Huge IPAs. Session IPAs. Now, fruited IPAs seem to be the next trend in that beer style.
Here are just a few popular examples:
- Odell Brewing Company: Tree Shaker Imperial Peach IPA
- Troegs Brewing Company: Triple Mango IPA
- Stone Brewing Company: Enjoy By Tangerine
- Ballast Point: Mango Even Keel
And why not? They are quite tasty!
In this blog post, we’ll discuss a juicy, fruited IPA recipe brewed in the NE style. And brewed with peaches and apricots.
Cincinnati Beer Week Collaboration
The following beer was a collaboration between Mt. Carmel Brewing Company (where I am a brewer) and three other breweries (here's the beer on Untappd). The beer was brewed for Cincinnati beer week, where 20 brewers were broken into teams of four. The teams competed in an NFL Draft-style game where style, specialty grain, local ingredient, and hops were chosen from a list. Our team picked:
- IPA,
- Oats,
- Fruit, and
- Pacific Northwest hops
Our team’s recipe? A fruited IPA in the NE style: unfiltered and hazy.
We opted for a large oat bill (15%) and used The Alchemist’s Heady Topper yeast to provider the juicy, stone fruit esters. Then, to just make it totally nuts, we did a double dry hop and fruited with apricot and peach purée.
Fruit IPA Recipe
Stats
O.G: 1.062
F.G: 1.013
Abv: 6.3%
Efficiency: 75%
IBU: 45.7
Grain Bill
85% pale ale malt
15% flaked oats
Hops
0.2 oz Warrior @ 60 min
0.75 oz Centennial @ 15 mi
0.75 oz Citra @ 5 min
0.4 oz Centennial @ 5 min
1st dry hop (near end of fermentation) 3 days
.5oz centennial
1oz Citra
2nd dry hop (secondary) 5 days
2oz El Dorado
Fruit
Apricot purée to taste
Peach purée taste
On the Pro side, we did a 4:2 combo to taste which came out to 168 pounds of apricot puree, and 84 pounds of Peach Puree.
Yeast
Omega yeast DIPA ale (OYL-052)
Process
- Achieve rest temp of 150F and hold for 60 minutes or until conversion.
- Boil 60 minutes
- Chill to 68F and pitch yeast. Ferment at 68F.
- After two days, allow beer to free rise until the end of fermentation.
- Add first dry hop at last .004 points of fermentation and ride for three days.
- Transfer beer to secondary and apply 2nd dry hop for 5 days.
- Crash beer and transfer to either keg or bottling bucket.
- Blend fruit to taste.
Tasting Notes
Aroma: Beer is bursting with stone fruit aromatic. The apricot comes through heavily, followed by secondary aromatics of fruity peach esters, citrus, and light floral notes.
Appearance: Very bright, with a gorgeous orange hue, and opaque clarity. Head retention is little.
Flavor: Massive flavors of citrus, stone fruit, and tangerine, finishing with a massive apricot flavor. Hop flavor is high, and bitterness is medium low to low. Yeast flavor is apparent, layering the flavors from the hops and malt with fruity esters leaving a juicy finish.
Mouthfell: Large, creamy mouthfeel from the oats, and puree. Carbonation is medium.
Overall Impression: Hella juicy, hella brite, and hella delicious. By far one of my favorite beers I’ve tried. The apricot puree adds a level of complexity that is impossible from hops and/or yeast. The creamy mouthfeel, and apricot notes on the exhale of every sip keeps making me want to come back for more.
Conclusion
Overall, I was very pleased with how the beer turned out. There are a few things I would change if I were to brew it again. I would try a different yeast, preferably London Ale III. I believe the “DIPA” yeast unfortunately masked some of the hop aroma, and think a different yeast (preferably English) would let them shine more. I would omit the El Dorado hops as they gave very little, to no aroma or flavor. Finally, I would only add a bittering addition, then the remaining hops in
Finally, I would only add a bittering addition, then the remaining hops in whirlpool and dry hop. Due to the size of the system we were brewing on, whirlpool additions would have only given more IBU’s, vs. stripping the hop oils for the aroma and flavor
If you decide to try this beer out, let me know what your results are, and what you think!
Get My #1 Technique for Fixing Off-Flavors in Your Beer
As a beer judges, we see the same off-flavors again and again. So we made this video to show you a 3-step technique that will get rid of those common off-flavors and produce a cleaner tasting beer.
Jason says
November 29, 2016 at 7:02 pmCan you give us an idea of how your 250 lbs of fruit puree scales with the hops in your recipe, which appears to be for 5 gallons? What size system were you brewing on?
Luke Shropshire says
November 30, 2016 at 7:11 amHi Jason!
Unfortunately, I can’t say for sure how much to start with.
We brewed a 30bbl batch of beer and dumped in 42 pounds of purée at a time and tasted the beer to see if we liked it.
I’d recommend dosing. Start with a pint and add a ml at a time. When you get to your desired flavor, scale up the amount of fruit used.
Be sure to taste the purée or fruit product you are using before adding to the beer so you can get a good indicator of its strength.
Nikolas Nikolaou says
October 3, 2017 at 1:33 amBeginner here, how do you make sure the puree doesnt bring disease to the beer?
George Handlin says
January 27, 2017 at 5:15 amThe first paragraph of your conclusion appears to be incomplete – “Finally, I would only add a bittering addition, then the remaining hops in” … can you fill in the blank? 🙂
Thx… sounds like a delicious recipe.
Luke Shropshire says
January 29, 2017 at 10:33 amHey George,
Sorry about that
I would add the bittering hops (warrior) at around 15 min only. The centennial was too harsh. I’ve also come to my own personal conclusion that a late bittering addition adds a softer bitterness, while also extracting flavor and aroma vs 60min
Trevor says
June 3, 2017 at 5:20 amI’m serving this beer at a homebrew festival today. I used 2 lbs of apricots and 1 lb of peaches, added to the secondary after cold crashing. We’ll see how it goes, it certainly gets people’s attention.
Eduardo C. says
July 22, 2017 at 10:38 pmHi Luke,
I will have to try this recipe with your comments sometime soon! I was not clear about the specifics of your fruit additions. I’ve tried it several times adding fruit to beer with unpredictable and disappointing results so I might be using the wrong fruit, or bad technique. From the looks of this recipe, you added the fruit to the finished beer, or did it go to secondary? What if you were to bottle? Today I was thinking if there was a way to treat fruit puree in a way that would reduce or eliminate the fermentability of the sugars (like mashing at a high temperature), but too much heat might ruin the flavors and aromas of some fruits. Any guidance or tips will be greatly appreciated!
Luke Shropshire says
July 23, 2017 at 5:38 amHey Eduardo,
Yes, I did add the fruit post fermentation. If you are to bottle, in order to avoid any bottle bombs, I would reccomened adding the fruit during fermentation. This will allow the yeast to eat all sugar, and make it shelf stable.
Good luck!
Nikolas Nikolaou says
October 3, 2017 at 7:35 amGiven ”I would omit the El Dorado hops” and your comment now saying that you would add the fruit during primary fermentation, would you suggest me performing this recipe with no secondary stage?