Imperial Red Recipe

"The Craft of Stone Brewing Co" has a nice collection of recipes, one of which is for their 13th anniversary ale, which was referred to as an imperial red at the time it was released. I liked that one very much, and brewed the home brew recipe as one of the first that I tried from the book. It is available on Amazon hard copy or kindle edition.

Those recipes are done for both extract and all-grain brewing, too, which sounds like that would be of benefit to you if you are thinking about going either way.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Craft-Stone-Brewing-Co/dp/1607740559

 

Of the commercial Imp Reds I've had I kind of find them to be like IPAs with a little red food coloring in them. I'd say find a great IPA recipe and build it up from there. Add a little high crystal 120L and a little roasted barley, and you'll be in the ballpark. Check here for a little bit of an idea of what your avitar is about:
https://www.greatlakesbrewing.com/uploads/Beer/Conway's Irish Ale Beer Profile Sheet.pdf

I'd do something like this:

• 7 lbs. gold light malt extract
• 0.25 lb. crystal malt, 60° Lovibond
• 0.25 lb. crystal malt, 120° Lovibond
• 5 oz Roasted barley
• 0.5 lb. table sugar added with 5 min left in the boil
• Hop with traditional English hops like EKG, and Fuggle
• OR something more like Conway's with Northern Brewer for bitterness and Mt. Hood + Wlilamette for flavor and aroma (10-0 min additions).
• Use an English yeast. Nottingham or Wyeast ESB 1968. I'd stay away from Wyeast 1084. It's too bready.

 

The bottom line is that it'll make a good beer, but I think it'd be a little too bland. If you use 05, expect a hoppy amber beer. With the English yeast strains, they tend to leave a little more FG and have a mineral characteristic to them that I'd prefer. Again, we're talking about a beer that I think is quite like an IPA. Everyone likes something a little different when it comes to hop-forward beers.

 

I would personally do, like inchrisin said, an English strain like Whitbread, Thames Valley or Yorkshire Square fermented cool + a good hopping rate of English and American hops (EKG + Centennial + Crystal) and for malts something like:

85% Maris Otter
7% Special Roast
7% Victory
1% Roasted Barley

Hoppy but with a good amt of complexity from malt & yeast.

 

I agree, a hoppy red is somewhat like an IPA, but with a bit more body, maltiness, color, yeastiness, etc. There's not really a definite dividing line between hoppy reds and IPAs, but perhaps there's a bit more "balance" in a hoppy red.

For dry yeasts I would tend towards nottingham or windsor* or S-04 yeasts over US-05.

Malt bill wise I'd use something other than pure 2-row for the base. Munich is my fav for this as it's already about halfway to an amber ale just using it by itself. Maris otter also has a nice maltiness that would compliment a red well. Crystal malt is somewhat of a must for ambers/reds in my book. I made one that came out darn tasty that had (get ready for the gasps!) two pounds of crystal malt in it, and I'd do it again. That was only my 4th recipe ever, so I was flying a little blind, but even a blind squirrel finds the occasional nut. I would personally NOT load it up with sugar to dry it out. To me, a real dry amber ale is an oxymoron.

Note that I also used amber extract in that batch. Again, no regrets at all. Amber extract** is excellent for making a hoppy red. Just note that if you use amber extract you will not need roasted barley to get the color you want, and adding roasted barley would probably make it darker than you wanted. While the C-120 I used probably added something to the color, it added much more to the flavor than it did for color. The type of crystal malts you use in a red are important, and you should think about the flavors they add before choosing. Again, in this case I was flying blind, but got lucky and wound up with a combo that made tasty beer. But even a blind pilot occasionally navigates the plane through the Himalayas.

Now the one thing I would change on that recipe would be the yeast, since I used US-05. But such a brew can come out just fine with US-05 as well, so if I was feeling lazy and didn't want to run out for yeast, I'd go with whatever was handy (I tend to keep Us-05 and S-04 on hand, at least a pack or so, mainly because if you don't keep a spare, you will soon wish you had. Proven true fact), S-04 would actually work for this beer too, although it would depend on my goals for the beer whether I would use it (I find S-04 makes everything taste like an "English ale," but that might just be me).

Hops wise you have a lot of flexibility. If you want a hop bomb, choose MOAR brand hops and use a shovel. Go heavy on the late additions. But a hop-bomb isn't the only choice for a hoppy red, you could go a more conservative route and still have fine results. The link above was supposed to be the more conservative route, but I suspect I under-estimated the potency of magnum, and somehow the cascade just jumped out and grabbed you on that one. But for a middle of the road hoppy red I'd use a bittering charge of something appropriate, then 2-4 oz of hops at 10 min to flameout. A fairly strong hop you need less, obviously, something like willamette, follow al's rule.***

Dry hopping optional, but I'm "for" it.

*the much maligned windsor yeast isn't one that I've ever had an issue with. I've liked every beer I've made with it. Or is it Munich that doesn't get the love? Either way, never had an issue.

**as an aside, my all-amber extract / cascade hops experimental small batch came out. The amber extract seems quite perfect for a hoppy amber or red even all by itself. Plenty of body, not too dry, an overall apparently good choice. However, this particular beer came out a bit odd, and I can't figure out what happened. It has an almost wine-like character to it. Quite drinkable, but each sip I am reminded of a merlot or pino noir or something. Not sure what happened there. Oh well, when in Rome....

***al's rule for willamette: whatever you think you need, double it, then add two more ounces at flameout

 

I like this, but I'll note that the OP is still an extract brewer. These can be added as a mini mash. I'd advise that if there's going to be a significant amount of money placed on buying hops for this batch that he KISS this recipe. BU:GU can get way out of hand when you are doing your first AG batch.

 

I really love Victory + Special Roast combo in English style beers.