Little Rhody Red (hopburst version)

This beer is one of my favorites and one I proudly call my own creation. And it is the brew I will be tinkering with until it's perfect. This is my second recipe for this beer and while it is very good, I already have some changes in mind for next time. I brewed a slightly different recipe of this up not quite a year ago. At that time, it was the first beer that I designed to taste and not to any particular style. I wanted a hoppy, reddish-brown ale with a little bit of roastiness, a little bit of body, but not a lot of caramel-sweetness. And that's exactly what this is.

I also like this beer because I use some locally-grown Rhode Island hops from Ocean State Hops. They very generously sent me several ounces of free hops to try last year. I still had some whole leaf Cascade left so I decided to use them up for this recipe. I augmented their hops with some from the LHBS.

This time around I decided to try the hopburst method (adding most of the hops in the last 20 minutes) along with mash hopping with the whole leaf Cascade. I also decided to give Simcoe a try for the first time. The end result is a very nice beer, packed with a ton of grapefruity/citrusy flavor and aroma. It's too dark for an IPA (and not dark enough for a Black IPA/CDA) and probably too hoppy for an American Amber, though I am going to enter it into some comps as the latter. I think next time I will brew this without the Simcoe - it's good, but there's this ever so slight flavor in there that I think is the "cattiness" that is often used to describe Simcoe. I could do without that.

Little Rhody Red (hopburst)
Brewed on 11/20/10

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.50 gal
Boil Size: 5.00 gal
Estimated Color: 12.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 55.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 74.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.015
ABV: 6.4%

Grist
7 lbs Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 87.39 %
6.0 oz Wheat Malt, Pale - 4.74 %
4.0 oz Honey Malt - 3.12 %
4.0 oz Munich I - 3.12 %
2.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0L) - 1.62 %

Hops
1.55 oz Cascade [4.00 %] (mash, whole leaf)
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] (20 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo [8.70 %] (20 min)
0.50 oz Amarillo [8.70 %] (10 min)
0.50 oz Cascade [7.40 %] (10 min)
1.00 oz Simcoe [12.30 %] (0 min)
1.00 oz Amarillo [8.70 %] (0 min)
0.50 oz Amarillo [8.70 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)
0.50 oz Cascade [7.40 %] (Dry Hop 7 days)

Yeast
SafAle US-05

Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 153F, Batch Sparge