English Imperial IPA idea

I'd never heard of Flyer hops but now that I've looked them up I have to say they don't sound too good to me. The combination of licorice and citrus seems too odd for my tastes. What about some good ole EKGs?

 

I brew a Bitter Ale every year that features EKG for flavor and aroma additions (including dry hopping) and while it is not a powerful hop in comparison to American aroma hops I find it to be quite pleasant. Unfortunately EKG hops are quite pricey in the US. Hopefully not quite so expensive in the UK?

My preferred yeast for Bitter Ale is Wyeast 1469 fermented warm (70 degrees F). Have you thought about which yeast you want for your English Imperial IPA? Are you looking for a more neutral flavor profile or something more flavorful as regards esters?

Cheers!

 

Challenger and First Gold is a nice combination.

 

I like Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley for this kind of beer, and it's excellent with the hops combination I mentioned. Just make a good starter with the yeast so that you'll hit your ABV with no problem.

 

Kind of a cross between an American and English barley wine? Sounds good.

I’ve brewed an English IPA with Challenger and EKG that was pretty damn tasty. I’ve also aged a similar beer in a bourbon barrel and then dry hopped which turned out great too.

 

What you're describing sounds a bit like a traditional mild ale. Have you considered poking around for a historical recipe? Perhaps something like this?

Edited to add: Here's a pretty good one, already turned into a homebrew recipe.

Edited again: Or this one.

 

Here's another pretty big/hoppy mild recipe, admittedly this one only clocks in at 6.9% ABV though.

 

Stone did Emperial IPA as one of their anniversary beers, I think 14? Somewhere in the low to mid teens. They said it was an Imperial English IPA ; it was phenomenal. Look it up.

 

Hate to sound harsh, but...
Dude, most of us are in the US and the UK hops we get are past their prime, so we can't really say what's what on these varieties. FWIW, I can't honestly say that I've seen any of these outside of EKG in a homebrew store. You may be better off posting in a UK-based homebrew forum.

 

I would keep it 2 or 3 different hops. It’s easy to get the flavors of the different hops all muddled together when you use more than that. As far as which to use... I can’t really help you. Of the ones you listed I’ve only used EKG and Target.

 

The English hops I have used include East Kent Golding, Challenger, Target, Fuggles, Whitbread Golding, and Northdown. Mostly they have not made a big impression on me. I remember thinking once or twice that I overdid Fuggles (very vegetal, I want to say) and Challenger (reminded me of tobacco, in an unpleasant way), but this could also related simply to diminished quality of imported hops. I don't use gobs of late addition hops in English styles, so my impressions might be based on, at most, 2 oz of late addition hops. I also remember the first beer I brewed with Whitbread Golding as having a pleasant and fruity hop character. I've only brewed with that hop 2x and didn't find them as good the second time through. Again, this could be a diminished quality thing related to import and perhaps storage times in homebrew shops.

 

The Kernel recently did an iteration of their Pale Ale series with Goldings. Tasted quite nice when we had it - basically a lemon marmalade sort of character IIRC.

If I was doing something like this I'd probably take "loads of EKG" as a starting point, and then maybe add one of Fuggles, Challenger or First Gold if you thought that was going to be missing something - Goldings are just the classic British aroma hop.

And FWIW this isn't really comparable to anything historic - mild would have had little or no late hopping, even though it was often eye-wateringly strong and bitter, and as far as I know, heavy dry hopping (rather than an ounce or two per barrel) was generally only used for "keeping" beers that needed preserving over an extended period of ageing, whereas this is presumably about something to be drunk fairly fresh.

 

I've used First Gold in English ESBs. This hop brought an orange marmalade quality to those beers. Cheers!