Big hops + bourbon cask

Northern Brewer General
1

Friday night I had the chance to sample a firkin of a local brewery’s spring hop ale (Legend Hopfest). For the month of March, they are rotating “unsuspecting” beers through their bourbon casks and serving them via firkin.

I haven’t been able to let go of the brew from my mind all weekend. It was as if someone took a Vienna lager, amped up the malt a bit, punched in a big aroma addition, maybe some dry hop, and then mellowed it all out with a very vanilla / oak / boozy undertone.

Anyways, it got me thinking – has anyone here done a big bourbon cask IPA? I’ve had casked IPA before, but none from a bourbon cask. I can see some flavor challenges (especially on the hop front) from trying to replicate this idea, but it has piqued my interest none the less.

Cheers.

2

You can totally replicate this at home.

My question though: do you have a solid IPA recipe that you can brew and re-brew with consistency? The beer you had sounds like it was really clean (witness: Vienna) so the hops and bourbon’d-oak could shine.

If you keg, you can naturally condition it with priming sugar, then add the bourbon-soaked oak cubes/spirals and gravity feed it to simulate a cask.

Finally, there are lots of options out there to ‘oak’ beers. There are these new spiral cork things that essentially mimic an oak (or cedar, or whathaveyou) barrell, and you can soak those in bourbon prior to adding them to your fermented beer.

3

[quote=“Pietro”]You can totally replicate this at home.

My question though: do you have a solid IPA recipe that you can brew and re-brew with consistency? The beer you had sounds like it was really clean (witness: Vienna) so the hops and bourbon’d-oak could shine.

If you keg, you can naturally condition it with priming sugar, then add the bourbon-soaked oak cubes/spirals and gravity feed it to simulate a cask.

Finally, there are lots of options out there to ‘oak’ beers. There are these new spiral cork things that essentially mimic an oak (or cedar, or whathaveyou) barrell, and you can soak those in bourbon prior to adding them to your fermented beer.[/quote]

Yes, the beer was very clean with great body. I picked Vienna because it was on the way to being a Marzen, without being that malty/lager clean.

Well, before my six year hiatus, I had a very strong Sierra Nevada pale clone going. It is going to be some time before I dive back in and start modifying recipes – I need to ride with training wheels for a while.

That said, I can’t see the citrusy, smack your gob Cascade working with this. I’m thinking Brewers Gold or something along those lines.

Cheers.

4

[quote=“alphastanley”][quote=“Pietro”]You can totally replicate this at home.

My question though: do you have a solid IPA recipe that you can brew and re-brew with consistency? The beer you had sounds like it was really clean (witness: Vienna) so the hops and bourbon’d-oak could shine.

If you keg, you can naturally condition it with priming sugar, then add the bourbon-soaked oak cubes/spirals and gravity feed it to simulate a cask.

Finally, there are lots of options out there to ‘oak’ beers. There are these new spiral cork things that essentially mimic an oak (or cedar, or whathaveyou) barrell, and you can soak those in bourbon prior to adding them to your fermented beer.[/quote]

Yes, the beer was very clean with great body. I picked Vienna because it was on the way to being a Marzen, without being that malty/lager clean.

Well, before my six year hiatus, I had a very strong Sierra Nevada pale clone going. It is going to be some time before I dive back in and start modifying recipes – I need to ride with training wheels for a while.

That said, I can’t see the citrusy, smack your gob Cascade working with this. I’m thinking Brewers Gold or something along those lines.

Cheers.[/quote]

truth. SNPA is pretty spritzy and more citrus oriented IIRC, but haven’t had one in awhile. I would think you would want a good amount of crystal malts to link up with the oak/vanilla/bourbon and some earthy hops (though I think you do need some citrus grapefruit in an AIPA).

Maybe something like:

70% 2-row
10% Munich
5% Crystal 40
5% Crystal 60
10% sucrose

CTZ FWH
Magnum @ 60
CTZ @ 15
Centennial @ 10
Chinook @ 5
CTZ, Cent, Chinook dry hop
to 70-80 IBU

US-05/WLP001