Smoked IPA?!

I can tell you what NOT to do!!!
I tried a smoked black IPA last year, and put in a pound of peat smoked malt, in about a 15 pound grist. WAAAAAYYYY too much of that, the phenolics overpowered everything else in the brew.
I do plan to try it again, with less, of a different smoke.
My plan on it was to try to balance a bit of roastiness, with a touch of smoke, and use Chinook and Simcoe hops for a big piney flavor / aroma.

 

From all of the smoked beers that I've read up on or brewed, you'll probably do well with a heavy Rauchbier style IPA. Go with ~8 oz of Hallertau, Tettnang or both. I'd build a German pils malt base with a little Munich and ~half a pound of mid crystal. Expect this one to come out complex and not afraid to bite back a little. A small amount of rye would also meld well.

Smoked malts vary in strength. You could use 100% Weyermann cherry malt and have a great beer. You can use less Briess, or make your own. Typical batches start at 20-30% and go up from there. You'll have to compete with a hop-forward beer and I would start at at least 30%. I'm not a smoker, per se, but I'm not at all offended by a heavily smoked beer.

@hopfenunmaltz and @rocdoc1 should also be called into this thread. They know quite a bit about smoked malts, German biers and the quantities that you might need to pull this off.

 

Without checking a calculator:

9# German Pils
3# smoked malt (Cherry or Oak)
.75# Rye malt
.5# Crystal 40L malt
.5# Carapils

Don't add sugar. It'll be dry enough as is. They rye and the smoke will carry a bite to this beer.


90 min addition Tettnang to 45 IBU
10 min Hallertau 1 oz
5 min Hallertau 1 oz
KO/ Hop Stand Hallertau and Tettnang 1 oz each
Dry Hop Hallertau and Tettnang 1-2 oz each

Yeast: I've had great luck with Wyeast 2565 Kolsch and Wyeast 1098 in smoked beers. English ale yeast do well, and add a bit of complexity. I'd use one of these if you skip on the rye malt. If you rye your beer, you might want to go with something more nuetural, like US 05.

Ferment cool and expect your beer to take 6 week to set up and become chuggable.

 

Never tried it and don't want to discourage you from doing so, but considering how popular IPA's are these days and what a complete lack of smoked ipa's there are on the commercial market, signs point to it being next to impossible for the idea to really work well. You never know though, you might crack the code and pave the way for others!

 

I brew/enjoy a lot of smoked beers and I'm a card carrying Hop-Head, but a smoked IPA has little appeal to me . . . too much competition for attention (typing this as @koopa posts his Just Say No comments above). That said, the guidelines listed by @inchrisin are solid. For subtle smoke start around 10% of the bill, at 20% it's really there, at 30% any non-smokers start to suffer. But these are just guidelines. When I brew a Rauchbier (lager) I go to 50% with good results . . . Schlenkerla goes to 100% and it's the standard. So experimenting is in order.

For peated malt divide the ratios above by 10. Yep, at 1% it is noticeable, 2-3% peated malt is a real presence, around 4% is tops for the most serious arsonist-drinker. Stone's smoked Porter uses 4 oz of peated malt for a 5 gal batch and while highly rated, intensity level is high enough to turn off many drinkers.

All of these guidelines depend on fresh grain maintaining its smoked intensity. I believe all suppliers when questioned will tell you they have good turn over and their grain is fresh. You'll never hear a vendor say "naw, we didn't have a clue how long that's been sitting there, could be pretty old" . . . but your results depend on this. I tend to "over do it" slightly because the intensity of smoked ale will fade (not so much for lagers), not as fast as hop aroma but it will decrease.

Remember, only YOU can prevent an over-smoked beer.

 

I'm not the expert I've been portrayed as, but I do like my smoked beers. I smoke my own malt so I don't really have much experience with commercial rauchmalt. Smoke and hops are flavors that tend to clash, not complement each other so if you want a strong taste in either direction go light on the other. Oak is a pretty harsh wood for smoking anything, cherry, pecan or apple would be better IMHO. I think Schlenkerla uses beechwood, but that's not available to me so I've never tried it. But in general I'm with Koopa on this, I just don't think you're going to be successful unless you're willing to try many, many combinations. Maybe try a series of one gallon batches until you find something that works.

 

The advice from @koopa, @rocdoc1, and @PortLargo are all spot on.

My $0.02 is that the intensity of the smoked malt is very important. I smoke my own malts to get the smoke into the beer, as the last time I bought rauchmalz it was just about undectectable in the beer, too old. Peated malt is phenolic stuff, my opinion is that is does not belong in beer, and I don't like Stones Smoke Porter due to this. Schlenkerla uses 100% smoked malt, but their malt is less intense than Weyermann's (fresh in Bamberg). Alaskan Smoked Porter uses alder smoked malt, and that one will age for a long. long time even if it is an ale. I'm not a fan of the Briess cherry wood smoked malt.

I did a Grodziskie/Graetzer a few years back that used home smoked wheat malt and Saaz hops to 44 IBU. I liked that one, and it did not follow the advice that smoke and hops do not go together.

 

Perhaps you meant the general rule of thumb that smoke and hops do not go together, rather than suggesting that the BA members you cited were all suggesting that? If the latter then I'll mention (just for the record) that I myself didn't intend to suggest that smoke and hops do not go together. My intended implication was that it would be difficult to add a significant smoked quality to a beer hopped at the rate of an IPA of modern standards and make the combo work well.

 

The "conventional wisdom" that smoke and hops don't go together. No implication of the above people in the thread.

 

Smoke aroma and flavor come from phenolics which also include spice and medicinal. A spicy hop like Saaz, Tettnanger, or Hallertauer would work up to where the beer has too much phenolics.

I am trying to think of a contrasting flavor, not getting much that would work.

This might be a good tool to use for thought. Tobacco Earthy might be more of the same.
https://www.hopunion.com/aroma-wheel/?aroma=Tobacco/Earthy

 

Night Shift Brewing made one called Smokeshow where they used smoked hops for the beer. Absolutely terrible.

 

Only one I ever knew of was this one: http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/3474/82283/

Doesn't have enough reviews to have a score though, but I know Listermann's Friar Bacon had waayy too much smoke for me. I can't see this one being any different smoke-wise, and with lots of hops added, I can't see it being appealing. The only time I think it would work, is in an English Pale Ale, or something like Samuel Smith's India Ale, where the hops are more herbal and earthy. Definitely no citrus, grapefruit or tropical tasting hops should be present, as I think that would be a horrible clash with the smoke. But that's just my 2 cents, good luck with it!

 

I like Rauchbier and I like IPA's. I do not see mixing these styles as a good thing. The good thing about home brewing is you can make what ever you want! Have fun!

 

I made a smoked rye IPA for a festival in 2013 and it was pretty well received. It had about 16% homemade applewood smoked malt. The rest of the recipe was based on Denny Conn's Rye IPA although it may have changed over a couple od batches.

 

Well I just had a smoked rye IPA on the weekend, and it was pretty good. It was quite a subtle smoke (my wife didn't even pick it up), but it complimented it quite well. The beer was more herbally and spicy than citrusy, however, which worked well with the smoke & rye.

 

Commercial, so not sure on recipe sorry