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Standard IPA, Double IPA, Session IPA, Imperial IPA, Hazy IPA, Juicy IPA, Brut IPA... There are many IPA styles to choose from, and we've brewed almost all of them. But alas, one managed to slip through the cracks: the Black IPA. This style of beer, also known as a Cascadian Dark Ale, is one of our favorites. It's a wonder we haven't brewed one. Truth be told, we've been distracted by shiny new things such as the brut and juicy IPA,s mentioned above. No longer. We present to you, brewed by popular demand, The Hammer Party Black IPA.

Brew Day Video

Here's a video of the brew day. Full recipe details are below.

Recipe

Water

We started with 8.1 gallons of Asheville, NC city water and made a few minor adjustments, which will be different for you depending on what kind of water you're using.

Grains

Here's the detailed grain bill for this recipe.

• Pale Malt - 10lbs, 8.0 oz.
• Flaked Rye - 12.8 oz.
• Crystal 60 - 8.0 oz.
• Crystal 120 - 8.0 oz.
• Chocolate Wheat - 8.0 oz.
• Carafa III -6.4 oz.

Mash

We did a single step mash at 149 degrees Fahrenheit and did not sparge.

Hops, etc

We used the following hops at the amounts and times listed.

• Columbus - 0.3 oz at 60 minutes
• Centennial - 0.5 at 45 minutes
• Centennial - 0.5 oz at 30 minutes
• Cascade - 0.5 oz at 15 minutes
• Whirlfloc - 1 tablet at 15 minutes
• Cascade - 0.5 oz at 5 minutes

Note, this beer will be plenty bitter enough with this hop schedule, but we think that many will think that hop aroma may be lacking. Thus, we suggest increasing the quantity of aroma hops or doing a whirlpool / hopstand.

Yeast and Fermentation

This beer was fermented with US-05 at room temperature for almost 2 weeks. Note, the beer was slightly fruity. If we did this one again we'd turn down the heat some or throw it in our fermentation chamber and set it to 65F.

Also, based on this gravity, the amount of yeast we pitched was 10% low according to manufacturer directions. And at least one popular yeast pitching calculator found online said that we significantly under-pitched. Either pitch 2 packets of dry US-05 or make a yeast starter.

Benchamarks

• Post boil water volume was 5.3
• Our starting gravity was 1.061
• Ending Gravity was 1.005
• ABV is 7.35%

Tasting

It's a great beer. Dark and bitter and chocolaty. Also a bit fruity. Perhaps a bit too fruity and not hoppy enough from an aroma standpoint. As mentioned above, if we do this beer again we'll increase the amount of aroma hops and lower fermentation temp a bit. That said, it's a great beer.