Lager help - hoppier than traditional

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Nah, go ahead and call it a hoppy lager! And brew your beer. What you'll likely get with that much sulfate will be more along the lines of an Exportbier but hey, those are great as well. 40 IBUs for a Pilsner is not high.

I suppose I use style guidelines too much. 40 IBUs is listed as the upper limit for Pils and 30 IBUs for Exportbier

Brewed a couple of days ago. Ended up with a higher final volume than intended which equated to a point or 2 less in OG but everything else went well.

 

[Korpi Brewery]

I would perhaps up the basic bitterness to about 40 IBUs (Magnum) and leave the aroma hops as is. A 2 minute boil on anything but the freshest of hops will likely yield a lot less bitterness than the calculator tells us. 40 IBUs is a good baseline to pale, hop forward brews in my book.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

I would perhaps up the basic bitterness to about 40 IBUs (Magnum) and leave the aroma hops as is. A 2 minute boil on anything but the freshest of hops will likely yield a lot less bitterness than the calculator tells us. 40 IBUs is a good baseline to pale, hop forward brews in my book.

Yeah I was a little caught up in that. I probably should have gone with what you said but ended up around 36 IBUs. That's what a first attempt is for right? I can always tweak it if it seems worth it to try again.

 

[Nosybear]

Most humans can't detect a 5 IBU difference so you should be fine. Hint: If you decide you want the beer more bitter, bump it at least 5 IBUs at a time.

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I agree, I personally can't detect a 10 IBU change

 

[Korpi Brewery]

Most humans can't detect a 5 IBU difference so you should be fine. Hint: If you decide you want the beer more bitter, bump it at least 5 IBUs at a time.

I would agree with that, but in the receipe mentioned there were 26 IBUs from bittering hops. I would advice to ramp it up to 40 and then adjust the aroma hops according to taste. I find that with old hops we tend to lose a lot of that bittering power with late additions.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

I would agree with that, but in the receipe mentioned there were 26 IBUs from bittering hops. I would advice to ramp it up to 40 and then adjust the aroma hops according to taste. I find that with old hops we tend to lose a lot of that bittering power with late additions.

I basically do it backward from what you propose. When building a recipe I usually throw in the amount of late hops that I think will meet my goals first at 2 minutes then make up the rest with my bittering addition for what IBU level I'm shooting for. I have settled on 2 minutes because I get predictable results versus a flameout or whirlpool addition. When I'm doing this late addition I'm usually dry hopping as well since I realize a 2 minute addition isn't as effective as a whirlpool/hopstand for flavor and aroma. This method really only applies when I'm brewing more hop forward beers (or at least what I consider to be).

 

[Nosybear]

I would agree with that, but in the receipe mentioned there were 26 IBUs from bittering hops. I would advice to ramp it up to 40 and then adjust the aroma hops according to taste. I find that with old hops we tend to lose a lot of that bittering power with late additions.

It doesn't really matter when in the boil you get your IBUs from - a mg/l of iso alpha acid does the same thing whether isomerized at 60 minutes or at 10. I'm guessing that since you're wanting to make a hoppy lager, you're more interested in the hop flavor than the bitterness. In that case, skew your bittering additions to less than 20 minutes. In fact, when I do my German-American IPL again, I won't use a 60-minute addition. I might FWH for a few IBUs but most everything will come from hops added at 10 minutes or less.

And you're right about old hops. But since there's no way we can determine how decomposed they are, my advice: Crank up the IBUs on your recipe, then RDWHAHB.

 

[AsharaDayne]

Euro Pale that was all European ingredients but brewed like an APA.

Do you have the recipe lying around?

Not to veer off-subject, but did you try the german Comet hops? Made a single hop ale with it and it's got lovely orangey/tangeriney flavours. Ariana's also killer, I think these two would be (will be) very interesting, combined.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Do you have the recipe lying around?

Not to veer off-subject, but did you try the german Comet hops? Made a single hop ale with it and it's got lovely orangey/tangeriney flavours. Ariana's also killer, I think these two would be (will be) very interesting, combined.

It ended up being a very nice beer and met most of my goals. Kind of the inspiration for a hoppier lager but in ale form with more malt character. I would have bumped up the bitterness a tad.
91% Castle Belgian Pale
9% cararuby

bitter with magnum
1 oz mandarina at 2 minutes remaining and dry hop
1 oz huell melon at 2 minutes remaining and dry hop
1 oz sterling at 2 minutes remaining and dry hop (this was close enough for me to consider European)

WY2565 - kolsch
30 IBUs

I have never heard of German Comet or Ariana so I will have to keep and eye out. American Comet is one of my favorite hops for IPA.

 

[AsharaDayne]

Sounds tasty, I'll have to give those Mandarina and Melon hops a try soon.

My supplier in Switzerland ships the german Comets, apparently the flavours can vary depending on vintage, but the current batch seems quite nice. Ariana is a new creation from the Hüll institute. Gave me a very fruity single hop ale too

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Kegged tonight. Finished at 1.012. Added dry hops to keg. Tasted great and interested to see what the dry hops bring to the table. Surprisingly I got a pretty strong grapefruit component backed by some generic fruity notes. May end up mild but a good jumping off point for future iterations.

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Nice and carbed up in two days but needs time for the keg hops to settle out and do their thing. I always get a savory thing from the keg hops after the first couple of days. The first time I did i thought for sure that the beer was bad. The only thing bad about keg hopping is having to wait that much longer after its be packaged...

 

[Iliff Avenue Brewhouse]

Poured my first pint last night. My impressions are as follows for anyone who might be interested.

Pours a deep golden color. Still needs a little more time to get brighter. The aroma is pleasant and moderate mainly with floral and soft citrus notes. The taste is spot on. Very crisp and clean with a water profile that definitely accentuates the bitterness. A very nice dichotomy of crisp, snappy bitterness with a surprisingly malty character underneath. This was my first time using M76 and I am very pleased. It seems to accentuate both hops and malt very well. I will be using the harvest slurry for a Maibock type lager.

This beer really shines with the hop flavor that follows the nose with additional notes of melon (cantaloupe, honey dew) and perhaps berry. The most prominent flavor is orange/mandarin and combined with the crispness almost gives the impression that fresh zest was used. Overall I would say that I hit my goals however a larger dry hop addition would probably be in order. The lager character really comes through and the hop selection seems to have really worked out as they are the focus but don't drown other aspects. Something like Citra, Mosaic, etc just wouldn't work here.

Good first attempt. Next iteration, I will bump up the grains a bit to get a higher ABV and increase the dry hop amount. That's about it. I was advised against using over 100 ppm SO4 but I really like how it works here and will like adapt this water to my German Pils.