Brewing Eclectic IPA: Pushing the Boundaries of India Pale Ale

by Dick Cantwell

Overview

As a diverse but distinctive style, IPA bestrides the craft beer world like a colossus. As author Dick Cantwell says, “We are living in the heyday of IPA.” While hops remain front and center in the myriad examples of IPA available to beer drinkers today, the style is also now subject to vast experimentation and “dressing-up,” producing fruity, herbal, black, Belgian-y, and juicy versions of this perennial favorite. Brewers are pushing the boundaries of IPA by using flavors from cocoa, coffee, tea, fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs, chilis, and wood. Before describing how this multitude of ingredients can best be applied to crafting unique, eclectic, and tasty IPAs, Cantwell gives a potted history of IPA, acknowledging some of the fanciful notions the story often includes. When he arrives at craft brewing today, Cantwell opens up whole new vistas where experimentation can happen, involving spices and herbs of all kinds, fruits from every corner of the globe, vegetables familiar and not-so-familiar, coffee and chocolate, teas and botanicals. Along the way, he describes his thoughts behind his approach and how to treat these ingredients with free license while still being conscious that the aim is to produce something delicious that people will want to drink again. Brewing Eclectic IPA will inspire professional and homebrewers alike to explore the creative ways in which these ingredients can be used in brewing highly hopped beers. Try your own version using any of the 25 recipes for contemporary IPAs that the book contains, designed by some of America’s top brewers.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781938469466
Publisher:	Brewers Publications
Publication date:	06/07/2018
Pages:	300
Sales rank:	967,703
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

One of the industry’s most well-respected and experienced craft brewers, Cantwell co-founded Elysian Brewing Company in 1996, where he served as head brewer until its sale to Anheuser-Busch in 2015. During his tenure, Elysian was named Large Brewpub of the Year three times at the Great American Beer Festival® (1999, 2003 and 2004), and in 2004, he received the BA’s Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation in Brewing. Additionally, he has written for various beer magazines, including The New Brewer, Beer Advocate and American Brewer. His book publishing credits include Barley Wine (with Fal Allen), The Brewers Association’s Guide to Starting Your Own Brewery, Second Edition, and Wood & Beer with New Belgium’s Peter Bouckaert. He divides his time between Seattle and San Francisco.

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Acknowledgments xv

Well, How Did We Get Here? 1

Section I IPAs Then and Now 7

Chapter 1 Origins of IPA: The Evolution of the Peacock 9

Perfidious Albion: Britain Kills the Golden (IPA) Goose 11

The Linked Rings: Ballantine IPA and Beyond 12

Cell Division: The Proliferation of American IPA 14

Chapter 2 Where it All Went from There, and Where We're Going 19

The Subtle, and Not So Subtle, Machinery of Hops 26

Dim the Lights: The Evocative Becomes Actual 26

Wood-Aged and Sour IPAs 31

The Long and One-Eyed Lens of History 31

Section II Crafting Eclectic IPAs 35

Notes on the Recipes 35

Water 36

Malt 37

Hops 37

Yeast 37

Additional Ingredients 38

Chapter 3 Cracking the Cornucopia 41

Fruit and Vegetable IPA 41

Brewing IPA with Fruit 42

The Taxonomy of Fruit-Who Cares? 42

Brewing IPA with Vegetables 45

In the Land of the Mangaboos 45

Brother, Can You Spare a Source? 50

Putting Your Hands on All This Stuff 50

Grow Your Own to Brew Your Own 51

Form Follows Function (or Is It the Other Way Around?) 51

Experiencing (and Analyzing) the Flavor Elements 54

The Sensuous Brewer 54

What It Is We're Trying to Do Here 55

IPA Recipes with Fruit 57

Cranberries for Sal IPA: Cranberry New England IPA 57

Hot Guava Monster IPA: Guava Habanero Double IPA 58

Fuyu Me IPA: Persimmon Long Pepper IPA 59

Punch Drunk Love DIPA: Fruit Punchy Double IPA 61

Yuzulupululu IPA: Yuzu IPA 62

South Island Hiss IPA: Gooseberry IPA 63

Red Spruce IPA: Redcurrant Spruce IPA 64

True North Grapefruit IPA: Grapefruit IPA 65

IPA Recipes with Vegetables 67

Cucumber Squeeze IPA: Cucumber Meyer Lemon IPA 67

Fennelicious IPA: Fennel IPA 68

Maple Bardo IPA: Maple IPA 70

Mr. MacGregor's IPA: Ginger, Turmeric, Carrot, and Parsnip IPA 71

Jack o' Lupe IPA: Pumpkin Pineapple Sage IPA 72

Chapter 4 Time and Place, Herb and Spice 85

Herbs in IPA 87

Are You Going To Scarborough Fair? 87

Articles of Incorporation-"Herb" in IPA 92

Spices, Peppercorns, and Chilies 96

It's Clobberin' Time! 97

IPA Recipes with Herbs and Spices 98

Avatar Jasmine IPA: Jasmine IPA 98

Green Dragon IPA: Marijuana IPA 99

Pods and Sods IPA: Tamarind Kaffir Lime IPA 101

June of '66 IPA: Rosemary IPA 102

Shiso Fine IPA: Shiso Pink Peppercorn IPA 103

The Cs Knees IPA: Gin Botanical IPA 104

Thyme Has Come Today IPA: Fresh Thyme IPA 105

Chapter 5 His Dark Materials: Coffee and Chocolate IPA 119

Circadian Rhythm-the Symbiosis of Coffee and Beer 120

Too Much of the Good Stuff? Chocolate in IPA 123

Fancy a Mugga? IPA Made with Tea 125

IPA Recipes with Coffee and Chocolate 126

East of Java Black IPA: Black Coffee IPA 126

Glimmers of Darkness IPA: Coffee-Cacao IPA 127

IPA Recipes with Tea 129

TukTukTea IPA: Thai Iced Tea IPA 129

Chapter 6 Would I? Wood-Aged and Sour IPA 135

Flavors from Wood 137

It's in the Trees 137

Flavors in Oak 138

Roll Out the Barrel 139

Sour IPA 141

The Antithetical and the Inevitable 143

Putting a Bung in It-Takeaways from All This Perversity 143

IPA Recipes Using Wood 145

Single Hop Citra Belgian Session IPA: Single Hop Sour Session IPA 145

India Pale Antitheticale: Unhopped IPA 146

Whither Eclectic IPA? There Will Be Hops! 149

Appendix A Flavor Compounds 155

Terpenic Tie-ins to Hops, Fruits, Herbs, and All the Rest 155

2-Undecanone 156

beta-Pinene 156

Caryophyllene 156

Farnesene 156

Geraniol 157

Geranyl Acetate 157

Humulene 157

Limonene 157

Linalool 157

Myrcene 158

Nerol 158

Esters, etcetera 158

Esters 159

Thiols 160

Thioesters 160

Lactones 160

Aldehydes 160

Bibliography 163

Index 169

Editorial Reviews

Dick Cantwell explores flavor combinations in IPA that few brewers could ever conceive. It's a fun and inspiring read, ripe with possibilities for all brewers.

Mitch Steele

As IPAs continue to gallop to the farthest frontiers of flavor, Dick Cantwell has created the essential road map to brewing some of the wildest, and wildly tasty, hop bombs in the galaxy. You'll never again see cannabis, or fennel bulbs in the same light.

Joshua Bernstein

Cantwell ignites our own excitement as we seek deeper knowledge of the brewing arts. In his latest book, Brewing Eclectic IPA, Cantwell relates his and other brewers' experiences and ingenuity in the pursuit of new flavor and aroma contributions from decidedly non-Reinheitsgebot ingredients.

Will Meyers

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