Constructing a Recipe

We often get asked, "How do you all come up with all these recipes?” To be honest, they usually just pop into one of our heads throughout the day! Building the recipe, now that is a different story.

To make a recipe, we work backward. We start with what we want the beer to taste like and then piece together ingredients that we think will work. For example, when we want a Hazy IPA that tastes like peach, guava, mango, and lime, we need to select hops that we’ve handled and take an educated guess at which ones to select. For that hop profile, we would try a combination of Citra, ADHA 218, Motueka, and possibly an assortment of others.

The best way to learn how hops taste, is by simply using that single-hopped IPA/Pale Ale. When homebrewing, we would make a 15-gallon batch of the same recipe, split it into three different fermenters, dry-hop each with a single hop, and then compare the results. Some hops sound like a fantastic idea, but when used by themselves, they can be off-putting.

Take Galaxy for example. Galaxy is known for having unbelievable peach, passionfruit, and other juicy flavors. When used by itself, we’ve found that it has an off-putting mint and resin flavor. But, when Galaxy is paired with a hop like Simcoe or Citra, it produces all those incredible flavors it advertises. Sabro is another example of a hop that struggles independently but is an excellent blending hop. 

If you are a homebrewer or interested in getting into it, don’t be scared to push the boundaries. We do many things here that brewers from the 1990’s-2000’s would call us crazy for. I think all of us are lucky to live during a time with so many great breweries!

As always, Cheers!
Ryan Seiz