Short & Shoddy | Double IPA

Author: Marshall Schott

One stereotype of the modern craft brewer is that they love to push the envelope, which considering the bevy of new styles introduced over the last decade, appears a likely accurate characterization. Back in the 1990s, long before the terms pastry and milkshake were associated with beer, brewers seeking to please the palates of American hopheads began experimenting with making beer that packed a more potent punch than was standard in IPA at the time. Given the considerably higher hopping rates and alcohol, this style came to be known as Double IPA and rapidly shot to the top of the popularity list.

Unlike some new styles that fizzle out soon after their introduced, Double IPA has held its place as one of the more beloved styles of craft beer, to the point it’s uncommon for a brewery not to have one or more in regular rotation. The hype that accompanied certain commercial examples undoubtedly played a role in this style’s staying power, though it also serves as an ideal showcase for hops, which the American drinker had developed a strong fondness for. The BJCP provides the following description of Double IPA:

An intensely hoppy, fairly strong pale ale without the big, rich, complex maltiness and residual sweetness and body of an American barleywine. Strongly hopped, but clean, dry, and lacking harshness. Drinkability is an important characteristic; this should not be a heavy, sipping beer.

I’ll never forget my time experiencing Pliny The Elder. I was in Santa Rosa in 2011 with my family and friends, we snagged a perfect spot just outside the doors of Russian River Brewing Company and ordered pints of this lauded beer. I may not be the biggest lover of IPA, but that Pliny was excellent in every way and inspired me to brew some Double IPA myself. While I followed a typical process for those batches, I recently brewed one up using Short & Shoddy methods.

| BREWING THE BEER |

For this recipe, I originally intended on going with a grist that more closely resembled a Pliny The Elder clone recipe I saw floating around a few years ago. When I shared this with the rest of the crew, I was implored to rely solely on a grain bill consisting of just Pilsner malt and table sugar. Seeing as this was a Short & Shoddy batch, I accepted the challenge and went with a blend of hops I had on hand, some from the 2016 crop year.

Short & Shoddy Double IPA

I started brewing at 3:49 PM by collecting the full volume of water.

After flipping the switch to get the water heating up, I added a decent sprinkle of gypsum in order to make those hops pop.

I then weighed out and milled the grain.

With the water properly heated, I stirred in the Pilsner malt then made sure it hit my target mash temperature.

The mash was left alone for just 30 minutes, after which the grains were removed and the wort was brought to a boil. The table sugar added at this point.

Once the 25 minute boil was complete, I chilled the very hoppy wort with my IC.

A refractometer reading showed the wort hit a respectable OG despite the reduced mash length.

Since I didn’t filter the kettle hops, I used some leftover cardboard to prop the front of the kettle up and waiting 5 minutes for the heaviest particulate to settle out.

The chilled wort was then transferred to a sanitized fermentation vessel.

With the wort at 68°F/20°C, I pitched a single pouch of Imperial Yeast A01 House.

The filled fermentation vessel was placed in my chamber controlled to 66°F/19°C and hooked up my CO2 capture device. The time was 5:53 PM for a total brew day time of 2 hours and 4 minutes. After 4 days of fermentation, I added the dry hop charge directly to the beer.

With signs of activity absent 3 days later, I took a hydrometer measurement showing FG had been reached.

I proceeded with putting 2 psi of CO2 on the fermenter and reducing the temperature in the chamber to 33°F/1°C for cold crashing. The next night, I added gelatin fining then waited a week before racking the beer to a naturally purged keg.

The filled keg was placed in my keezer and burst carbonated overnight before I reduced the gas to serving pressure. I let the beer condition for just 6 days before serving it to tasters for evaluation.

| RESULTS |

A total of 16 people of various levels of experience participated in this Short & Shoddy evaluation. Participants were informed of the specific beer style and provided the BJCP description prior to completing the survey. Tasters were then instructed to rate how hoppy, malty, and dry they perceived the beer to be on a 0-5 scale where a rating of 0 indicated “not at all” and 5 indicated “extremely.”

Tasters were provided a list of common hop, malt, and yeast characteristics then instructed to select from each the one they perceived as being most prominent in the beer.

Hop Characteristics

Malt Characteristics

Yeast Characteristics

Next, participants were asked to indicate whether or not they detected any off-flavors in the beer; those who did were provided a list of common off-flavors and instructed to select the one they perceived as being strongest. Not a single person identified this beer as possessing any off-flavors.

Tasters were then asked to rate how well the beer represented the intended style, based on the provided BJCP description, on a 0-5 scale where 0 meant “not at all” and 5 meant “exactly.”

Finally, tasters were asked to rate how much they enjoyed the beer on a 0-5 scale where 0 indicated they hated it and 5 indicated they loved it.

My Impressions: This was one of the more interesting versions of Double IPA I’ve both made and tasted. Rather than balancing a blast of hop character with a noticeable malt backbone, this beer was more like alcoholic hop juice, except you’d never guess it was all that boozy. I definitely enjoyed this beer enough to keep it around until the keg kicked, but I think the simplicity of the grain bill allowed some of the more danky aspects of Citra to come through, so I’d likely stick to less pungent varieties in the future.

| CONCLUSION |

As the name suggests, Double IPA is expected to be a more potent version of IPA, both in terms of alcohol and hop character. On the surface, accomplishing this may seem fairly easy, just ramp up the amount of malt and hops used in a standard IPA recipe. This can certainly get one close, but brewers of exceptional examples of Double IPA tend to take a more fine tuned approach when designing their recipes, minding the interplay of malt and hops while making sure the beer maintains a high degree of quaffability.

Most Double IPA recipes include a variety of malts intended to provide a flavorful canvas onto which a menagerie of hops gets painted. Per the urging of my trusted group of brewing compatriots, the grist for this Short & Shoddy Double IPA was much less complicated, consisting of just Pilsner malt and table sugar. Indeed, this produced a very dry beer with low malt character and a rather in-your-face punch of hops, as indicated by the ratings of blind tasters. Moreover, not only did tasters generally think this beer was a decent representation of the style, but most enjoyed drinking it as well, and nobody noted any of the off-flavors associated with the Short & Shoddy brewing process.

Given the relatively heavy use of Citra, Centennial, and Amarillo in this Double IPA, I was surprised to see melon as the highest rated hop descriptor and wondered if perhaps some other aspect of the beer influenced tasters’ perceptions. In follow-up conversations with those who had completed the survey, a few reported the dryness of the beer was reminiscent of sparkling wine while others commented on the lack of malt flavor. There’s no way to know for sure, but it seems plausible all of these things combined to make a unique palate-tricking tasting experience.

As much as I enjoyed this beer, I wouldn’t place it above other examples of Double IPA I’ve brewed with more complex grain bills, which I accept as being entirely a function of subjective preference– I enjoy a touch of malt richness to support the massive dose of hops. However, it’s entirely likely others differ from me, and for those open to taking brewing risks, this Short & Shoddy Double IPA may be right up their alley.

If you have thoughts about this Short & Shoddy brew, please feel free to share it in the comments section below!

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