American IPA
The Recipe
So the format I am envisioning for this is for an initial post (contained in the above link under "the recipe") detailing each beer's recipe and brewing process, and then a follow up post under the "tasting notes" heading. This will hopefully provide enough information on what worked with each batch, and what needs work.
Now with this 1st batch, I was mainly working with my friend who is an experienced brewer to review the brewing process, and I didn't keep very detailed notes on the ingredients. But it was basically an American IPA with a simple malt profile and a fairly complex hop profile.
It pours out a brown colored beer, which glows a deep amber when held to a light. The body has a mild haze, with lots of particulate matter suspended throughout. A large, cream colored head tops it off, and a thick sheet of lacing coats the glass.
The nose has some pale malts, but is primarily focused on the hop profile, which has citrus, grapefruit, a bit of resin and a touch of pine.
Sweet pale malts open up the taste, just a touch of honey, before being washed over by the hops. A faint grassy note starts them off, moving into grapefruit and finishing fairly bitter with a resinous variety. The mouth is a touch fuller than medium bodied, and fairly smooth.
Overall, I am pretty happy with my first effort, and it turned out pretty close to what I was shooting for. The malt profile definitely needs to be fleshed out a bit with more complexity. And the Safale US-05 really seems to be a pretty neutral yeast in terms of taste, but some fruity esters would have worked well in this beer.
Because it was my first shot at brewing on my own equipment, I stuck to the beaten path and went with an IPA, but the next beers that I'm planning on brewing should be a little more goofy. I was originally going to throw some peppers into this IPA to shake things up, but I was talked out of it by my friend who was teaching me.
