Even Hop IPA

Even Hop IPA By BDDC Staff. It is probably safe to say that brewers around the globe have never had as wide of a selection of different hops to choose from as they do today. Not only can a brewer select from a variety of traditional domestic hops, but they can also sample hops from around the globe. Many new hop strains have been developed in recent years which only adds to the selection and variety of hop characteristic that can be added to a brew. But what if you could create your own unique hop hybrid? There are so many different hop varieties that can be obtained for brewing today that the various combinations that can be combined to create a truly unique hop combination are endless! We set off to create one of these unique hop hybrids recently with an IPA recipe. IPA recipes are good since we tend to use so many different hops in these beers anyway, and we could argue that the variety of hops used make these beers unique in hop profile. But we have to establish a common theme for this style and that theme is to use an even distribution of each and every hop used in the brew, as if we were only using one hop. So if you are using 3 different hops in your brew, split up the bittering, flavor, aroma, first wort, dry, or any other hop addition evenly between the three hop varieties. Of course this means that you will need the exact same amount of each hop too. The BDDC Even Hop IPA Recipe For our 5.5 gallon batch of homebrew, we used 5 hop varieties, including Columbus(14.5 AA%), Simcoe(10.4 AA%), Centennial(9.1 AA%), Amarillo(8.9 AA%), and Cascade(5.1 AA%). Using one quarter ounce of each hop gave us an even bittering IBU of 50. We then finished off the brew with an even half ounce addition of each of the above at 10 mintes. This gave us another 20 IBU for a total of 70. Not to be satisfied with less than 5 ounces of hops in our first Even Hop IPA, we added another quarter ounce of the same hops at zero minutes to give our IPA a nice Even Hop aroma. Even though this beer was mainly about the hops, we paired them up with a hefty grain bill, which included: 11 lbs 2-row .5 lbs light Munich .5 lbs Crystal Malt 60L .5 lbs Biscuit Malt .5 lbs Aromatic Malt .25 lbs Wheat Malt We boiled our wort for 75 minutes, which left us with an Original Gravity of 1.068. For yeast, we used California Ale WLP001 from White Labs. Target finishing gravity is 1.014 which should leave us with a balanced, malty, hoppy, 7% ABV beer. We recently brewed a Pale Ale using the same even hop method and the results were outstanding. What unique hop profile will you create with your Even Hop IPA? Give Even Hopping a try. You just might be surprised at the results!