Black IPA Recipe – Brewing A Classic Black IPA

One beer that seems to wax and wane in popularity is the Black IPA. Getting the balance of colour, flavour and hop aroma is a fine art and I think this black IPA recipe gets that balance right. A few key ingredients are necessary but try this recipe and you’ll be able to make your own black IPA even if it becomes so unpopular breweries stop making it.

When I first started home brewing black IPA was really popular, I even brewed a Black IPA commercially for a while when I was a professional brewer.

The difference between a black IPA and something like a hoppy porter is the roastiness imparted from the malt. Whereas a porter or stout uses plenty of roasted malt and grains we want to avoid the roasted, bitter quality when brewing a black IPA.

Adding Colour Without Roasted Flavour

To impart enough colour to make a black IPA we need to use highly roasted malts but most of these grains will introduce the kind of flavours you would find in a beer like a porter or stout. 

Fortunately, there are a few caramel malts that have the colour we need but impart less roasted quality. 

Carafa Special Type 3

Carafa Special III is the most notable of these. Carafa Special III is a crystal/caramel malt that has been de-husked before being kilned and this removes a lot of the bitterness associated with highly kilned malts. 

In other words, Carafa Special Type 3 is a malt that provides a lot of colour with a smooth, mild flavour. 

Using this in an IPA gives us a lot of the colour we want but doesn’t produce bold malt flavours that would otherwise compete with the hops we are going to use.

Sinamar Malt Extract

Many commercial breweries now use a malt extract produced by Weyermann. Sinamar is a malt extract that is filtered and made solely from Carafa Special roasted malt. 

There are no fermentable in Sinamar and it really just provides colour, this is why it has proved so popular with commercial brewers when making black IPA.I haven’t included this in the recipe below because it can be difficult for the home brewer to obtain.

Hops For A Black IPA

I like classic West Coast IPA-style hops in my black IPA. Pine, citrus and resinous varieties all seem to do well against the maltier base that a black IPA has.

I have tried to keep the hops simple with just one bittering addition at the start of the boil and then 3 additions at the end of the boil to steep or whirlpool for 20 minutes.

I have used Amarillo, Simcoe and Cascade as aroma hops and dry hopped moderately to get these to show through. You can always substitute these with your favourite varieties but keep in mind that you will want assertive bitterness to really get the idea that this is an IPA rather than a hoppy dark beer.