Last Thursday we brewed up a 25-liter batch of an APA/IPA hybrid. The name (V) refers to the fact that we used five different hop varieties, five different malt types, US-05 yeast, aimed for an OG of 1.055, and an ABV of 5.5%. For the malt bill, we used one inspired by the APA/IPAs we brewed in April last year, consisting of Pale Ale, Munich, Carapils, Crystal 60 and Melanoidin malt. I really like how this combination gives the beer a solid honey-like malty backbone, despite the beer being relatively light. For hops, we decided to hop burst again, and used Columbus for FWH, and then combinations of Amarillo, Columbus, Mosaic and Simcoe for the late kettle hops. After flameout we still pumped the wort through a HopRocket filled with Nelson Sauvin hops. This should hopefully give the beer both some tropical fruitiness and some dank resiny tones. Mosaic is a new hop for me, and it will be interesting to see if it brings anything special to the mix. I’ve read that it can lend some subtle blueberry tones, which sounds interesting, but it will most likely be difficult to detect any subtle tones with the hop mix. We aimed for about 60 IBU, but it will most likely feel like less because of the hop scheme (maybe 55?). We decided to play it safe with the yeast, and chose to use US-05 dry yeast, since it has produced good beers for us before. Hopefully this one (and the Simcade Pale Ale) turns out drinkable, since we’ve had quite bad luck with our last couple of batches. Will be dry hopping both these batches later this week.

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