Not too long ago, after getting some pressure from my rye-fanatic roommate, I whipped up a Rye IPA, or RyePA if you're into that sort of thing. It was a fun experiment. Having never brewed with rye malt before I decided to start conservatively at 10% of the grist. Here is what I came up with.
Grain:
70% 2-Row
10% Dark German Munich
10% German Rye Malt
5% Victory
5% Crystal 60° L
Hops:
13.2 AAU Nugget (60 min)
1 oz Mt Hood (30 min)
1 oz Cascade (15 min)
1 oz Mt Hood (5 min)
1 oz Cascade (0 min)
Yeast:
Wyeast 1332 - Northwest Ale
When toying with new ingredients I tend go overboard. I eschew subtlety in favor of making damn sure I know how a certain malt or hop will affect the final quality of the beer. With this Rye IPA I'm glad I found restraint. The spiciness from the rye is present, but fairly subtle, and complimented nicely by the Mt Hood/Cascade hops and the slight fruitiness of yeast. If anything, the rye could be more present in the final beer, and I think that I will bump it up to 15% on the next go around.
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| Quite a full boil! |
The bottom line: I landed really close to the pin with this recipe. It's probably luck, but I may also be getting better at understanding how all the facets of recipe formulation fit together. I will brew this beer again soon with two primary adjustments: more rye (offset by reducing the 2-Row, I would guess) and more hop bitterness. Despite all the late hop additions, I would still like this beer to be more bitter. To this end I suppose I could go one of two ways: by upping the bittering hops at 60 minutes and/or another addition around 45 minutes, or I could start treating my water with sulphates. This second path would only up the perceived bitterness at risk of impairing the malt character, and thus I am a bit reluctant to try it. However water treatment is still a missing dimension of my brewing--one that I'll have to start exploring sooner or later.
Until I figure all this out and come to a decision, I'm going to continue to explore obscure English ale styles. Up next: Old Ale! Filling that no-man's land between Brown Porter and English Barleywine. There's 5 gallons of bitter about to go into a keg and that yeast cake will be prime to ferment out an 1.065 OG beer in no time!
