Russian River Brewing Co.’s Happy Hops clone

Russian River Brewing Co.’s Happy Hops clone

(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.058  FG = 1.009
IBU = 45  SRM = 4  ABV = 6.5%

As hazy IPAs were gaining popularity, and before Russian River had brewed Mind Circus, our hazy IPA, I wanted to see if I could brew a beer that had all the juicy notes of a hazy IPA, but that was clear to the look. So Happy Hops became what I jokingly called our, “not so hazy, hazy IPA.” It is more of a progressive/modern IPA in that it has a lower bitterness compared to our other IPAs, but it carries lots of rich, juicy hop notes due to backloading the whirlpool with a sizable hop addition as well as a good size dry hop charge. – Vinnie Cilurzo

Ingredients 
10 lbs. (4.5 kg) 2-row pale malt
1.25 lbs. (0.57 kg) Simpsons Best Pale Ale malt
9.5 oz. (270 g) wheat malt
4 AAU Brewers Gold hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g at 8% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) Amarillo® hops (whirlpool)
2.1 oz. (60 g) Azacca® hops (whirlpool)
2.1 oz. (60 g) Mosaic® hops (whirlpool)
1.5 oz. (42 g) Strata® hops (whirlpool)
1.5 oz. (42 g) Azacca® hops (dry hop)
1 oz. (28 g) Citra® Cryo^TM hops (dry hop)
1 oz. (28 g) Mosaic® hops (dry hop)
1.5 oz. (42 g) Mosaic® Cryo^TM hops (dry hop)
0.4 oz. (11 g) Simcoe® Cryo^TM hops (dry hop)
2 oz. (56 g) Strata® hops (dry hop)
Wyeast 1056 (American Ale), White Labs WLP001 (California Ale), or SafAle US-05 yeast 
¾ cup corn sugar (if priming)

Step by step
Mash the grains at 156 °F (69 °C) for 60 minutes, targeting a mash pH of 5.35–5.45. Conduct a 170 °F (77 °C) mash out step, if desired. Vorlauf until your wort is clear, then run off into the kettle. Sparge the grains with 168 °F (76 °C) water to obtain 6 gallons (23 L) of wort (or more, depending on your evaporation rate).

Boil for 60 minutes following the hopping schedule. After the boil is complete, add the whirlpool hop additions and stir the wort briskly to form a whirlpool, then cover and let stand for 15 minutes. Russian River adjusts the pH in the whirlpool down to 5.0–5.1.

Chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 64–66 °F (18–19 °C). Aerate the wort if using a liquid yeast strain, pitch the yeast, and add yeast nutrient if desired. Ferment at 68 °F (20 °C) until final gravity is achieved and let the beer sit for one to two additional days.

If possible, remove yeast from fermenter before adding the dry-hop additions. If able, after three more days, dump the cone of your fermenter to remove as much dry hops and yeast as possible. 

Before the dry hop, Vinnie Cilurzo recommends taking a gravity reading of the beer and recording it in your brew log. This exercise will be particularly helpful as it relates to hop creep. Three days after dry hopping, take a gravity reading and note it. Do the same the following day. Once you go two days in a row where your gravity has not dropped from the secondary fermentation from hop creep, you can proceed with chilling the beer and/or bottling or kegging. Depending on your conditions, you might have to wait longer to clear hop creep. Bottle or keg and force carbonate as usual.

Extract version:
Replace all of the grains with 7.7 lbs. (3.5 kg) light liquid malt extract and 5 oz. (140 g) dry wheat malt extract. Add 6.5 gallons (24.5 L) water to your brew kettle and bring to a boil. Remove kettle from heat and carefully stir in the liquid and dry malt extracts until totally dissolved. Return to boil and boil for 60 minutes, following the remainder of the all-grain recipe.

Notes from Vinnie:
When we brew Happy Hops at our Windsor, California, brewery we incorporate whole cone hops into the final hop addition. This is done by way of a hop back where the wort runs from our whirlpool, over the whole cone hops in the hop back, and from there the wort gets cooled off and heads to the fermenter. This recipe has been adjusted for 100% pellets, though you can use whole cone hops if available.

Another step that you can take to try to up the hop character in the beer is do what we call a “cool-pool.” To do this, you would high gravity brew the wort in the kettle and dilute it with a percentage of water during the whirlpool. This not only cools down the wort, but it dilutes it back to the correct gravity. For simplicity, I wrote this recipe as a standard run-off volume to the kettle. You may need to adjust the malt bill to hit the correct gravity if you try a cool-pool, but I encourage you to try this to bump up the hop character in this beer.