I've been a brewer for 5ish years now. I've struggled with hop-forward beers since my 9th or 10th batch. I've done a lot of half batches to get me in the ballpark of a decent APA/IPA since I was still green around the ears. I finally got to dry hop a keg with whole hops. I did a simple 1:1 BU:GU beer with Cascade and Amarillo. It's roughly 65:65. It's about 3 1/2 weeks old and I'm finally starting to get a flavor profile that melds together perfectly. The Cascade was too strong at first, and now the Amarillo is starting to harmonize with the piney citrus C hop. Boom! You realize that your beer has peaked and it's time to drink up. Anyway, I always claimed that hop-forward beers should be at least 6 weeks old before you could enjoy them. In this case, I was wrong--and I'm glad I was. Feel free to comment, or feel free to comment on the title, 'Isn't it amazing when...' for your own epiphany/light bulb moment in brewing.
A brewer may spend a long time tweaking a recipe . . . adjusting grains, mash temp, yeast attenuation . . . to achieve a predicted outcome. Then spend half a day applying the magic to convert a sack of grain (raw beer) into a large bucket of sugar water, pour off a sample, drop in the hydrometer, give it a spin and the first parameter of the future beer is noted. Then you turn your wort over to a group of billions of little microorganisms to create their work of art. The brewer sets the conditions for fermentation but is largely an observer . . . nothing much to do except let the yeast finish their job. Now, this very green beer needs aging . . . more waiting. A sample may be poured, but it will need time and of course carbonation to be complete. After weeks, when all of these conditions are finally met, you break out the good glasses and pour a master piece. All is a test of science, art, and patience . . . yep, it is kind of amazing . . .
Your post is timely for me too. I have been tweaking my "house IPA" for the better part of 2 years. On the 10th iteration with tweaks to process, yeast, grain bill, hops, etc on every version...chasing that perfect IPA I can be proud of. Learning something from every batch. Anywhere from 10-12 hours of time and effort invested in every batch. It feels good after its ready to sample, if you have something at least drinkable. It feels great when its something you can hand out to others and not worry about polite responses...you know its good. I think I'm 2 to 3 versions away from having it right where I want it. Day 3 on the carbonation and its showing tremendous promise. In 3 weeks I hope for that "Amazing!" moment.
Yep, it is kind of amazing when... it is summer time, overwhelming heat in my patio, I seat in a big chair and pour a golden crystal clear Bohemian Pilsner that I can not believe I could brew such a thing and I know it´s going to take hard efforts to me to stop drinking this beauty.
I like your thoughts on the timing of beers. I don't have a formula to follow, but so often I find that a beer seems to have a night or two, a week if I am lucky, where it reaches its peak. I wish I had a better understanding of all that contributes to that pop and how to time and pro-long it.
Hard to say, maybe there must be a lot to learn in regards of aging beer properly, mastering temperatute,humidity, light,time and handling .
Regarding conditioning time of hop-forward ales; I find six weeks in the bottle to be the start of open season after which overall quality peaks between eight and ten weeks with a noticeable decline after 12. What may have been the 'aha' moment came this winter. Several tried'n true batches were cold-conditioned for several weeks in the garage instead of the typical warm-conditioning in a closet. Unlike warm-conditioned beer ... the cold-conditioned bottles were eminently drinkable at four weeks and fookin'tasty at five. A beer-reviewed article with the results of the experiment will be published this summer in the renowned 'Journal of Epiphanies.'
Cascade & Amarillo is nice combo! I had a batch once that was a Brett Dubbel 6 months in smelled like over-ripe fruit and a little too funky, had some rum soaked oak cubes on hand that I thought would blend well, added those for a few months and boom! an insanely complex beer (& wishing now I wouldve bottled and saved more for aging).
Awesome, that beers sounds great man! Congrats. I´m always trying new recipes, if a friends likes chocolate I try to brew something with chocolate for his birthday and so, many times these mini batch beer experiments go really really bad and I drink them just to not waste beer, but there are some beers that come out outstanding, and I love that. Last one was a Coconut-Vanilla Porter, that was a home run. I´ll be making more of that.
