El Simarillo IPA

For one reason or another IPAs are just not a style I brew that often. It's not that I dislike them it's just that it seems that everywhere I turn there's an IPA. Not that that's a bad thing. People are free to brew and drink what they prefer, but for me this hop assault is tiresome.

So that being said when I do brew an IPA it's usually something a bit different. The last one I brewed about two years ago for a friends wedding and fermented it with Belgian yeast. Great beer, but I digress. This one is a bit of an oddball and not entirely sure I can even call it an IPA.

The one thing I dislike about so many American IPAs is that I usually can't taste anything but hops. I wanted a more malty base so for this one the base malt was Vienna along with white wheat. Then a pound of 60l crystal added for color. For the hops I did a first wort hop addition of target (which I do for all of my hoppy beers) and then late hop additions of el dorado and simcoe hops. The beer will later be dry hopped with more el dorado, simcoe then also some amarillo (El Simarillo get it?).

Brew day was largely uneventful. With the exception of burning the tubing to my wort chiller (good thing I have a back up. It was also my first brew using the new false bottom I purchased for my mash tun. I can't confirm it yet but my efficiency was lower than normal and I have a feeling that the change in gear was the culprit.

Mash profile single infusion at 154
Mash efficiency 70%
OG 1.046
IBU 76.8

Mash ingredients
5lbs Vienna malt
3lbs white wheat
1lb 60L crystal malt

Hop schedule
1oz. Target 8.8%aa FWH
1oz. Simcoe 14.1%aa 10min
1oz. Simcoe 14.1%aa 5min
2oz. El Dorado 16%aa 5min

1oz. El Dorado dry hop
2oz. Amarillo dry hop
2oz. Simcoe dry hop

Update 3/18/2011 - Racked onto 2oz. Simcoe, 2oz Amarillo and 1oz. El Dorado. Sample I had was really nice. Bitterness was smooth and clean, which is something I had worried about since using all very high AA% hops.