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Kyle Brown

Owner of Clawhammer Supply

The West Coast IPA is one of the most popular styles of craft beer, and for good reason! A West Coast IPA is more bitter than its East Coast counterpart and is characterized by dank, resiny flavors of citrus and pine. This West Coast IPA recipe is packed full of Columbus and Warrior hops and we brewed it with two of our favorite brewers, CH from Homebrew 4 Life and Justin from Jus’ Brewing. Watch us brew it in the video below or follow along with this recipe for a more detailed guide.

This recipe is for a 5 gallon batch. It’s tailored for our 10 gallon 120 volt brewing system. Watch us use it in the video below.

Full Brew Day Video

Benchmarks

• OG: 1.060
• FG: 1.011
• ABV: 6.4%

Ingredients Needed

Brewing Salts

• Gypsum
• Epsom Salt
• Calcium Chloride
• Campden Tablet

Grains

• 12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row)
• 12 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L
• 8 oz Munich Malt
• 4 oz Biscuit Malt

Hops

• 2 oz Columbus
• 1 oz Warrior
• 1 oz Amarillo

Yeast

• WLP001 California Ale Yeast

Other

• Lactic Acid

Brew Day Instructions

Water

Fill your kettle with 7.5 Gallons of water. Adjust water chemistry to the following profile. Amounts are in parts per million

• Calcium - 99 
• Magnesium - 18.2
• Sodium - 8
• Sulfate - 242.7
• Chloride - 52.5
• Alkalinity - 13

Water chemistry for West Coast IPAs is important because correct water chemistry will help your beer taste as bitter as it’s supposed to. The most important part of West Coast IPA water chemistry is the sulfate to chloride ratio as this ratio helps the beer taste more bitter. For West Coast IPAs, the ratio is 2:1ish, so more sulfates than chlorides. In an East Coast IPA, this would be flipped, resulting in a beer that tastes softer and less bitter.

Add .5 of a campden tablet. Heat water to 152F.

Mash

Finely crush your grain by double crushing or setting the gap size on your grain mill to be smaller. Once your water reaches 152F, mash in and stir to ensure all the grains are wet. Adjust pH 5-10 minutes into your mash. Collect a sample of your mash, test it’s pH, and add lactic acid until you reach a pH of 5.2-5.4. Mash for 60 minutes in total.

Boil & Hops

After a 60 minute mash, pull the grain basket and hook it above your kettle. Adjust the heat on the controller to start a boil. Let your grains drain for at least 10 minutes. 

Once a boil is reached follow this hop schedule.

• 60 Minutes - 1 oz of Warrior / 1 oz of Columbus

With 5 - 10 minutes left in the boil, hook up your hoses, pump, and plate chiller and recirculate to sanitize. At the end of the boil, chill the wort to 200F and do the following hop addition.

• 10 Minute whirlpool at 200F - 1 oz of Columbus

After this whirlpool addition, chill your wort to yeast pitching temperature (68-73F). Make sure to grab a sample of wort before moving on in order to check starting gravity to determine ABV once fermentation has finished.

Yeast & Fermentation

Transfer your chilled wort into a sanitized fermenter and pitch one pack of WLP001 California Ale Yeast. Ferment between 68 - 73F for at least 10 days. Here's how to tell if fermentation has finished.

Dry Hops (Optional)

3 days before packaging, add 1 oz of Amarillo hops to your fermenter. Remove these before kegging or bottling.

Tasting

This turned out to be a classic West Coast IPA that has the perfect amount of booziness & bitterness. The aroma was nice & citrusy and the flavor was dank, piney & resiny. We named this beer 2NEWFRIENDS because we brewed it with our two new friends, CH from Homebrew 4 Life & Justin from Jus' Brewing. Be sure to check out their YouTube channels.

If you like this recipe you should check out:

• Citra Double IPA
• Lazy Hazy Summer Session IPA
• Milkshake IPA
• Black IPA
• Brut IPA