Beer Recipe - Dark Forest Black IPA

There are a lot of conversations in the home brewing and craft brewing world about creating a “New Style” of beer called Black IPA or Cascadian Dark Ale. The beer is fundamentally a very dark, roasty version of the modern American IPA. It’s full of American-style aroma hops, but they are countered very strongly by the roasted grains and chocolate flavors associated with porters and stouts.




The controversy over this beer is centered on whether or not it should have a style listing in the BJCP guidelines, which are used primarily in brewing competitions and as a helpful way for breweries to categorize their beers for marketing purposes. Most beer lovers only care about style briefly when we’re trying to decide which new sixer to buy from the beer store. “I want something roasty and chocolaty… Oh, an American stout. That’ll do.” Still, even if an American stout was not described by the BJCP as “A hoppy, bitter, strongly-roasted Foreign-style stout (of the export variety)”, I think most beer fans would already know what to expect from that beer.

Ah, but I digress. The “style” we’re discussing today is the Black IPA, which could be described as a hoppy, bitter, strongly roasted Foreign-style stout (of the export variety) which uses American hops.

See what I mean about styles being silly? They want to create a new style for this beer, which is really only an extension of other beer styles. Is it really a Black IPA, or would it just be a more Americanized stout or porter? And who cares, as long as it tastes good?

Anyway, the general guidelines for making a good Black IPA are not that it is a black version of your IPA. It should be complex and roasty as well as big on hop flavor and aroma. So, you’ll want to do something besides adding some burned malt to change the color. The complexity comes from blending your malted grains a bit to hit different flavor profiles. Aside from your base malt, you’ll want to split your specialty grains up to catch some toasted bread flavor, some chocolate, some really dark coffee flavors, and some maltier, sweeter flavors to balance it out.

I recently brewed a Black IPA which worked out really well for me, and makes a truly delicious beer. It's not as bitter as some I've had, but it's delicious. Since I had never used them before, I used Sorachi Ace hops in mine, but you can use whatever American aroma hop you like, or a combination of several. Next batch, I think I will use some Sorachi Ace, Centennial, and Citra and maybe beef up the bitterness a little more. Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Dark Forest Black IPA – All Grain
Recipe type – All Grain
Batch Size – 5 gallons
Volume Boiled – 6 gallons
Original Gravity – 1.063
Final Gravity – 1.015
Color – 32.2 L
Bitterness – 51 IBUs
Alcohol – 6.3% ABV

Ingredients
10 lbs 2-row base malt
.63 lb Carafa II (500L)
.25 lb Biscuit Malt
.25 lb Chocolate Malt
.25 lb Crystal Malt (60L)
.25 lb Crystal Malt (20L)
10 HBU Sorachi Ace hops (boiled 60 minutes)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace hops (added 15 minutes before end of boil)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace hops (at flameout)
.5 oz Sorachi Ace hops (dry hopped 14 days)
California Ale Yeast (WLP001, White Labs 1056 or similar)

Procedure:
Mash at 152 F for an hour. Mash out at 170 F and sparge with 180 F water to make 6 gallons. Heat to boiling and then add 10 HBUs of Sorachi Ace hops. Boil 45 minutes, then add .5 oz Sorachi Ace hops. Boil 15 more minutes and turn off heat and add .5 oz of Sorachi Ace hops. Cool as quickly as possible to 70 F, rack to your fermenter, and pitch yeast. After 7-10 days, rack to secondary fermenter and dry hop with .5 oz of Sorachi Ace hops. After 14 days, prime and bottle or keg.

Dark Forest Black IPA – Extract with Grain
Recipe type – Extract with Grain
Batch Size – 5 gallons
Volume Boiled – 6 gallons
Original Gravity – 1.063
Final Gravity – 1.015
Color – 32.2 L
Bitterness – 51 IBUs
Alcohol – 6.3% ABV

Ingredients
Substitute 6 lbs of light dry malt extract for the 2-row malt above. All other ingredients remain the same.

Procedure:
Steep your grains in water and heat water to 170 F for at least 20-30 minutes (the longer they steep, the more flavor you’ll get – to a point). Remove the grains and add your malt extract. Stir well, dissolving all clumps and then heat wort to boiling and add 10 HBUs of Sorachi Ace hops. Boil 45 minutes, then add .5 oz Sorachi Ace hops. Boil 15 more minutes and turn off heat and add .5 oz of Sorachi Ace hops. Cool as quickly as possible to 70 F, rack to your fermenter, and pitch yeast. After 7-10 days, rack to secondary fermenter and dry hop with .5 oz of Sorachi Ace hops. After 14 days, prime and bottle or keg.