While not an official BJCP style, a West Coast IPA is an American style IPA that has been agressively hopped, almost to the point of being overwhelming and usually beyond what the BJCP style guidelines call for in a typical American IPA (40-70 IBU).
Originally created by various breweries on the US west coast, varieties can now be found across the US and even in other countries. American hops are used throughout, often double the levels of what you'd see in a 'normal' American IPA.
I like a lot of Columbus hops in my West Coast style IPAs. It provides a strong earthy character with a unique pungent and dank hop-aroma. Some describe the aroma as being very similar to marijuana. It pairs extremely well with Simcoe hops which add piney qualities with a bit of fruitiness. The combination is intense, for hop lovers only.
Columbus is one of the three "C" hops, including Centennial and Cascade. It's a dual-purpose hop that can be used for both bittering and flavour/aroma. It goes by other names including CTZ, which stands for Columbus, Tomahawk, and Zeus. Tomahawk is the exact same variety sold by a different producer, while Zeus is very close that it gets lumped in.
Note: I often prefer to brew IPAs that are high in hop flavour and aroma but not as over the top with bitterness so I've brewed this recipe by eliminating the 90 minute hop addition and increasing both 1 minute additions slightly from 1.0 to 1.5 oz. Try it both ways and see which you prefer.
MARCH 2013 UPDATE: Green Flash West Coast IPA is now available in my neck of the woods and it's surprising how close my beer is to this commercial variety.
JULY 2013 UPDATE: This recipe won first place at an American IPA brewing competition organized by my local homebrew club. Complete details here.
I've made this beer many times now and it always gets rave reviews from IPA lovers. If you enjoy Green Flash West Coast IPA, definitely give this recipe a try. I think you'll enjoy it. Brew up a batch and let me know how you like it!
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Green Flash West Coast IPA
Size: 12.0 US gal (post-boil @ 68F)
Mash Efficiency: 95.0%
Attenuation: 81.2%
Calories: 227.5 kcal per 12.0 fl oz
Notes:
Add 500mg potassium metabisulphite to 20 gallons water to remove chlorine/chloramine (as required).
Water treated with brewing salts to: Ca=110, Mg=18, Na=16, Cl=50, S04=279
(Basically Randy Mosher's ideal Pale Ale numbers with slightly less Sulphate).
For complete details on how to adjust your water, refer to our step by step Water Adjustments guide.
1.5 qt/lb mash thickness. Single infusion mash at 150F for 90 mins. Mashout to 168F.
60-90 min fly sparge with ~5.6-5.8 pH water (measured at mash temperature). Collect 14.9 gallons in the boil kettle.
Boil for 90 minutes. Lid on at flameout, start chilling immediately.
Cool wort to 66F and aerate well. Ferment at 66-68F until complete.
Add dry hops once fermentation is nearing completion (ie: below 1.015). Dry hop for 5-7 days total.
Rack to CO2 purged brite tank (secondary), crash chill to near freezing (if possible), optionally add 1 tsp of unflavoured gelatin dissolved in a cup of hot distilled water per 5 gallons of beer, and let clear for 2-3 days.
Package as you would normally. I keg and carbonate on the low side (around 2 to 2.2 volumes of C02) to minimize carbonic bite and let the hop/malt flavour come through.
If you prefer to use liquid yeast, either of these is an excellent choice as they are the same clean fermenting Chico strain as US-05:
You'll need to use 5 packs/vials or make an appropriate starter.
For complete details on how to make a starter, refer to our step by step Making a Yeast Starter guide.
Link Posted: Wed Jul 25, 2012 3:32 am Post subject:
I just wanted to say that this came out pretty awesome. 3 weeks after brewing and I am enjoying this great beer! It's got a great floral aroma and the hop bitterness is not very high. Granted I love DIPAs. Very good summer brew. 1.072 OG and 1.014 FG. Came out at 7.7% ABV so it'll catch up to you on a hot day!
I have a keggle setup and ended up using whole leaf hops with this and my false bottom for the boil kettle. I added a small stainless scrubby around the dip tube and solved all of my big IPA hop clogging issues.
I've attached a copy of the Beersmith bsmx file. Just rename and you can easily import this.
All beer will eventually clear on its own if given enough time. We prefer to speed up the process as follows: Slowly dissolve one pouch of Knox unflavoured gelatin in a cup of warm distilled water and stir for a few minutes. Once clear, add it to the beer. The beer will become noticeably clearer within a few hours and be very clear within 3-4 days as the gelatine pulls suspended yeast and other solids to the bottom and forms a layer of sediment that will be left behind when packaging.
One pouch is about 6-8g.
Quote:
2) Do you use pellets or leaves?
Pellets.
I like to use pellet 99% of the time because (a) they're cheaper, (b) they compact better for storage, (c) they stay fresher longer, (d) more varieties are available, (e) less vegetal matter in the boil kettle/less wort soaked up & lost ... and probably a few other reasons I can't remember at the moment.
Joined: 12 Dec 2010 Posts: 9855 Location: Ottawa, Canada
Drinking: German Lager, Electric Hop Candy Jr, Scottish 70/-, Janet's Brown, Maibock, Kolsch, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter
Working on: West Coast Blaster (American Red IPA)
Link Posted: Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:39 pm Post subject:
Update: I've made some changes to the recipe to turn this into an actual clone of Green Flash West Coast IPA. The changes were very subtle:
- Replace the Vienna malt with slightly less Carapils malt
- Increase the amount of Crystal 30-40L malt slightly
- Add a 90 min hop addition to bump up the bitterness a bit
- Tone down the 1 minute hop additions slightly
- Add Cascade to the list of dry hops
Joined: 20 Aug 2012 Posts: 1 Location: Sydney, Australia
Link Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 10:40 am Post subject:
Thanks for a great recipe Kal. I am drinking your older West Coast IPA version with the Vienna and love it. It certainly is a great big beer with loads of aroma and hop flavour without being overly bitter. Seems very well balanced.
Joined: 12 Dec 2010 Posts: 9855 Location: Ottawa, Canada
Drinking: German Lager, Electric Hop Candy Jr, Scottish 70/-, Janet's Brown, Maibock, Kolsch, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter
Working on: West Coast Blaster (American Red IPA)
Link Posted: Thu Jul 18, 2013 1:16 pm Post subject:
I'm glad you like it felon!
I brewed the updated recipe ~5 weeks ago (without the 90 minute hops however) and it's been on tap now for a about 2 weeks so I had a pint of it last night. This is definitely one of my favourite recipes and the chages are extremely subtle compared to the original version. This beer's all about hops!
Joined: 12 Dec 2010 Posts: 9855 Location: Ottawa, Canada
Drinking: German Lager, Electric Hop Candy Jr, Scottish 70/-, Janet's Brown, Maibock, Kolsch, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter
Working on: West Coast Blaster (American Red IPA)
Link Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 12:54 am Post subject:
Up to you but I usually do it in the fermenter as fermentation nears completion. From the recipe:
Quote:
Cool wort to 66F and aerate well. Ferment at 66-68F until complete.
Add dry hops once fermentation is nearing completion (ie: below 1.015). Dry hop for 7-10 days total.
Rack to brite tank (secondary)...
Like most brewers today, I never recommend a secondary fermentation. In other words, never rack the beer while it's activity fermenting. So the idea of primary or secondary fermenter no longer exists since you don't ferment in the secondary vessel. You have a fermenter, and you have a clearing vessel (sometimes called a brite or bright tank).
Joined: 09 Dec 2014 Posts: 8 Location: Gig Harbor, WA
Link Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 1:22 am Post subject:
I have not had good results with dry hopping to the primary, but I believe that may be due to errors in my previous method.
I use a conical in a closed system.
My plan is to experiment with dry hopping with pellets after the gravity drops to -1.015. I will disconnect the blow-off tube tri-clamp and add the pellets through that opening. I will not re-connect the blow-off, just use a tri-clamp block-off plate.
Do you purge the headspace with CO2 after you dry hop?
Do you add CO2 at any point after dry hopping using a bottom port?
Joined: 12 Dec 2010 Posts: 9855 Location: Ottawa, Canada
Drinking: German Lager, Electric Hop Candy Jr, Scottish 70/-, Janet's Brown, Maibock, Kolsch, Russian Imperial Stout, Black Butte Porter
Working on: West Coast Blaster (American Red IPA)
Link Posted: Fri May 29, 2015 2:23 am Post subject:
jim@gsp wrote:
What had be confused is this from the recipe:
1.0 oz Columbus Hops (12.3%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Simcoe Hops (12.2%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Centennial Hops (9.2%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Cascade Hops (6.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Amarillo Hops (8.2%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
Ha! Good point. I need to maybe rethink the wording on that. It comes straight from my brewing software. I can see how that may be confusing.
You may of course dry hop in your second vessel if you like. It's really up to you.
jim@gsp wrote:
Do you purge the headspace with CO2 after you dry hop?
There's no need to if you do this in the primary since the vessel will be completely full of CO2. CO2 is heavier than air so taking the airlock off, dropping in some pellets, and re-adding the airlock means that no O2 has entered. If you feel some O2 may have gotten in, by all means purge.
Quote:
Do you add CO2 at any point after dry hopping using a bottom port?
I use fermentation buckets and glass carboys. So no bottom port. I wouldn't add CO2 through a bottom port on any vessel that has one as that would probably bubble up and make a mess/cause lots of foam, not to mention you may get wort/beer into the CO2 lines. I wouldn't do that.
I do use CO2 religiously to purge any vessel before I rack to it, be it a 5 gallon glass carboy (my brite tanks), or my kegs. This is especially critical with hoppy beers.
Link Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2015 6:34 pm Post subject:
This is shockingly similar to my house IPA differences being the C Hop portion is more heavily Centennial & Cascade and I like MO as my go to base malt.
I won first place in our club's IPA competition this year after two years of 2nd place finishes with the same beer
Link Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 10:03 pm Post subject: Pre-Boil gravity vs. post-boil gravity for West Coast IPA
Kal, I see a WCIPA clone recipe at BrewersFriend.com (http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/221865/green-flash-west-coast-ipa-clone). Not sure if it was you who created the BrewersFriend recipe or somebody else did and simply referenced you as the inspiration / source, but in any case the recipe calls for a pre-boil gravity of 1.048 and a target OG of 1.069. A 21-point (43%) rise in gravity seems like a lot. Do you ever plan for that much concentration, and if so do you boil for more than 90 mins to accomplish it?
I listened to the original podcast just this morning of The Jamil Show / "Can You Brew It?" for cloning this beer, and the brewer (I think it was Tasty McDole?) mentioned a concentration from pre-boil = 1.054 to OG = 1.069. That seems more in line with my own experience.
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