, 5, and dry hops. Drew on the other hand still likes to throw hops into a 170-ish°F (~77 °C) whirlpool for 20 minutes along with later additions of dry hops, but you find what works for you!
When dry hopping, don’t get caught up in thinking more is better, either in terms of time or amount. Recent research has shown that there’s a limit of about 8 grams/L (~1 oz./gallon) of dry hops before you start getting diminishing returns. At that level, the hop oils are approaching saturation and you won’t get much more. If you’re going for a very citrusy aroma, the oils for that reach saturation at even lower levels and more than that gives you herbal/tea aromas rather than fruit. (https://patspints.com/2019/01/16/the-surprising-science-of-dry-hopping-lessons-from-tom-shellhammer/)
The other bit of common wisdom that we grew up with was to dry hop at ale temperatures for 1–2 weeks. Over time, that advice has been changing and now the science is backing it up. Dry hopping for shorter, colder periods appears to infuse more fruit and less vegetal aromas with less loss of hop oils and isomerized alpha acids (at least in terms of linalool). Denny has dry hopped hundreds of batches using a variety of techniques, and nothing has ever worked as well as 48 hours at 35 °F (2 °C) (https://bsgcraftbrewing.com/reevaluating-dry-hop-techniques). Vinnie Cilurzo of Russian River Brewing Co. in Windsor, California, and a knower of IPAs, has switched to shorter dry hopping as well, but keeps them warmer — he prefers the character at warmer temperatures.
As more science gets worked around the outrageous amount of dry hops we actually use today, expect some very complicated techniques to arise. As we try and balance the extraction rates of multiple compounds of various classes of oils. When dry hopping, consider hops that have been processed to reduce the vegetal matter in them, like Cryo® hops or Lupomax™. You’ll get more bang from them and with less bract they suck up less of your precious beer.
One last tip that we’re seeing more and more brewers take up — dry hops, particularly large doses as favored today, raise the final beer’s pH, making the beer less acidic. Brewers like Julian Shrago of Beachwood Brewing in Long Beach, California purposely acidify their beer going into whirlpool to reach a target pH of 5.1. Julian does this to combat the pH rise that to his perceptions makes the beer taste “flat and flabby.”
Water Profile
Your water should have a pretty good sulfate load. We’re not huge fans of chloride:sulfate ratios, so we’ll just recommend that you want in the neighborhood of 200 ppm of sulfate. If we were into ratios, we’d tell you to keep the chloride to half of that or less.
Sometimes in brewing IPA, you need to get more sulfate into your beer when your calcium level is already pretty high. Too much calcium (roughly in excess of 200 ppm) can lead to premature flocculation of the yeast. So if your Ca+2 is already up there but you need more sulfate, don’t overlook magnesium sulfate, also know as Epsom salts. You certainly don’t want too much Mg+2 either, but 25–50 ppm will be fine. (Too much magnesium imparts a very strong mineral character and may have other distressing digestive effects.)
If you need to adjust pH, don’t try to do it all with gypsum or calcium chloride. Get your mineral addition sussed first and take a look at where your pH stands after that. Then if you need to lower pH, use lactic or phosphoric acid to do it. There’s no easy number to give because it’s all going to depend on your local water and your grist. As an example, Drew has fairly bicarbonate water and needs a little over one mL of lactic acid per gallon (3.8 L) brewing water to pull his pH down with a simple bill of pale malt and crystal 60L. Denny on the other hand uses well water and doesn’t require any pH change. The malts are just dark enough to pull the pH down where he wants it (5.2–5.4).
Yeast Selection
Use a clean yeast. Let the flavor profile come from the malt and hops, not the yeast. Denny’s preferences for liquid yeast run to Wyeast 1450, 1217, and 1056. For dry yeast Lallemand BRY-97 is his go-to. He finds the ubiquitous SafAle US-05 too fruity for his tastes, but this is about your beer. SafAle US-05, S-04, and Lallemand Nottingham are all in the ballpark for the yeast you want for West Coast IPA. Just remember, this is West Coast IPA, not English. Keep the esters produced by the yeast to almost unnoticeable amounts.
Fermentation Considerations
The “keep it clean” plan for West Coast IPA means fermenting at lower temperatures. Denny prefers starting at 63–65 °F (17–18 °C). After about 5 days or so, he jumps up to the 70–72 °F (21–22 °C) range until final gravity is reached. By waiting to increase the temperature you avoid the fruity notes you can get from higher temperature fermentation. Then he crashes to 35–40 °F (2–4 °C) to drop the yeast before dry hopping for 48 hours at that temperature.
Key Processes
Mash in the low 150s °F (~65–66 °C). It may vary depending on your grist and your goals, but you want to mash for a fair amount of fermentability, but not so much that you lose the malt balance against the hops. Yes, hops should be featured, but you want malt there to back them up.
If you really want a bright and shiny IPA, you rarely need to do anything more than cold + time, but if you’re in a hurry, gelatin is a good and inexpensive means of getting your clarity. Denny refuses to take the effort to use gelatin and gets good results with Whirlfloc/Irish moss in the kettle and solid time to allow cold conditioning after fermentation.
You can see that there’s more than one way to make West Coast IPA, so just keep your goals in mind. You want a clear, refreshing beer with a bracing bitterness and loads of hop flavor and aroma. No thick, low bitterness beers that taste like orange juice. If that’s what you want, then you’ll have to ask Gordon Strong : ). But if West Coast IPA is what you’re looking for, try some of our tips. And embrace the clarity!
Denny’s Generic West Coast IPA
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.069 FG = 1.012
IBU = 72 SRM = 12 ABV = 7.5%
Ingredients
13 lbs. (5.9 kg) North American 2-row pale malt
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
16.5 AAU Chinook hops (60 min.) (1.25 oz./35 g at 13.2% alpha acids)
6.8 AAU Cascade hops (5 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 6.8% alpha acids)
12 AAU Centennial hops (0 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 12% alpha acids)
2 oz. (57 g) Cascade Cryo® hops (dry hop)
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), White Labs WLP001 (California Ale),
Imperial Yeast A07 (Flagship), or Lallemand BRY-97 yeast
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Using a fairly thick mash, achieve a single infusion mash temperature of 153 °F (67 °C). Hold at this temperature for 60 minutes. Start lautering by raising mash temperature up to 168 °F (76 °C), then hold for ten minutes. Sparge with enough water to collect about 6.5 gallons (24.6 L) of wort and boil for 60 minutes. Add the hops as stated in the recipe.
Upon completion of the boil, chill the wort to 63 °F (17 °C), pitch a healthy count of yeast and oxygenate thoroughly (if using a liquid strain). As fermentation slows, you may allow the temperature to rise up to 68 °F (20 °C) to ensure completion. Total fermentation time should be about one week so the yeast has time to clean up its off-flavors. Drop temperature to 45 °F (7 °C) and add dry hop. Wait two days then keg and carbonate to 2.6 v/v or bottle.
Denny’s Generic West Coast IPA
(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.069 FG = 1.012
IBU = 72 SRM = 12 ABV = 7.5%
Ingredients
7 lbs. (3.2 kg) golden dried malt extract
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
16.5 AAU Chinook hops (60 min.) (1.25 oz./35 g at 13.2% alpha acids)
6.8 AAU Cascade hops (5 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 6.8% alpha acids)
12 AAU Centennial hops (0 min.) (1 oz./28 g at 12% alpha acids)
2 oz. (57 g) Cascade Cryo® hops (dry hop)
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), White Labs WLP001 (California Ale),
Imperial Yeast A07 (Flagship), or Lallemand BRY-97 yeast
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Heat 3 gallons (11.4 L) of water in your kettle and add the crushed crystal malt in a muslin bag. Submerge the grains in the water and steep until the temperature reaches about 160 °F (71 °C) Remove the grains, you can gently squeeze the grains to get most of the liquid out. Off heat add the dried malt extract and add water to have 6.5 gallons (24.6 L) wort. Bring wort to a boil. Follow all-grain recipe for remaining boil, fermentation, and packaging instructions.
Notes From Denny:
You can substitute a different “character” malt for the crystal, like Munich or Victory®. You can use all pale malt. You can use Magnum or Warrior® hops for bittering. For a more traditional West Coast IPA, avoid tropical fruit hops. For a more modern take, go crazy with hops like Citra® or Mosaic®. This is a style you can customize to your liking as long as it’s crisp and bitter.
