This is definitely one of the best hop-forward beers that we've made to date. Big thanks to Dudes Brews and Adam Makes Beer for sharing this recipe. Although I did vary the hop schedule a little, the basis for the beer - in particular the grain bill and water profile are really what make it and lay the platform for the hops to really shine and do their thing.
Appearance
As you'd expect we've got a nice pale gold colour, and it's definitely hazy. This one looks exactly as it should, with the Lallemand American East Coast ale yeast, a chloride heavy water profile and a bunch of oats and wheat combining to give that classic hazy appearance.
The head retention is quite poor, with it dissipating fairly rapidly after pouring quite thick. This is pretty much expected though with oats and the oils they contribute to a beer really impacting on foam stability.
Aroma
Yakima Valley hops consider a combination of Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy (we used Melba instead which is considered a worthy alternative to Galaxy) as a "cheat code" for making Hazy IPA's. Although this isn't an IPA, the dry hop dose could certainly be considered IPA-worthy. This GOAT combination is amazing, and gives loads of tropical fruit and citrus aromas that are just jumping out of the glass. With only a post-boil whirlpool hop addition and a sizeable dry hop, it's no surprise the aroma is so strong and exactly what you're looking for with a hazy, hop forward beer like this.
Flavour
We feel we've really nailed the flavour here, with a fairly restrained bitterness, but enough to balance the huge fruit flavours from all the hops. You could easily mistake it for a Hazy IPA, it certainly drinks like one in many ways, but doesn't pack the alcohol punch you get with an IPA. Coming in at just under 5% ABV, you can enjoy a few of these in succession without needing a lie down afterwards which is great.
The mouth feel is quite good, and we certainly wouldn't want it to have attenuated any lower as we feel that would have led it to being a little thin in terms of mouthfeel - so for a regular strength beer, it's exactly where it should be. The chloride-heavy water profile helps to prop up the mouth feel a little bit as well, and the inclusion of oats gives a slightly slick kind of feel on the palate which we quite enjoy.
Final Thoughts & Potential Changes/Improvements
Without a doubt we'll be making this one a regular feature in our brewing schedule. The grain bill and water profile are spot on, though we will make some adjustments to compensate for the reduced efficiency we saw (typically expected when using lots of oats). This should negate the need for us to include dextrose like we did for this one to make up for the losses and may help to improve the body and mouth feel just a touch.
The Citra + Mosaic + Galaxy hop combination is a real crowd-pleaser for sure, but we're thinking we'll use this recipe as a basis for trialling other hop combinations too which we're very much looking forward to.
.png)
No comments:
Post a Comment