Sierra Nevada Celebration IPA

DIRECTIONS
Mill the grains and mash at 156°F (69°C) for 60 minutes, then raise to 170°F (77°C) and mash out.

Boil for 75 minutes, adding hops according to the schedule.

After the boil, add flameout/whirlpool hops and do a whirlpool step: Stir or recirculate to create a vortex for about 5 minutes, then allow 10 minutes to steep.

Chill to about 62°F (17°C), aerate the wort thoroughly, and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 62°F (17°C). When fermentation is nearly complete, add the dry hops.

Once fermentation is complete and gravity has stabilized for a few days, crash to 32°F (0°C). (Optionally, dry hop again—see below.) Lager for 1 week and filter or fine. Bottle- or keg-condition with yeast and priming sugar, targeting 2.65 volumes of CO2.

BREWER’S NOTES
Water: We add calcium sulfate (gypsum) to the mash and boil—the equivalent of about 10 g and 5 g, respectively.

Yeast: The pitch rate should be about 9 million cells/ml or use the yeast supplier’s pitch recommendation.

Dry Hops: About 25 percent of our dry-hop addition is still whole-leaf in the tank, while the rest is recirculated via the torpedo. Optionally, you can do a second dry-hop addition—at half the amounts of the first one—after crashing the beer.

Package-Conditioning: Optionally, you could always force-carbonate this beer—but Celebration is traditionally bottle-conditioned. Our typical pitch rate for bottling is about 1.1 million cells per millimeter of beer, and we add a small amount of dextrose to target the final carbonation level. The warm conditioning takes place in 62°F (17°C) warehouses for 10 days.