Brewing an ENGLISH IPA | Grain to Glass | The Confusing History of IPA

[@TheBruSho]

Really like how you give potential improvements, nice to know your also the type of person who is constantly looking to make better beer!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm always looking for opportunities to improve every piece of the hobby, there's no such thing as a perfect beer.

[@fenchurchmarie5224]

basically what he said. love the videos, and the info!

[@thaphuzzful]

Yet another fantastic video and again, another fantastic beer. Keep up the good work, my dude. Loved the shoutout to Genus too.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thank you! I appreciate the support, happy new year!

[@Silverbullet69420]

HA! I immediately thought of Peter from Genus when you mentioned crystal malts! Great video man, keep it up!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching!

[@MatiasPiispanen]

It's so pleasing to listen to you explain things. Very clearly explained, interesting opinions and entertaining as well. I wanted to subscribe, but I was already subscribed :'D

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for the kind words, I'm glad you enjoy the channel!!

[@curtpick628]

Open mouth, insert.... Boasting without thorough investigation gets you everytime. Good channel.

[@georgerobartes2008]

This is great all sounds like a proper IPA , hops and dry hop . Its a beery beer . Fullers yeast would do the job as its a London beer . Pretty good on history too . The Hodgson brewery was situated South of the Bow Bridge on the River Lea on the old London to Colchester Road , a site known as '3 Mills' as it had large watermills and already a steady stream of grain flowing in from the fields of East Anglia .This was the main route into and out of London to the East of England . Its a ride downstream in a Thames Lighterman ( a small open barge ) to the River Thames where the ships would be moored . Hodgson was one of the pioneers of long credit so very poular with skippers who were involved in long contracts, so Hodgsons boomed . The Lea Stort Navigation canal improved access to the Thames moorings as the Lea River was tidal . However...... The East India Company formed by Royal Charter in 1600 , a large London City Corporation had at the time 260 000 soldiers in its employ , twice the size of the British Army which maintained law and order in the countries it had seized India being one of them . Company rule of India began in 1757 , so it is correct that IPA was supplied to troops of A British Army , but not THE British Army , basically a private army owned by a business . The very word ' India ' was probably owned by the EIC . The US flag is based on the one carried by the EIC ( a Union Flag in canton instead of stars)probably because the bulk of the new US administration were shareholders , (The EIC was dissolved by the government in 1874 ). By 1805 Great Britain had control of the seas and beer of all kinds shipped everywhere as was spirits , er...opium , the London gins too , with their manufacturing base at the Lea River at the confluence of the Thames . Literally everything of value shipped anywhere was now controlled by the EIC and the Royal Navy .The last one of these distillers closed operations here in the 1980s I believe ( Im not a gin drinker !). The gin that kept Victorian East London happy was produced here . The rest of the involvement of Allsops at Burton after by passing Hodgsons etc. is all good . Allsops later joined forces with a London water brewing company on the River Rom where I was born at Romford in Essex , Ind Coope , who took over brewing of the old style IPA , generally sold bottled . Ind Coope closed 1992 but had stopped brewing IPA decades before that . The last decent beer was Romford Bitter another standard for them which was a well balanced low abv refreshing bitter probably not too far off the old recipe , 1038 OG if memory serves me well . Very quaffable . I drank it at CAMRA meetings at the Mawney Arms , Romford during the 1970s . The other cask beer was Burton Ale which is way too farty fot most Londoners . Good health !

[@alibronx2112]

Nice one! Just brewed a very similar beer with S04 and some leftover comet hops for bittering and homegrown vanguard in aroma/dh. Great style and impossible to mess up imo. Cheers! Also, if you can get them over there Thomas fawcett malts are really good for these English styles.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Nice, I don't think I've ever used vanguard before, would be interesting to see what thats like. I do actually have Thomas Fawcett malts at my LHBS. I bet Pearl would do well in this!

[@jamespadley3062]

Excellent video and no judgement on serving it it on Keg as a Englishman I love both ways and usually brew an extra 5-10 litres to serve on my beer engine 😋. I'd also recommend to try Norhdown it's a lovely hop similar to challenger but richer in flavour, I made a lovely bitter using just Norhdown quite a few year ago bit lost the recipe 🤦‍♂️

[@timothyrichards5823]

Thanks for another great video! I loved the tip on dry hopping using magnets to keep from opening the fermenter. I’ll definitely use that on my dry hopped brews in the future.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I've used that technique successfully so many times. It's too easy!

[@timothyrichards5823]

@@TheApartmentBrewer what kind of magnets do you use in the dry hop bag? I would be reluctant to use any old magnet. I thought maybe a large stir plate magnet might work? Out side the fermenter I suppose any strong magnet would work.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I use neodymium magnets - a stack of three to five about quarter sized magnets works well. Inside the fermenter I'll usually use a piece of stainless steel thats easily sanitized, like a utensil.

[@timothyrichards5823]

@@TheApartmentBrewer Rhanks I’ll try that.

[@serginoliveira]

Hey! Sergio, from Brazil. Congrats for the video, I’ve been watching and enjoying all your videos! Certainly I prefer a grist with only Maris Otter, or a base with pale and a little of light crystal. EKG and fuggle for me are best options for the style. Waiting a video about Irish Red Ale, my favorite style! Cheers!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching and for your input! I think I'll be doing an Irish red for March of this year

[@serginoliveira]

@NewKidzOnTheBlockFAN NewKidzOnTheBlockFAN yes, but nowadays here in Brazil first gold is quite difficult to find out, but is a great one for sure!

[@Loren_Le_Rouzic]

As usual, great video. I also highly recommend Mitch Steele’s book ‘IPA’ It has a pretty extensive account of the history, but most importantly, RECIPES!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Yeah I think it's gonna be on my shortlist of brewing books pretty soon

[@thomasfrank1227]

I don't really like this style beer but I loved listening to your viewpoints and thought process on the hops and the process. Tom from Casino Ave Brewing. Cheers.

[@davidfoster3337]

Really enjoyed the video. For me, I don't think dry hopping improves English ales. I think that if you followed this recipe again without the dry hop and without the black malt you would end up with a more English tasting IPA.

[@lifeafterwork]

I see you have a 10yr Laphroaig in the back - one of my favorites :-) Just setting up to do an English IPA so your video has been very helpful - thx

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Got another one coming in the next several months!

[@rki5462]

Love the videos. Mitch Steele's IPA book provides excellent historical information about the history of IPA. As an Englishman my favourite British style IPA is Fuller's Bengal Lancer. It's actually late hopped and dry hopped with a lot of Target! Unfortunately a lot of other English IPA's are a pathetic imitation of what they used to be. Often coming in at 3.5-%4.5% ABV and pathetically hopped, along with crystal malts. The old real IPA's of yesteryear were hopped to oblivion, bitter as hell and very pale, using something known as White malt (1L colour). It's all in the Mitch Steele book, along with cool old school clones as well as Fullers Bengal Lancer IPA :]

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I need to get that book!! Also agreed - Bengal Lancer is amazing, haven't had one in some time. Interesting about the target though, thats not what I expected! Cheers and thanks for the info!

[@rki5462]

@@TheApartmentBrewer Yeah it gets thought of as a bittering hop generally.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

In fact, I just brewed a SMASH IPA with CTZ which another hop that typically gets relegated to the bittering category and its absolutely delicious

[@rki5462]

@@TheApartmentBrewer My favourite hop :] I call it the Swiss army knife hop. Can be used in almost any style at any time in the brewing process IMO.

[@Barney5G]

Nice video! More English Ales!!!! On the color, doesn’t victory give a brown color? Especially at the quantity used?

[@Barney5G]

Correction: I put the recipe into BeerSmith and the biggest jump in SRM was the c120, butthe victory wasn’t insignificant. Contributes a fair amount of color

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

You're totally right, at 28 Lovibond it will definitely darken a beer up. Its dropped clean as of today and it has a dark red hue but still is fairly dark. There will be plenty more English beer to come, they're the best kept secret in beer!

[@Bullsbrew551]

Another informative video. I learn a lot about beer and brewing from you. I’ll be brewing my first all grain in a couple of days. American Pale Ale. Cheers!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Cheers and good luck! You'll love it, and a pale ale is a great place to start all grain with. Lots of room for varying efficiency

[@garyballared2077]

love the channel big time! - not sure i agree with your ipa history but neither of us were there so who knows!

[@andrev6883]

Another great video - cheers! I'm British and love a good cask ale. Strangely I find it the hardest style to nail as a homebrewer and most of my beers of this style are more miss than hit. I find porters, lagers and even NEIPA's more reliable - although I've invested a lot of my life in improving my NEIPAs. Will probably give this one a bash though - thanks for all the detail

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching, I'm glad you enjoyed it! It was definitely a bit more difficult than I expected!

[@reecebarnes938]

Now that you have a different system will you remake some old recipes?. It would be interesting to see how they change and compare

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I certainly will be re-brewing certain styles that I really enjoy, but I don't think I'll make the exact same recipe twice. I enjoy variety far too much

[@Leo99929]

I'm british, specifically from a small town in the north of England. Up north, real ale was drilled into you as "proper beer" from the previous generation. You wouldn't dare drink the lager for fear of beratement from yer dad and mates. I was part of a real ale society at university and CAMRA for a bit. Then I realised they are essentially beer bigots/fascists. It isn't an organisation about beer appreciation and quality standards, it's about traditionalism and intolerance of change. CAMRA were formed when the UK was mainly fresh cask ale from the local brewery and continental lagers had started to be introduced. The lager was a cheaper produced product, and preserved in an oxygen free keg which allowed it to stay on tap longer and travel further/better without spoiling. The lager was the minimum viable product in many instances and a marked reduction in quality, not to mention comparatively bland. The pub would have to dump the remaining cask after it had been tapped for a few days as the head space from pouring a pint was back filled with air from the cellar including oxygen and bacteria that spoiled the product. Lager would be salable relatively indefinitely which meant wastage was lower. This presented higher profit potential for the pub. So many pubs started serving lager and reduced the variety of cask ale on offer to optiomise profit. Since then, it's been learned that minimising oxygen exposure is crucial for beers quality and kegs and cans are better than casks and bottle for this purpose. Doing a NEIPA in a cask is almost undoable due to the inevitable oxygen exposure. Same goes for medium to long term storage in a bottle. There are few breweries that choose to do this. The fact is that modern beer is of higher quality when stored in kegs and cans. CAMRA are specifically anti can and keg. Origionally I can see the reason. Now, it's traditionalism at the cost of progress/improvement. I'm not sure how they feel about the co2 backfill options for casks to make them last longer. CAMRA had a vote on if they should allow canned beers and keg beers, they overwhelmingly voted yes, but CAMRA overruled the vote. Serve your IPA from a Keg. It's fine. Serving beer from a cask is madness these days. If you care enough then there are systems to serve off a beer engine/pump from a keg. Or just use beer gas nitro/co2 mix to carbonate, and use a stout tap to serve. If you served from a cask to CAMRA standards, you better have enough mates round to empty it in 48 hours or so, otherwise it'll have gone bad.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Wow - thanks for sharing! The cask debate runs far deeper than I thought! I knew it was largely traditional and while I do agree it lends a unique character to the beer inside of it, the staling piece is tough to combat unless you don't plan on keeping it around very long. Really interesting info here, again thanks for sharing!

[@davidjennings1256]

Agree with your assessment of excessive and different hops for bittering - 45IBUs would also be more to style and down a bit with abv... ditching the black malt would also probably help. Re-brewing without these amendments (maybe just EKG) would be worthwhile! I brewed one just before Christmas and it is great! I’m an Englishman in exile in Scotland and reminds me of home 😂

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

It's odd, 60 IBU was the suggested target when doing the research on this recipe but it just seems out of place.

[@thols1]

Great video again 🍻I would agree with David here, I prefer my English IPAs with an IBU around 45, and I go for a balanced sulphate/chloride water profile.

[@AddkisonAlesAndLagers]

Awesome stuff this is right in my wheelhouse. I love 1968 and used it as my house yeast for a long time. I'm actually on a 1318 kick right now but both strains are really nice.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Agreed, 1968 made a phenomenal best bitter for me but 1318 pushes the hops through a bit more gracefully

[@1TheLord1]

Crystal 120L? You are a maniac lol. Challenger in later boil additions is underated btw

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Whats wrong with some C120? It's a customary ingredient in nearly every English beer recipe I've ever done research on. I'll have to do some more work with challenger, usually its always EKG or fuggles recommended for the late boil but that sounds interesting.

[@1TheLord1]

@@TheApartmentBrewer nothing wrong with it lol. I think Jamil uses some as well. I did a few reciepe from Greg Hugues's book that had them in late additions (Irish Red and Oatmeal Stout from memory). Turned out very nicely

[@poisonpotato1]

Is it easy moving everything indoors after the boil? I want to brew on my balcony but I would need to move my anvil system and chugger pump back indoors to chill too

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Haha not exactly. I'll disconnect the pump and lines and then just haul the kettle into my kitchen. Not really the best solution to be honest but I brewing outside is too much fun.

[@skizziz]

Love your videos, def gonna give this recipe a go! Thanks man, cheers!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks! I'd just recommend either lowering the amount of Target or switching it out with Challenger if you're not a fan of a sharp hop bite

[@Vykk_Draygo]

The IPA as a way to prevent spoilage idea sounded nice and convincing... until I started brewing. I feel like if that were the primary goal, then a high gravity dark beer would fare better. Love the video! It's an interesting style, and I think I would like to try it myself. One of my first few brews was a bitter, and I really enjoyed that, so it might be neat to adapt that recipe for higher hop rates.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Its interesting because not all that much was known about microbiology at the time. Hops indeed kept the beer from becoming infected, but often times the beers of the time also had high finishing gravities with lots of sugar left over for microbes to go after. I think a bitter recipe makes a great base for a modern English IPA, good luck!

[@Vykk_Draygo]

@@TheApartmentBrewer Yeah, good point. I'm looking at it from a modern perspective, which isn't the same. I mean, I doubt they were churning out 13% to 16% ABV beers on the regular. High finishing gravity with low ABV is the perfect environment for microbes. I was thinking mainly of oxidative effects, but barrels aren't exactly "clean" environments. Just did some reading, and what hops actually do (well, the isomerized alpha acids) is prevent (most) spoilage bacteria from being able to absorb nutrients. I'm not sure what the effective dosing rate is (I'm sure it's out there, and it probably is proportionally related to the final gravity). Still, it's interesting.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

@@Vykk_Draygo I think the minimum amount to kill off lactobacillus is only 10-15 IBU actually, which is why things like berliner Weisse are so lightly hopped

[@bumpy-isms]

Very nice........I've been thinking about trying to do another english ipa. Cheers Steve

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Nice! Was your last one significantly bitter or more balanced?

[@bumpy-isms]

@@TheApartmentBrewer it went horribly wrong

[@brokentreebrewingco7034]

a lot of good research out on changing ph in the mash. it doesn't really help the process after about 15-20 mins, so it's best just to take notes for next time and change the next brew.

[@ss750]

Do you ever filter your beers? If so, how?

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Nope, usually I'll just clarify by using whirlfloc in the boil, cold crashing and adding gelatin to the keg. Works like a charm 9/10 times

[@TwoandaHalfPintsHomebrew]

Lotta good stuff in this video, both what worked and what didn't. I've got a bitter coming up in a couple days and had thought about tossing a few grains of Pale Chocolate in for color (I saw this on the Homebrew Challenge). Would you recommend doing that instead of black malt or just not even bothering? I may have to snoop on your bitter video in a minute too.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I feel like this beer was not the one to base the bitter grist on. My best bitter had far more malt complexity but I did not use any small amount of black malt. Pale chocolate probably would be the better option for color correction as it seems black malt can be a bit easily overdone. The best bitter I did came out like 12 SRM I think. I just like to add that little bit because I think it creates a slightly more interesting shade of red than crystal malts do

[@TwoandaHalfPintsHomebrew]

@@TheApartmentBrewer Yeah I haven't used the tiny bit of roast trick since an Irish red back in the day but it intrigues me. Snooping on your bitter video again right now.

[@wave2k868]

Did you cold crash this ? I'm curious, I actually like the color of this

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I don't believe I did, but if you keg it you can just cold crash in the keg

[@mdpreciousmetals5488]

Nice video as always. Can you ferment this beer under pressure and at higher temps?

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I would not recommend it. A big part of English beer is the yeast expression which will just be bland and too clean if fermented under pressure

[@mdpreciousmetals5488]

@@TheApartmentBrewer That makes sense. So you think pressure fermentation is only appropriate for making lager-like beers at room temperature? My understanding is that the ester production is suppressed by pressure but not eliminated. I'm curious if suppression of good esters can be overcome by elevating temperature, but without producing fusel alcohol or other undesirable flavors that high temp will produce at atmospheric pressure. The advantage of this would be faster grain to glass. Maybe an off base idea from a dilettante to pressure fermentation. Anyway, thanks again for the content.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I love using pressure fermentation for lagers and other squeaky clean beers. Theres no doubt that it helps a lot in that regard as well as in preserving aromatics if applied after a dry hop. My opinion though is if you're doing an ale and want a higher fermentation temperature and/or a fast fermentation, the best choice is just to use kveik. There are so many different strains available nowadays that fit most beer styles.

[@ksmith9887]

respect the grind.

[@jakubkubinsky8627]

Hey, great video, really detailed. I want to ask, how do you prevent aroma disappearance during fermentation. Is that a common thing that even after a decent ammount of aroma hops in flameout and whirlpool the beer is totally without any aroma after the fermentation is finished? I wanted to brew something light on the nose with big late additions and no dryhop but the beer was just flat. I had to dryhop just to give it a little bit of hop aroma. I brew in brewzilla and ferment in buckets. Thank you for any advice.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Yep, can be pretty common! With flameout or whirlpool additions, you'll want to close off your kettle and cool it down as fast as possible to keep the aroma, otherwise the hop oils can evaporate. Also if you're dry hopping before fermentation is completely finished often times you'll offgas those hop aromas as well with the CO2 being pushed out the fermenter. That's often why NEIPAs have two or more dry hopping stages or are fermented under pressure (which prevents the aroma from escaping the fermenter). Basically if at any point during the process you can smell lovely hop smells you're losing that aroma in the final beer. Hope that helps! Thanks for watching the video!

[@jdmlong]

Do you use your city water report or have you had your tap water tested? I need to have my well water tested for brewing, the regular environmental / safety checks (the ones our filter guy got anyway; well water is bizarrely unregulated, there's just like, state-level guidelines) don't include some important markers for sulfate to chloride ratio.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Before I started using distilled water to build custom water from I would look up my city's water report. But if you want to get your well water tested I believe ward labs is the place to send it to

[@jdmlong]

@@TheApartmentBrewer oh yeah, distilled water, you only say that in every video

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

No worries!

[@chmyr]

Great video as always!

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it!

[@Heyght]

Hello! Could you explain what would be considered a DANK flavor? Sounds really funny

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Kind of a damp, vegetal flavor. Kind of like the aroma of someone smoking weed

[@Heyght]

@TheApartmentBrewer Thanks Dude! Never had weed, but I think I got it! You're awesome!

[@degree231]

What size is that keezer and how many kegs can you fit in it? I am looking to upgrade my current keg dispensing situation

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

I think its a 7.1 cubic ft freezer and it'll fit for kegs comfortably. You probably could fit a fifth if you really carefully fit everything in, but I haven't tried

[@degree231]

@@TheApartmentBrewer Thanks I bought a 7.0cf freezer today and am picking up tomorrow. 4 taps should be plenty

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Sweet! You're gonna love it

[@ruanmuller3577]

Will you brew this beer again?

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Probably not

[@LucaoVenturini]

Nice one, i'll def will try it. Cheers from Brazil.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching, cheers!

[@MRW3455]

UK brewers started using Target as a cost saving exercise for bittering, especially the larger ones that swallowed up the regional brewers, in the 1970's - 1990's. Most that are left have gone back to traditional hops such as you mentioned, Challenger. Also dry hopping is not really a thing in English beer. I can only think of one well known example over here which is Everard's Tiger. Enjoying the videos, thanks.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching, and for the insights! True the dry hop is a bit out of place but the secondary purpose of the beer was to go hard on the fuggles to see what that would end up like - resulting in a beer that smells like mossy dirt 😂

[@MRW3455]

@@TheApartmentBrewer honestly I prefer Goldings to Fuggles other than in darker Milds and porters. Needs that darker malt flavour for me but keep up the good work I really appreciate the G2G approach especially your detail across the whole process including tasting notes 👍

[@brokentreebrewingco7034]

haha, nice corrections!

[@davidfoxton7905]

First the disclaimer I am English. So sensitive. WTF the thumbnail is IPA with French red white and blu definitely not a white and a little red 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿.

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Haha I love it. I was kinda going for union jack but that's fair

[@brettslater9330]

Colour is very close to Trad I.P.A

[@gregf4083]

Someone get a PH meter for Christmas :)

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

And is very happy!

[@tommanning7337]

👍🏻👍🏻🍺

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Thanks for watching!

[@maxe6538]

Go Army, Beat Navy

[@TheApartmentBrewer]

Hell yeah! Good for another year!