Beer Forum

So, I think I am experiencing a serious "lupilin" shift. About 4 years ago I though Liberty Ale was "too bitter." Then I started homebrewing, tried different styles, and for the last two years I have gradually made hoppier beer. For the last 8 months or so, I can't get enough hops in my damn homebrew. I buy Sierra Nevada Torpeda, and Green Flash Red Ale (Red IpA), and I want hops like that. My last homebrew is good, but it still tastes "balanced." Weird, I had an IBU to OG ratio of over 1. Here is my Strong Extra hoppy PA recipe:
Original Gravity: 1.061
Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Color: 11.21
Alcohol: 6.38%
Bitterness: 66.8
11.0 lb Pale Ale Malt
1.0 lb Vienna Malt
0.5 lb Caramel Malt 60L
Mashed at 149F for 45 Min.
Ferm-Cap S - added during boil, boiled 90.0 min
1.75 oz Cascade (7.1%) - added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
1.0 oz Cascade (7.1%) - added during boil, boiled 15.0 min
1.0 oz Cascade (7.1%) - added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
.25 oz Cascade (7.1%) - added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
0.75 oz Cascade dry hopped
1.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablet
2.17 qt White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Now, this beer has good flavor - I love Cascade and Centennial hops. But, it doesn't have the intensity of the hoppy beers I buy. I want some feedback on this idea: I want to cut the vienna all together, and change the crystal 60L to 0.25oz of 120L (mostly color, a little bit of caramel/roast). I also want to up the IBU to OG to between 1.25 and 1.5 with an even split in IBus between bittering and flavor additions. Surely I will get a hoppy brew with that, right?

If it were me and I was going for a hopped up beeer I would halve your 60 minute addition and add the same amount of IBU's in at the 10 or even a 5 minute addition.

Read this article:

http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm

UcfLumberjack wrote:Read this article:

http://www.mrmalty.com/late_hopping.htm

+ 1 if you want a more "hoppy" flavor.

Just my $ .02 worth if you want more "bitternes", try swapping out your 60 minute hop to a neutral, but higher AA hop such as Magnum, Horizon or Galena or a higher AA hop with more character such as Chinook or Colombus.
Cheers.

I think many of the beers you are referencing are definitely turning to higher AA% hops. Start slamming some magnum, CTZ's or anything over 10% AA in as your bittering additions, paired with some late hopping recommendations stated above, and you'll get there.

+1 on the use of Colombus hops for bittering. They are great and with a high alpha acid % they pack a wallop.

I just brewed a bunch of hoppy beers this summer keeping the same malt bill and changing only the hops. I thought simcoe was like eating an onion. I have used columbus before, but I taste something similar to apples, which isn't really bad, but not my favorite. I liked nugget and warrior as high alpha hops, and I thought nugget was more similar to a citrus taste than any of the hops I played with. I just bought four pounds of hops for cheap, 1 lb of centennial, 2 of cascade, and 1 of willamette. When I have to buy again I may get some nugget for high alpha bittering additions. I am also going to hop burst as suggested previously. I may up my ibu to og ratio to 1.5. I'll report back.

If you are looking for a hoppy pale ale then I suggest brewing a Drake's 1500 clone. They were hosted on the sunday session not to long ago and gave the recipe. I also remember seeing a thread sometime afterward that converted the recipe into a 5gal homebrew recipe. I'll have to look through my recipes to find it, but I bet you could find it with the search function