Next Up: Mosaic IPA

I've finally decided it's time to try my Mosaic IPA.  This is a beer I've been wanting to try for a while. 

It's inspired by a batch of test IPA's I brewed a while back: five one-gallon batches using a simple grain bill and US Magnum bittering hops (bitters clean and I don't have to worry about the differing levels of alpha acids in the flavor/aroma hops), each featuring a different flavor/aroma hop.  The hops I used were: Cascade, Citra, Falconer's Flight, Mosaic, and Simcoe. 

(The guy at MyLHBS put me on to the Mosaic and Falconer's Flight, btw.  I very much recommend the shop.  My only gripe is that if you need more than five pounds of grain crushed they require a full 24 hours advance notice--and they actually enforce that.  So basically, if you are doing any kind of all-grain batch you need to call them a day before you want to pick them up.  Jay's Brewing is much more laid-back about it--they just want you to call/email if you want something ridiculous like 50 lbs. so they can start grinding it before you get there.)

The idea behind this beer is similar to my hop-test beers: it's designed to be a showcase for a specific hop (in this case, Mosaic).  I've found Mosaic has a beautiful bright, fruity flavor.  Most places seem to describe it as tropical fruit, but it tastes more like pink grapefruit to me--a bright citrus tang, but sweet rather than sour.

I'm not using any bittering hops in this.  Instead, I chose to hopburst, which is a technique where all of the bitterness comes from late additions of flavor/aroma hops.  It takes a lot more hops to do this, but it gives you a crazy amount of flavor and aroma of the hop(s) you're using.

I decided to go with an extract recipe, because I've only made one all-grain (my Centennial Blonde), and I haven't tested it yet.  Given the crazy amount of hops (9 oz!), this would be a really expensive beer to screw up.

BrewSmith says it will look something like this:

which is exactly what I want.  The recipe is as follows:

• 8.5 oz Crystal malt (20L), steeped for 30 min. at 155.0 F
• 3 lbs. 3.1 oz Light Dry Extract, added for full boil (60 min)
• 4 lbs. 4.1 oz Light Dry Extract, added for the last 15 min (late extract additions keep the extract from darkening and caramelizing too much)
• 0.5 oz Mosaic hops, added for last 15 minutes
• 1 Whirlfloc tablet added for last 15 minutes
• 1.0 oz Mosaic hops, added for last 10 minutes
• 1.0 oz Mosaic hops, added for last 5 minutes
• 2.5 oz Mosaic hops, added at flame-out

Once it's cooled I'll pitch  about a 2L starter of California Ale yeast (White Labs WLP001), and dry-hop with another 4 oz. of Mosaic hops at the end of fermentation for four days, so it has a nice burst of Mosaic aroma when you pour it.  I will probably add gelatin at the same time for fining.

The numbers for the beer are:

• Original Gravity: 1.066 (style guidelines: 1.056-1.075)
• Final Gravity: 1.015
• Bitterness: 45.0 IBU (style: 40.0-70.0 IBU) (I wanted to stay on the less-bitter end; my goal isn't to make you pucker, like so many IPA's, but to give you that great fruity flavor I like about Mosaic)
• Color: 9.1 SRM (style: 6.0-15.0 SRM)
• ABV: 6.7% (style: 5.50-7.50%)

Once it's ready I'll post my tasting notes, but here are my goals/expectations:

Aroma: The dominant aroma should be an intense citrus/tropical fruit notes from the hops, likely with some piney/resinous notes beneath.  Possible grassy aroma from the dry-hopping.  Some sweet malt or caramel notes possible but unlikely.

Appearance:   Light copper color.  Probably somewhat hazy due to dry-hopping.  Large off-white head that persists with good lacing.

Flavor: Hop flavor should be extremely high, with the dominant flavor being citrus and tropical fruit, with additional piney and resinous notes as well.  Medium-high hop bitterness.  Sweet malt backbone should support bitterness nicely.  Low malty sweetness with potential caramel notes.  No diacetyl.  Finish likely bitter, lingering into aftertaste.  Finish medium-dry.

Mouthfeel: Smooth, medium-bodied mouthfeel with no hop astringency.  Malt sweetness likely to be counteracted by moderately-high carbonation, making mouthfeel somewhat dry.

Overall: This should be a showcase for the incredible aroma and flavor of the Mosaic hop.  Drinkers should get a burst of hoppy aroma right from the get-go, and that flavor and aroma should dominate the beer from start to finish.

Northern Virginia BrewFest

So Saturday was the Northern Virginia BrewFest. When I say it exceeded my expectations, you have to understand that I set my expectations for thisp thing almost painfully high. My dad's been asking me to come for years, and the list of breweries--including Stone, Bell's, Firestone Walker and more--really had me pumped.

Somehow it was better than I expected. I was pouring for Yards Brewing out of Philadelphia, and one of their distributors named Jason was there. He was a certified cicerone, and he really knew his stuff. I learned a decent bit from him.

Yards had two beers: their Thomas Jefferson Tavern Ale and their Love Stout.  Both were quite tasty and some of the more popular beers of the festival, but very different.

Jason described the Tavern Ale as "an English Strong Ale brewed with honey, about 8% ABV". He's a pro, and he does these festivals for a living, so I'm sure he knew what the patrons wanted to know, but the story behind it was the interesting part to me.

"I have no reciept [sic] for brewing," Jefferson wrote, "and I much doubt the operations of malting and brewing could be successfully performed from a reciept," according to the Monticello website. Strange, for a man who kept such careful records. Nonetheless, Yards brewed a beer with the sorts of ingredients that might have been available at Monticello, and used a recipe that might have been used at the time. It contains malted barley, rye, flaked maize, and a decent bit of honey, which forms the most prominent note. It has very little on the way of hops, as Jason said they'd not have used hops at Monticello, hops being introduced to the colonies nearly one hundred years later by German settlers.

I'm not sure I buy the explanation--the Monticello site says they grew hops for beer in 1794, no doubt from Jefferson's meticulous notes on his garden.  The Reinheitsgebot was enacted in 1516, specifying hops as one of the ingredients in German beer, and my own ancestors emigrated from Hamburg to New York in the early 1600's--nearly two hundred years before Jefferson was brewing.

Nonetheless, it's the historical tie-in that I find so fascinating about this beer. They have a line of "Ales of the Revolution", and the concept thrills me.

The other beer was their Love Stout, a draft-only English stout carbonated with nitro to emulate cask beer. It was quite tasty, and the nitro gave it a smooth, creamy body that really worked well with the mild flavor. I'm hoping it makes its way into restaurants in the area.

I managed to knock one beer off my list: Allagash White. They were a few tents down, and volunteers could basically sample at will. I also got to try Bell's Oberon, a very tasty wheat beer (they didn't have Hopslam or Two-Hearted, more's the pity). Stone had both their IPA and Arrogant Bastard there for the hopheads, though; Green Flash brought their West Coast IPA and Firestone Walker had both Union Jack and Wooky Jack. Most of the other breweries also had IPA's as well.

Hooray for IPA!

One of the stores in my area, Total Wine, holds periodic classes and events. Honestly, they're more wine-oriented, but they have a pretty good selection of craft beers, and I love going in and assembling a custom six-pack. I don't drink a great deal, so if I have to buy a six-pack every time I want to try a beer I'll never get to try half of what I want. Buying singles is the way to go for me.

One of their upcoming classes is called Hooray for IPA! The cost is pretty nominal--$15. I don't know much about the class, but it promises English IPA, Belgian IPA, American IPA, American Double/Imperial IPA, and "other hoppy goodness". I'm not sure what that last one means, but I assume it is talking about either other hoppy styles (American Barleywine or American Pilsner, maybe?) or hoppy versions of otherwise not-so-hoppy styles (you know us Americans, more hops are always better!)

 I'll have to check that out and see what they have to offer. I've been interested by their in-store tastings in the past.