Fruit IPAs (II: How to Brew a Fruit IPA)

DSCN3793Brewing a fruit IPA is no more difficult than brewing any fruit beer. The most popular fruit IPAs use fruits that either accentuate the citrus character of their hops (grapefruit IPA, blood orange IPA) or the tropical character in hops (mango IPA, pineapple IPA). See below for a list of hops with these characters. The best examples of fruit IPAs have enough fruit character that you can tell it’s not an ordinary IPA, but not so much that the underlying beer is totally obscured. As such, you really don’t need to alter your IPA recipe to accommodate the fruit — just decide how intense you want the fruit flavor and add that to the recipe. [Read more…]

Fruit IPAs: The Bitter Fruit (I: General) 

DSCN3793In the beginning, there was IPA. And it was good. It even had a cool story to go along with it. It was brewed extra hoppy to survive the long sea voyage to reach British troops in India. And beer geeks looked on their extra hoppy (and slightly stronger) pale ale, and their fun story that went with it, and they were pleased. You could enjoy a nice hoppy beer now and then, and there were other styles of beer on the shelf when you were in the mood for something else. Then came . . . you know, everything that followed.  [Read more…]