NEIPA A Perfect Beer To Experiment With – New England IPA Recipe
NEIPA or New England IPA, a tropical fruit laden, murky and silky smooth beer style has captured the hearts and minds of craft beer devotees for quite a while now. It is now gaining attention outside of this niche with coverage in the national press. NEIPA, however, is still very much a beer style in its infancy and one that is still evolving. It is the perfect candidate for home brewers to brew in small batches exactly for this reason.
If you like clarity in your beers then NEIPA is definitely a no go, producing a good NEIPA involves intentionally boosting the haze or murkiness of the beer. I have seen the term “it looks like orange juice” used to describe the clarity of a NEIPA in a good way.
I know some consumers, especially in the part of the UK where I live (Cornwall) who would absolutely refuse to drink a beer that was murky some who would return the beer to the bar even at the slightest hint of haze.
Table of Contents
The IPA Haze Craze
I am not in the slightest bit concerned about the looks of a beer. I love that we are still seeing radically different beer styles emerging. I have always been of the opinion that taste is the first and foremost criteria when judging whether a beer is any good or not. As a home brewer it doesn’t really matter what is available locally because should I wish to try a new style of beer, all I have to do is find a recipe or find out what ingredients are typically used for a beer and then make it myself.
We like NEIPAs so much we have a small batch all grain beer kit in the shop that we have been working on for a little while.
The great thing about new beer styles like NEIPA’s is that even commercial breweries are still experimenting with ingredients, hop combinations and techniques so as a home brewer with no limits or commercial concerns you can really push the boat out.
New England IPA Essentials
The profile of NEIPA is hop driven, not just any hops though, typically hops with a heavy tropical fruit aroma. The beer is often described as juicy which unfortunately doesn’t really describe the flavour but I think it relates to the flavour of overly ripe tropical and stone fruit. The flavour is mango, pineapple, passionfruit heavy and the level of bitterness restrained to give the impression of a “juicy” beer.
Hops are predominately new varieties and even experimental varieties of hops that don’t even have names yet. Citra, Galaxy, Mosaic and Azacca are all likely candidates. These hop varieties all have the character we are looking for and new experimental varieties are emerging that are ripe for trying out.
Excessive dry hopping with these kinds of hops is necessary to get maximum aroma into the beer as is normal with most IPA but the differences to say a west coast IPA comes to the bittering additions. The bitterness in NEIPAs is lower sometimes dramatically lower. The idea behind this is to fill the beer with huge amounts of aroma with a smooth flavour and fuller body to enhance the “juicy” character of the beer.
The malt for a NEIPA fades into the background, it’s supposed to be neutral. Predominantly pale malts or extra pale malts are used. Caramel malts are used in a very restrained manner if at all, often light special malts like Carapils are used.
Unmalted Grains
The key part of the grain bill is the unmalted grains, these along with the huge amount of dry hops are what causes the turbidity in the beer. Flaked wheat and oats are added in the grist in fairly large percentages which introduce starches and protein that boost the haze and create a smooth and full body in the beer.
Yeast strains are varied for the style both English and US ale yeasts are used and can range from neutral to fruity strains that produce more esters. A couple of choices are Vermont Ale yeasts, White Labs WLP095 Burlington or Wyeast 1318 London III if you want something specific you could always just use Safale US-05 for a neutral yeast profile should you wish.
New England IPA Recipe
NEIPA - American IPA
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Batch Size: 18.5 L
Boil Size: 23 L
Boil Time: 60.000 min
Efficiency: 70%
OG: 1.061
FG: 1.014
ABV: 6.0%
Bitterness: 44.9 IBUs (Tinseth)
Color: 10 SRM (Morey)
Fermentables
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Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
Pale Malt (2 Row) UK Grain 5.000 kg Yes No 78% 6 L
Oats, Malted Grain 700.000 g Yes No 80% 2 L
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L Grain 350.000 g Yes No 75% 20 L
Wheat, Torrified Grain 276.165 g Yes No 79% 3 L
Total grain: 6.326 kg
Hops
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Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
Columbus (Tomahawk) 14.0% 32.000 g Boil 60.000 min Pellet 44.9
Citra 12.0% 65.000 g Aroma 0.000 s Leaf 0.0
Chinook 13.0% 40.000 g Aroma 0.000 s Leaf 0.0
Mosaic (HBC 369) 12.2% 65.000 g Dry Hop 5.000 day Pellet 0.0
Chinook 13.0% 40.000 g Dry Hop 5.000 day Pellet 0.0
Yeast
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Name Type Form Amount Stage
Safale American Ale Dry 50.275 mL Primary
Mash
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Name Type Amount Temp Target Time
Mash In Infusion 15.000 L 75.227 C 65.000 C 60.000 min
Final Batch Sparge Infusion 15.000 L 85.879 C 75.000 C 15.000 min
this recipe is all wrong unless you’re trying to produce a west coast style IPA, which is exactly what the photo looks like.
ditch the crystal malt, bump the wheat and oats up to 20-30% of the grain bill, at least halve if not ditch the bittering addition, double the dry hop (and replace the chinook with something fruitier) and use an english yeast. that’ll get you way closer to a NEIPA than this recipe will.
Sounds like good advice Karl and I’ll give it a go as have been thinking to try a NEIPA next. Can you signpost to detailed recipes that you think are particularly good examples of the style? Wondering too about the water – Does that need to be tweaked to get best results? Cheers.
Totally agree with Karl on all points. Ditch any crystal malt and add hops late to allow you to use a lot of hops but keep total IBUs between 30-55. The calculations here are also flawed becasue hopstand/whirlpool additions will definetly add IBUs and becasue these additions will be large they will add most of your IBUs if you are doing this right. This was complex enough I actually spoke to a rep with brewers friend. In short, hopstand additions will be about 1/3 of what you would expect from boil additions, but it adds up. I use extra pale, about 15% flaked oates, 5% carapils, and about 10% munich light (10L) for an awsome malt base and you cannot miss with citra and mosiac but Equinot also good.