Blended Belgian IPA - Step One, India Pale Ale

After tasting Uncharted, the Belgian IPA from Lighthouse, I decided to try my hand at a similar brew. Uncharted is a blended beer, a combination of an IPA and a Belgian tripel, and I was impressed with it enough to try my hand at a similar concoction. The first part would be an IPA, next week I will brew the tripel, and at some point in the future blend the beers before bottling them.

The IPA by itself is something I'm pretty excited about (I'll save some to bottle on its own). I wanted to brew something a bit lighter in colour than IPA's I've made in the past, so I mainly used lighter malts in the mash. I did include three pounds of Munich malt that local malter Mike Doehnel was generous enough to donate to me, so it will be cool to see what character that imparts. Look for a brew in the near future exclusively featuring his malt, including some very rare and unusual malted oats. I also managed to get some fresh cascade hops from generous homebrewer Michael Lewis, making this a kind of local creation. They would be combined with a generous amount of bravo, simcoe, and cascade hops in seven different hop additions to give this brew its hoppy kick. I wasn't sure the best way to use the fresh cascades, but decided to add them at flameout so as not to let any of the precious goodness be boiled away. As soon as the heat was off I steeped them in the hot wort for ten minutes before beginning to cool the wort. Next week its part two of this project, as I'll try my hand at making my first ever Belgian tripel.

Malt

Canadian pale

Steeping the wet hops

Munich (from Mike Doehnel's VI Malts)

Aromatic

Wheat malt

Crystal 10

Hops

Bravo

Cascade

Simcoe

Fresh Cascade