I’m reading Mitch Steele’s IPA book and it really goes into the genesis of these fairly recently developed truly American styles. He draws a sharp distinction between these and English styles/hoppy porters. Rightly or wrongly, I had really dismissed Black IPA’s as a fad, “so 2011”, but now I’m intrigued.
Considering brewing a double IPA strength brew with Dehusked carafe III or similar. Any tips? Good craft/commercial examples?
This may very well be my absolute favorite style of beer, at least during the winter. I brew the basic Black IPA recipe from NB typically twice per year, once in the fall and once in the spring. I originally bought it through the kit on NB but now I just brew to the recipe. I have tried Ace of Spades and Pirate’s Plunder kits as well but keep coming back to the standard recipe. I had to sub some Caramel 60L for some of the Caramel 80L that the recipe calls for on this batch based on what my LHBS had in stock so I will be interested to see if I can tell a difference when it’s done carbing here at the end of this week.
As for commercial examples, a couple of my favorites are Back in Black by 21st Amendment, Wookey Jack from Firestone Walker (tried a clone of that from BYO which turned out pretty well), Midnight Moonlight from FatHead’s, and Stone Sublimely Self Righteous Black IPA.