Homebrew Session: Harvest Rye IPA

Note: I participated in the “Grow Your Own” round up. It’s essentially a collection of blogs where the running theme are things made with stuff your grew yourself. In the case of this beer, these were homegrown hops. You can read the complete roundup here.

This homebrew was my attempt at brewing a Rye IPA. I really enjoyed the Rye IPA from Firehouse Brewery and I wanted to see if I could do something similar. Like my Harvest Pale Ale, I ended up using my homegrown hops in this beer as well. Read on to see how this beer turned out.

Malt

• 7 lbs – Coopers Light DME

Specialty Grains:

• 1 lbs – 2-Row Pale (1.5L)
• 1 lbs – Belgian Caravienne (20L)
• 2 lbs – Flaked Rye

Hops

• 2 oz – Centennial (8.0) bittering
• 2 oz – Amarillo (8.5) finishing
• 6 oz – Chinook (homegrown) wet – flavor
• 12 oz – Cascade (homegrown) wet – flavor

Yeast

• California Ale Yeast WLP001

Extras

• 1 tablet Servomyces

Original Gravity: 1.074

Final Gravity: 1.020

ABV: 7.09%

Process

1. Steep all specialty grains @ 155° F for 30 minutes, then remove.
2. Bring wort to a boil.
3. Add 6 lbs of Coopers Light DME at the 30 minute mark.
4. Add 2 oz Centennial hops and wort chiller at 40 minute mark.
5. Add 12 oz Cascade hops at 45 minute mark.
6. Add 1 tablet of Servomyces at 50 minute mark.
7. Add 6 oz Chinook at 55 minute mark.
8. Add 2 oz Amarillo hop plugs at flame out.
9. Cool to 65°F  – 70°F.
10. Pitch yeast and aerate.

Tasting Notes (wort) — 9/7/2009

Very muddy, amber color with a lot of hop particulate floating about. Sweet malt aroma, like soggy Wheaties. Hop aromas are fresh and a little “green” with slight citrus and pine notes. Flavor is sweet, cloying and grainy. Medium-high/high hop bitterness, grassy. Full-bodied, no carbonation.

Tasting Notes (primary) — 11/8/2009

Amber/light caramel in color, no head. Beer is cloudy. Floral/piney aroma with bready/caramel malt undertones. Beer has a distinctive rye flavor that is earthy and spicy. Hop flavor is pungent with slight piney/floral notes, hop bitterness is medium-high/high and lasts well into the finish. Beer is medium-high in body.

Tasting Notes (final) — 2/24/2010

The beer is a clear, mahogany color with ruby highlights and a white/off-white head. The beer has a soft, piney/citrus aroma with a pungent hop character. Noticeable spicy, earthy aroma is from the rye. Toasty and caramel malt aromas as well. The flavor is initially toasty and caramel malt flavors that give way to a medium-high/high hop bitterness. The spicy and earthy flavors of the rye come into the finish. This is a full-bodied beer with medium-high carbonation and a slight astringency in the mouthfeel.

Overall

For my initial attempt at a Rye beer, I think I did OK. The malt flavor is pretty nice, the hop bitterness is much more than expected (more on this later) but I think the beer is unbalanced with an overabundance of rye flavor and aroma. Looking back at my ingredient list, I thought I used 1 lbs of rye for the beer but imagine my surprise when I looked back at my notes and saw I had put in 2 lbs! I’ve always had a little trouble discerning the rye character in commercial examples of rye beers but make no mistake, I know what rye in beer tastes like now!

You may or may not have noticed in my process section but I didn’t add any hops until the last 40 minutes of the boil; this includes the bittering hops. I haven’t looked at this recipe and process in a while so I wondered why I had put in the bittering hops so late. I forget what I was listening to but the basic idea was to add in all your hops, bittering included, as late as possible. You get the bitterness by adding in more hops than usual. So, instead of adding in 1 oz of Centennial hops in the beginning, I added 2 oz at the 40 minute mark theoretically maintaining the same level of hop bitterness. This is also supposed to increase hop aroma and flavor. The tradeoff, of course, is you need to add in more hops.

Despite the fact I had this beer sitting on primary for about 2 months, I don’t detect any off-flavors (burnt-rubber) that would be the result from autolysis. I brewed this during the cooler, late Fall months and it sat in my office which is the coolest part of my house. Once I took it off primary, I kegged the beer and had it in my kegerator which is usually sits at about 35°F. While I have been drinking this beer since kegging, it’s been chilling in the kegerator for so long that it looks as if I’ve filtered it.

Anyway, if I had to do this all over (and I will be doing this all over) I will definitely cut back on the rye by at least 50% if not more. I will also dry-hop the beer for more hop aroma and flavor. Ha! I just remembered that I was only supposed to add in 1 oz of Amarillo during flame-out and add the other 1oz during dry-hopping but I got lazy and added it all in. Oh well.