Critique this NEIPA Recipe Please!

I'd drop the Carastan. The oats and wheat will give you a ton of body and the high chloride will accentuate sweetness. IMO, there is no place for any caramel flavors in this style. Otherwise it looks solid. Hops sound tasty; just make sure the Citra is fresh. If you personally like the Carastan, leave it in - it's your beer and it will taste good.

 

Amarillo, centennial, and simcoe all scream dank west coast hops. I would go citra mosaic and galaxy all the way.

 

Last fall I homebrewed my version of a clone of Heady Topper based upon a recipe by Dave Green (@telejunkie) in the Oct. 2013 BYO magazine.

I used lots if varieties of hops in that beer:

• For 30 minutes of boil: 0.5 oz. Simcoe
• End of boil: 1 ounce each of Cascade, Simcoe, Centennial and 0.5 ounce each of Apollo and Columbus
• For dry hopping: Chinook, Apollo, Simcoe and Centennial.

Cheers!

 

I'd get rid of the wheat, I used to use it in my neipa but it made it super murky. I use only pale 2 row and oats, and the body is still great along with a haze. The murky isn't bad don't get me wrong but its not an appealing color

 

I know Heady topper contains Simcoe and Centennial, pretty sure Amarillo is in there too.

 

I never used a hopshot so will not comment on that. As for the rest of the hops, these all play nice together, in my experience, but I have never used 6 different types in a recipe. I question whether each variety adds an extra, detectable flavor element that will enhance the beer. You might be approaching diminishing returns. Sometimes people speak of muddiness with multiple varieties - what I think they mean is that some of the flavor elements become obscured. I'd suggest a more conservative approach to hopping this one, in terms of varieties used, unless you are sure you want all 6 types.

 

Attenuation seems a touch low, but three pounds of oats is pretty high. This is where my oatmealt stouts usually attenuate down to as well. Two weeks in I would be bottling already, can't get biotransformations this late in the game.

 

I would disagree that this style is supposed to finish sweet. It often gives the impression of being sweet, due to the fruity nature of the hops and the juice like appearance, but the FGs of most commercial examples are in line with WC IPAs (maybe slightly higher due to the English yeasts). 1.020 seems like a high, FG, but your OG was also higher than most. This beer is really a double IPA, and you're within 2 FG points of officially qualifying as such according to BJCP.

Based on my experience with 1318, it's done. If you really want to go lower, you can pitch another highly attenuative yeast, maybe Chico and see where it goes. However, I think you already answered your own question: you hit your calculated FG, and the beer doesn't taste too sweet/underattenuated. Package it and drink up. Next time, build a recipe that will go lower if that's your goal.