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The Style of an American IPA

Homebrewing

The All Grain Brewer   |   Thursday, January 19 2012

BJPC Category 14B :  A discussion of the style guidelines pertaining to aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression.

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It's brewing season and I just brewed BJPC Category 14B, or for those of you not familiar with the BJCP style guidelines I brewed an American IPA. What is the BJCP you say? Well, it’s the Beer Judge Certification Program, and this organization publishes the style guidelines for beer, mead, and perry. When I brew I generally brew to their guidelines because in a competition my beer will get judged to the BJCP written standards based on: aroma, appearance, flavor, mouthfeel, and overall impression. The BJCP style guidelines can be found on the internet at www.bjcp.org.

So let’s take a closer look into what I was trying to brew. We’ll start with my recipe. I always utilize a 90 minute boil and 5 gallon batch.

• 13 lbs Marris Otter
• 1 lb Crystal Malt 15 L

• 1.5 ounces Chinook at 80 minutes – homegrown
• 1.5 ounces Cascade at 60 minutes– homegrown
• 1.5 ounces Cascade at 40 minutes– homegrown
• 4.0 ounces Cascade at 2 minutes– homegrown

• White Labs 001 California Ale Yeast using a 600 mL starter

So working our way through the guidelines, let’s look at Aroma. The last 2 minute addition of hops is going to give me the aroma that I am looking for which is a nice citrusy aroma, hopefully very pronounced in the nose. Some people like to dry hop to get that great aroma. I have never had any luck dry hopping, so I just cram tons of hops at the end of the boil for my hop aroma addition. The malt will of course give you a nice sweet aroma as well, but it should be about 25% of the aroma versus the hops in my opinion. The style guidelines state “a prominent to intense hop aroma with a citrusy, floral, perfume-like, resinous, piney, and or fruity character derived from American hops.” That’s why I put in four ounces of hops at the end of the boil.

Next is Appearance. I use to make this beer with Crystal 40L or Crystal 60L, which made the beer a cooper color. I’ve listened to some experts in the last couple of years who do not think the style should be that dark, so I have toned down my crystal addition to 15L, thus giving the beer a more golden color. The style guidelines state “color ranges from medium gold to medium reddish copper, some versions can have an orange-ish tint.” I always like my beers as clear as possible, and therefore always use irish moss with 15 minutes left in the boil. Irish moss is a fining agent. Fining agents all work by making the smaller molecules aggregate into larger particles so they settle out of solution.

Usually, the most important category is Flavor, however with an American IPA I think that the aroma is so important that they are almost equal, however in a competition flavor accounts for 20 points out of 50, while aroma accounts for only 12 points out of 50. The guidelines state “hop flavor is medium to high, and should reflect an American hop character with citrusy, floral, resinous, piney, or fruity aspects.” It goes on to say later that “Medium-high to very high hop bitterness, although the malt backbone will support the strong hop character and provide the best balance.” That’s what I have tried to accomplish with my recipe, which is have a strong malt backbone to balance the hops. It is very easy to over hop a beer. I can’t tell you how many times I have done it. The beers are always still drinkable, but they will not win you any awards. It’s all about balance. For this beer, I was going for medium-high hop bitterness, and medium hop flavor mainly because I believe the balance will be nice on the tongue.

Mouthfeel is the next category. This deals with carbonation, alcohol warmth, astringency, body, creaminess, and other palate sensations. My beer is still in the carboy fermenting away, so some of this can not be commented on as of yet. The plan is for the beer to be medium body, and it might have hop astringency which is alright in small doses for this beer style.

Finally comes Overall Impression. This is where a judge gives you feedback like “I love this beer and would like to drink more of it”, or “your beer is infected, and you need to work on your sanitation skills” It’s their personal impression of the drinkability of the beer. I hope my American IPA gets the first comment and not the second.

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