Cold IPA - Yet another rundown
(I recognize that there are a lot of rundowns and writeups out there about Cold IPA already, but here is mine. Hopefully adding another perspective or some insights not covered elsewhere.)
The world of craft beer is full of innovators, artists and creative minds constantly experimenting with beer, pushing its limits farther and farther (are there limits anymore?) Particularly in the IPA genre, it being the country's most popular craft beer category, and especially after New England / hazy IPA took the country by storm, brewers are continually trying to discover or invent the next viral sub-genre of IPA.
Is cold IPA it? I don’t think its going to take the country by storm the way that hazy IPA did, but it is definitely an interesting new addition to the category, and much more interesting that other recent twists (I’m looking at you, brut IPA).
First of all, what is it? (Note: I’ve intentionally chosen to omit the style history / origin story from this post. If interested, I’m sure it won't be hard for you to find). Although the name has a crisp, refreshing ring to it, it is a bit technically inaccurate. Cold IPA (India Pale Ale) is actually a lager. It's “cold” because, being a lager and all, it ferments at a colder temperature than an IPA would. But, from another point of view, brewers typically ferment this cold-ipa-thats-actually-a-lager at a warmer temperature than they would typically for a standard lager (more on this later). So, it could more accurately be called a “Warm IPL (India Pale Lager)”. Doesn't sound so refreshing anymore, does it?
So, what's the difference between cold IPA and IPL, you ask. What is an IPL anyway? Before the haze craze of the last few years, IPL emerged as yet another attempt to create a new class of IPA, building off of the classic (what we now call) “west coast” IPA. West coast IPA was notorious for being “hoppy” but more particularly, bitter, dank, piney, and dry. This classic IPA is typically brewed with clean fermenting ale yeast strains, leaving a clean canvas for the hops to shine in the finished beer. In that vein, brewers started using an even cleaner-than-clean-ale yeast selection - lager yeast.
The results and feedback varied. I personally was never blown away by an IPL. And, as a beginning homebrewer, I never had any interest in trying to brew one - seeing as lager yeast takes longer to ferment, and I did not have cold fermenting equipment at the time. I remember trying several commercial examples, but ultimately I pretty much dismissed IPL entirely, and it seems that most other hop heads did as well, because you rarely see any of this style in the market today.
Fast forward to today. After the last 5-8 years of “haze craze”, including many variants (looking at you, milkshake IPA, TIPA, QUIPA, etc.) IPA lovers' taste buds are coming full circle and gravitating towards the classics. More and more breweries are having success bringing back the “old school” west coast IPA to their lineups (at least here on the east coast. On the west coast, maybe they never went anywhere…). Cold IPA represents a modern twist.
“Yea yea yea, get to the point already - what the hell is in it?” Such a pushy reader you are! Cold IPA, similar to IPL, takes another swing at laying a clean foundation for hops to shine. To do that, a cold IPA typically replaces a portion of the grain bill with corn or rice. “You mean that stuff that they put in Bud Light???” Uh, yes sir or ma’am. Although corn and rice are sometimes seen as cheap additives to beer, they certainly have their place in well-made, tasty, crafty brews. By replacing base malt with corn or rice (or even sugar), you can maintain your same abv, but lighten the body, and dry out the beer. This gives your hops a bigger stage to do their thing.
“But what about that part about ‘fermenting lager yeast at warm temperatures’? I thought you were never supposed to do that?” You're not, until now, I guess :-) Brewers have found that by fermenting (certain) lager yeasts at higher temperatures, they are able to still achieve a clean, crisp body associated with lagers, but also drive attenuation resulting in a lower final gravity. This, coupled with the adjuncts used in the grist, make a thinner, drier beer in which the hops can really pack a punch.
Why did it take us so long to get here? If you think about why we’ve loved IPAs - we loved west coast IPAs because they were so damn hoppy, albeit sometimes squintingly bitter. We’ve loved hazy IPAs because they are even more hoppy than the westies, but without the bitterness. That soft, smooth, creamy, fluffy body coupled with the backloaded hop schedule gives hazy IPAs a thick, juicy, fruity profile that can almost never be “too hoppy”. But, to get to that level of a hoppy profile, you have to use boat loads of hops to get past all the wheat and oats and residual sweetness that normally serves as the base for a hazy IPA. (This is part of the basis behind innovations such as cryo hops - before/without cryo, brewers have to use so much hop material to get their desired level of hop flavor, that undesireable grassy, vegetal flavors were starting to creep into their brews.)
Enter cold IPA. Although some (including the inventor) describe it as “wester than west”, the bitterness level is certainly up to you. It can be hoppier without being more bitter - if you so choose. It may be dank and piney…or fruity and tropical if you so choose. Since most brewers are used to leaving out nearly all bitterness in their IPAs nowadays, that is what I chose to do in mine. And without all the hazy base, I was able to pack a more potent hoppy punch, utilizing less hops than I normally would for a hazy. And the result is fantastic.
My first swing at a cold IPA is immediately contending for one of the best IPAs I've ever brewed.
How to brew it.
(Full recipe at the bottom of this page)
Grain
Use pilsner malt as your base instead of standard 2-row base malt.
Go for about 20% adjunct. I used flaked corn here but rice should do as well. I’ve been known to use corn sugar or straight up table sugar in a west coast IPA, which you can do in a pinch, but this can allow a boozy ethanol feeling to creep into the brew.
Hops
You can obviously use whatever you want. I’d like to experiment using strictly west coast style hops (cascade, centennial, columbus, chinook, etc), versus using strictly NEIPA style hops (citra, mosaic, galaxy, etc.)
For this brew I decided to keep it simple, and mix two well known, flavorful hops, one from the west coast tradition and one from the new school - centennial & mosaic
For schedule, again, you can borrow a schedule from a west coast recipe or from a hazy. I went with more of a hazy style. I split my hops evenly into 3 additions - a 10 min boil addition, a 20 min whirlpool, and a 3-5 day dry hop.
Yeast
I can't recommend too much variation here. Use Saflager 34/70 (Weihenstephan strain) or equivalent, and ferment at 65 degrees. This strain yeast does just fine at this temperature, will give you the flavor and appearance you are looking for, and will ferment out as fast as an ale yeast. This is the top end of the temperature range for this yeast. Other lager strains may not perform so well at this temp.
Water
Once again, you can experiment with borrowing a water profile from either a west coast (which will produce a drier, sharper, more bitter beer) or a hazy (which will produce a softer, less bitter, fruitier beer).
I chose the west coast style - 2:1 sulfate to chloride ratio. For hazy style, reverse it.
Tasting Notes
(Full recipe at the bottom of this page)
I am not going to go full BJCP here but the short story is that the beer was bursting with flavor. Everything about the description of the style appears to have come true - the beer came out with a light, clean and crisp body. The aroma jumps from the glass, similar to or even more so than any hazy IPA I’ve ever brewed. The hop flavor was intense, but without too much bitterness or even hop burn. The mosaic hops dominate but the centennial made their presence felt, playing backup in a sense. In this recipe I used mosaic and centennial 50/50, next time I might try altering the ratio towards the centennial, to see if I can get more of a balance between the two (and centennial are cheaper than mosaic! lol)
Future & Next Steps
What does the future hold for cold IPA? Will it be forgotten in a few years, like IPL, black IPA, brut IPA, and milkshake IPA? My guess is, probably. But, I loved mine, and will continue brewing and experimenting with the style.
In the name of clean fermentation profile and pushing attenuation, I wonder if a cold IPA could be brewed to same effectiveness using a yeast like Omega’s Lutra kviek strain. For my lagers, I tend to go for real lager yeast because Lutra can almost come out too clean - seems to be missing some of those intangible, subtle lager yeast flavors. But for cold IPA, since you aren’t necessarily looking for those lager flavors, Lutra may be a good candidate. On paper, it sounds like it could produce the same beer, but in a quarter of the fermentation time.