Delta Single-Hop IPA

I recently ended up with a ton of free hops courtesy of a talk at the University of Colorado by Charlie Papazian, Darwin Davidson (a hop botanist), and Maureen Ogle (a historian who’s written about beer in America). Darwin works for Hopsteiner and showed up with about 5-6 bricks of new experimental hops, which he offered to anyone interested. I ended up with an ounce or two of some really interesting hops – one smells like a piña colada, while the other is incredibly resiny and oily – plus about 6.5 oz of Delta hops. These are a cross between Fuggles and Cascades and have a great floral, earthy, spicy aroma. To my knowledge, the Harpoon Brewery is the only brewery that has actually made anything with them thus far, but I haven’t gotten a chance to try that particular beer yet.

I thought it’d be fun to try making an IPA with all of the Delta hops to get a sense of their full flavor profile and end up with something totally unique in the process. Instead of dry-hopping the beer, I’m going to add the majority of the hops towards the end (late hopping), which I’ve read can create a fuller, smoother hop flavor.

Delta Single-Hop IPA

(Partial Mash)

Batch Size: 5 Gal

OG: 1.066

Anticipated Alcohol: 6.3% abv

Anticipated SRM: 7

Anticipated IBU: 85

Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Fermentables:

8 lbs Light malt extract syrup

2 lbs Pale ale

1 lb Crystal 10-20 L

Hops:

1.5 oz Delta (6.3% AA) – 60 min

1.25 oz Delta (6.3% AA) – 15

1.25 oz Delta (6.3% AA) – 10

1.25 oz Delta (6.3% AA) – 5

1.25 oz Delta (6.3% AA) – 3

Yeast:

Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale

Mini Mash Schedule:

60 min @ 150˚ F

Notes:

Brewed 11/20/10

Looks like the scale at my local homebrew store wasn't calibrated correctly – I ended up getting about a pound less extract than I was planning on. Since the beer will still end up at around 6% abv, I'm not going to worry about adding more extract to make up for it (I've altered the recipe to reflect this change).

Racked 11/27/10