Kinsmen Brewing Co.
Dear Replicator,
On a recent road trip through New England, my wife and I stopped by Kinsmen Brewing in Milldale, Connecticut, to meet up with a few friends. We got a kick out of their creative beer names and their extensive beer line-up, but one beer that really stood out to me was their Pollendrome DIPA. It seemed like the sort of beer that would have an interesting story behind it, and the hop presence was fantastic. I thought it was well balanced even with the honey notes. Would love to know how they went about making this one so I can try my hand brewing up something like it at home.
Frank Bergier
Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania
Kinsmen Brewing Company, located in Milldale, Connecticut, is no ordinary small-town brewpub. Having released more than 300 unique beers in only a handful of years, brewers Bob Bartholomew and Justin Benvenuto are no strangers to experimentation. They’ve become well known in the area for their many creative riffs on the hazy IPA template, testing out many different hop configurations, as well as punchy, fruited sours, and big, barrel-aged stouts. But for their Pollendrome DIPA brewed with local honey, even these highly adventurous brewers went above
and beyond.
“We’ve used honey many times in our beers, but when an opportunity came up to travel to Austin, Texas, for the National Honey Board’s honey training, Justin went down and got some tips on using it more productively,” says Bartholomew. While in Austin, Justin learned about a beer from Hold Out Brewing made in conjunction with the National Honey Board and Yakima Chief Hops (YCH) called Hivemind. When this beer was sent to the lab at YCH, the brewers had discovered a significant boost in thiols — a class of sulfur-based aroma compounds that contribute fruity and tropical flavors — compared to the exact same recipe without honey.
This got Bartholomew and Benvenuto’s creative gears turning: Here was an opportunity to call upon local ingredients while also ramping a DIPA to the next level. Thiols make up less than 1% of the essential oils in a typical hop cone and often are quite volatile, thus, are easily lost during the brewing and fermentation process. In recent years, however, many brewers have devised methods to boost thiols in order to further emphasize the tropical flavors that tend to define the modern IPA.
“We knew we wanted to try to make a honey DIPA because of the thiol boost, so we designed it to be as much of a ‘hazy DIPA’ as possible,” Bartholomew says. “Our goal was a big, adjunct-heavy Citra® bomb with a hefty dose of local honey.”
When it comes to refining recipes and honing in on the right flavors, the brewers at Kinsmen have plenty of experience. With so many unique beers released to date at their brewpub, experimentation is the name of the game. After Kinsmen first opened in 2017, Bartholomew and Benvenuto tested out just about any recipe and style they wanted.
“We created experimental beers like a toasted marshmallow Scotch ale, spruce tip Gose, and big, flavored adjunct stouts,” Bartholomew says. “Not all beers were hits, but this led us to understand more about our system, our guests, our tastes, and our techniques. As time progressed, we started to read our guests a little better. We’ve dialed in what we brew to four general categories: IPAs, fruited sours, lagers, and big stouts.”
Out of all the techniques they’ve experimented with over the years in order to hone their IPAs, only a handful of techniques have withstood the tests of time and repetition. Just about all of their IPAs, Bartholomew says, receive a heavy dose of hops during the whirlpool stage, where they aim to hold the wort at 170 °F (77 °C).
Their investigations have also led them to largely avoid the technique of biotransformative-dry hopping — the process of using active fermentation to draw out new hop flavors — despite the recent popularity. They find it releases too many polyphenolic compounds and produces a more one-dimensional beer, detracting from individualized hop profiles when too many hops are added.
“We find it produces flavors that make all hazy IPAs end up tasting the same.” That said, they will still on occasion add very small hop charges during active fermentation.
But when it comes to special ingredients like honey, one thing is clear: Quality is paramount and using local honey creates numerous new opportunities for experimentation. Bartholomew and Benvenuto found that experimenting with different varieties of honey opens up even more opportunities for creative expression. “The flavor range is incredible across different varieties,” Bartholomew says, but he recommends that, above all else, the honey needs to be local and fresh. Discount honey from the grocery store won’t cut it.
As they’ve worked laboriously to refine their techniques over the years, in the end, Bartholomew hopes to bridge their creativity with consistency. “We hear from some people that our IPAs have a ‘Kinsmen flare,’ as they should,” he says. “We use our time-tested techniques to try and make them how we like them.”
So grab some honey, Citra® hops, and find out what the hype is about.
Kinsmen Brewing Co.’s Pollendrome DIPA clone
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.078 FG = 1.013
IBU = 0 SRM = 4 ABV = 8.6%
Ingredients
8.5 lbs. (3.9 kg) 2-row pale malt
2.5 lbs. (1.13 kg) flaked oats
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) flaked wheat
0.5 lb. (0.23 kg) Carapils® malt
2.5 lbs. (1.13 kg) locally sourced honey
4 oz. (113 g) Citra® hops (hopstand)
6 oz. (170 g) Citra® hops (dry hop)
SafAle S-04, Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), or White Labs WLP013 (London Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
With the goal of creating a moderately dextrinous wort, mash in with 3.3 gallons (12.5 L) of 165 °F (74 °C) strike water to achieve a single infusion rest temperature of 154 °F (68 °C). Hold for 60 minutes.
With sparge water at 170 °F (77 °C), collect about 6.5 gallons (24.6 L) of wort. Boil for 60 minutes. At end of boil, chill wort down to 170 °F (77 °C) then add hopstand-addition hops. Whirlpool for 20 minutes before beginning to chill wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, around 66 °F (19 °C). Pitch yeast.
As primary fermentation begins to slow, add the honey. Allow fermentation to finish completely. Several days after reaching terminal gravity, add the dry-hop addition. Wait 4–6 days before packaging.
Transfer beer to keg and force carbonate to 2.4 v/v or add priming sugar and bottle.
Kinsmen Brewing Co.’s Pollendrome DIPA clone
(5 gallons/19 L, partial mash)
OG = 1.078 FG = 1.013
IBU = 0 SRM = 5 ABV = 8.6%
4 oz. (113 g) Citra® hops (hopstand)
6 oz. (170 g) Citra® hops (dry hop)
SafAle S-04, Wyeast 1028 (London Ale), or White Labs WLP013 (London Ale) yeast
3⁄4 cup corn sugar (if priming)
Step by Step
Mash the 2-row pale malt, flaked oats, and Carapils® in a muslin bag in 2 gallons (8 L) of water at 154 °F (68 °C) for 45 minutes. Afterwards, place the grain bag in a colander and wash with 1 gallon (4 L) of warm or hot water. Add water to reach a total volume of 5.5 gallons (21 L). Carefully stir in the dried malt extract, then bring wort to a boil. Boil for 10–15 minutes.
At end of boil, chill wort down to 170 °F (77 °C) then add hopstand-
addition hops. Whirlpool for 20 minutes before beginning to chill wort down to slightly below fermentation temperature, around 66 °F (19 °C). Pitch yeast.
As primary fermentation begins to slow, add the honey. Allow fermentation to finish completely. Several days after reaching terminal gravity, add dry-hop addition. Wait 4–6 days before packaging.
Transfer beer to keg and force carbonate to 2.4 v/v or add priming sugar and bottle.
Tips for success:
While the recipe specs list this beer as 0 IBU, the hopstand and dry hops will provide bitterness to the beer.
