Black Beer, Fire and Steel | Brewday

One of my best friends favorite beer style is black IPA. When he and his girlfriend decided to get married, I know what to do. I already started to research the style and brewed a few test batches exactly for this situation, but now I had to switch gears and go all in. After ten test batches and a good amount of research behind me, I came up with a recipe that was satisfying. I wanted this beer to be dry, hop forward with little to no chocolate and coffee flavor, but with jet black color.

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Shepherd's Ale | Experimental Recipe

I read in forums and social media groups that many people had successful brews with wild hops. I live in an area where wild hops are not a common sight. When one of my friend approached that they have some wild hops in their backyard, I immediately took the opportunity to try them out. This recipe was an ad hoc one, only used spare ingredients that I found at home. The batch size is 15 liters because of the amount of wild hops I could get.

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People of the Rye | Experimental Recipe

I was curious how would rye impact this otherwise refreshing german style. To achieve a noticeable impact, I used both rye malt and flaked rye, with a combined 18.8% of the total grist.

I planned to use Mangrove Jack’s M20 yeast, which has a much higher temperature tolerance. When I started the brewday and checked for the yeast, I was surprised that it was nowhere to be found. This never happened to me, but I guess there's a first time for everything. I quickly checked my fridge to find an alternative strain, and this is when I found WB-06. I always wanted, but never actually used this yeast. With my hands tied, this looked like just the perfect opportunity to finally try it out.

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