Winter IPA

What was your customer acceptance of these Cold IPAs? Did they sell out promptly? Are customers explicitly telling you they want more Cold IPA brands?

On a related note, did you ever brew Brut IPAs? If so, how did that work out for you as regards customer demand/sales?

Cheers!

 

When seeing them on the shelves, I have always assumed that Winter IPA's were just IPA's with a maltier backbone and Christmas spices, like a Christmas IPA I guess. I will have to pick up 2-3 different ones and see what they have in common.

 

Gotta provide insight.

I'm not a "fan" of too many beers, but that doesn't mean I find them undrinkable.

The Goose Christmas IPA was another in a long shelf line of IPAs, but it fit the bill of the style. I think my BA rating reflects that assessment.

To that, I only bought one six-pack and didn't go out of my way for one this year.

 

The two cold IPAs we've done sold through pretty well. Not as fast as our hazies, but as well or better than our more west coast ones. Same at our retailers from what we can tell. Customer feedback was largely positive, though I think we need to do a better job of educating people as to what a Cold IPA is as I still saw a lot of confusion on untappd. We've had people ask about us doing more with the style, but there isn't massive demand. I think it's still a relatively unknown thing, but we plan to explore it further.

We never brewed a Brut IPA. It never sounded particularly appealing to me at the time. My biggest gripe with that style was there was no set guidelines as to what it should be. Was it just supposed to be a bone dry IPA with low bitterness and big hop flavor? Or was it supposed to emulate the flavors of actual champagne as I saw breweries try and do? I just never had one I really liked, it it seemed like the flavor profile was all over the place.

Cold IPA makes more sense for us at Riverlands. We brew a lot of both hoppy beers and lagers, so this style seemed like a perfect marriage of two of our favorite things. It's far less about chasing the next possible fad like I think Brut IPAs were for a lot of people than trying out a style that fits our wheelhouse.

 

A few questions if I may.

Yeast strain(s) choice

Did you decide to ferment with a lager yeast strain? If so, which strain(s)? Did you choice to ferment with the lager yeast strain(s) warm (e.g., 65 degrees F)?

Or did you instead choose to use an ale yeast strain (e.g., Kolsch, Chico, etc.)?

Biotransformation

From my readings it appears that whether biotransformation of hop essential oils is a complicated combination of particular yeast strain(s) and particular hop variety(s). In other words, yeast strain A in combination with hop variety B biotransformation will occur. In contrast for the case of yeast strain C and hop variety D no biotransformation occurs. Do you have a 'strategy' to manage this situation?

Dry Hopping process/conditions

Do you choose to dry hop under pressure (i.e., spunding)? Or do you instead choose to add fermenting beer (i.e., krausening) during the dry hop process? How do these conditions influence things? Do they encourage biotransformation for example?

Thank you in advance for your consideration of these questions.

Cheers!

 

And then defacto the OG 'Fresh Hop' Winter IPA

That's what made those 'fresh hops' special, all the spices

(DUCKS)

 

FTFY.

 

We use the same German lager yeast strain in our Cold IPAs that we use in all our lagers. It's a very neutral and clean fermenting strain, and can handle warmer temps without throwing off a ton of esters. We ferment our Cold IPAs at 65 with this strain, whereas our lagers ferment at 50. Even at 65, the yeast ferments pretty clean and neutral, but produces less sulfur than when fermented cold. This means we don't need to do an extended lagering period to condition that sulfur out.

In my experience, biotransformation is overrated. We also max out our fermenters volume wise, and hopping during active fermentation makes a mess. We've tried it in hazies, and I still prefer a more traditional dry hop. So we don't mess with that on Cold IPA either. We let the beer ferment out, and do our normal dry hop routine.

We don't have spunding valves currently. It's something I'd be interested in looking into though as I know some people using them and have liked the results. We do pressurize the tank upon dry hopping though.

 

Based upon my readings my guess here is that you need to obtain the correct 'match ups' of yeast strain and hop variety(s) to achieve here.

I have personally not tried the biotransformation route since for me it would be just a wild ass guess on how to match a yeast strain to a hop variety(s).

Cheers!

 

+$16 for a 15pack was hard to resist. The beer itself, was okay but after the first couple of cans, I ditched the rest. Good malty presence but there was something aboot it that didn't agree with my palate.

 

Without thinking too much, all I know is that Kern River Winter IPA slays.

 

they were just subdued this year, bro. Fuckign SN is caving to the new money bros!

 

What are your thoughts on the impact/value of branding for a style like this? Am I crazy or is this just a hoppy steam ale/California common? Obviously those beers wouldn't sell as well if identified as one of those, but do you worry/think about the impact that misleading might have on the market going forward?

 

Yea it definitely rubs me the wrong way having something called a Cold India Pale Ale when it would still technically be a lager, even if not fermented as one. I get that the originator of the style wanted to make sure people knew it was different than an IPL though, and why they chose the name they did.

There are definitely fermentation similarities between this and a Cali Common. The grist, and obviously hop bill are pretty different, but they have a similar fermentation profile.

As far as misleading the market goes, I think this is the continuing evolution of people just calling anything hoppy a type of IPA because that style name sells. I get it to an extent, a customer hears IPA and they know to expect something hop forward, so rather than calling something like a hoppy west coast amber what it is, it can be easier, and more profitable, to call it a Red IPA. IPA has kind of become synonymous with hop forward beer. I'm not condoning this, just pointing out the trend. Circling back to Cold IPA, I'm guessing, to the originator of the style, the customer knowing it's an IPA like beer was more important than being technically correct as far as yeast type goes. Again, I don't love the style name, but I get where he was going with it.

 

Really appreciate your response, and in the interest of internet fun tokens I will promise to seek out your beer if I'm in your area , so could I also trouble you to wager a "better" style name if it had been your creation?

Also, I'd love to hear other BAs who think they have a better name for the oh so pitiful sounding "cold IPA" (why don't they just let it inside? It's an IPA, it's probably delicious!)

 

I'll give it some thought! Who knows, maybe we can think of something catchier.

 

My main connection to Chicago moved to the burbs to, get this, sTaRt a fAmiLy and aVoId Taxes! Its an outrage, and I don't think they considered my access to good beer for ONE second while making their decision.

It's almost like they want AB InBev to control the world

 

I have a local micro that calls all the beers they brew with lager yeasts at warmer temps "dampf". Maybe you can call these Dampf IPAs!