The New England IPA, also known as NEIPA or Hazy IPA, may just be the most popular beer style of recent years. For good reason, I would argue! NEIPAs offer a delicious alternative to the formerly more popular very bitter IPAs. The New England IPA features a soft mouthfeel with juicy and delectable aroma and flavor. In this article, I’ll show you my super easy hazy New England IPA Extract Recipe!
What is a New England IPA?
According to the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program): A New England IPA (NEIPA) is “an American IPA with intense fruit flavors and aromas, a soft body, and smooth mouthfeel, and often opaque with substantial haze. Less perceived bitterness than traditional IPAs but always massively hop forward. This emphasis on late hopping, especially dry hopping, with hops with tropical fruit qualities lends the specific ‘juicy’ character for which this style is known.”
The style guideline is currently 21B for those that will be brewing for competition or would just like to learn more from the BJCP!
This style is a nice alternative to the popular West Coast style American IPA. Prior to NEIPAs becoming popular, the trend with IPAs seemed to be loading them up with as many bittering hops as you could. Sometimes these beers would almost verge on undrinkable as they were just frankly so bitter!
As the BJCP definition states, a big difference with NEIPAs vs West Coast IPAs is making later hop additions. Instead of lots of early-boil bittering additions, the focus is on very late-boil or dry hop additions. This extracts less alpha acids, and gives you more of the aromatic qualities from the hops.
One of my favorite books about NEIPAs and IPAs of today is The New IPA: Scientific Guide to Hop Aroma and Flavor. Check it out!
How to Brew a Good New England IPA
The goal for a good NEIPA should be hazy appearance, lots of fruity aromas and flavors, with a soft mouthfeel.
When looking at grain, flaked wheat and rolled oats will help you to achieve this soft and almost creamy mouthfeel. These can be added along with your steeping grains or mash if you are doing an all-grain brew.
There is very little fermentable sugar that you will get from the oats, but they will add the mouthfeel you’re desiring in a NEIPA. Another benefit is that while these grains are soaking, it’ll smell like a delicious oatmeal breakfast.
A water profile with high amounts of Calcium Chloride can also help to provide a super soft mouthfeel.
Hop choice and hop schedule make a huge difference between an okay NEIPA and an amazing one.
There are currently more fruity hop choices than ever before, so it can get overwhelming with choices. The hop combination provided in the recipe below is one that I have found works very well- Mosaic, Amarillo, and Citra.
However, hop choice is one of the most fun parts of brewing, so feel free to get very creative with this!
You will likely still want a small bittering addition, but as noted earlier, the focus should be on late additions and dry hopping!
How to Dry Hop
Dry hopping is the act of adding hops to the wort/beer in the fermentor.
Hops can be added in the primary fermentor or secondary fermentor.
You will want to wait until active fermentation has slowed down. The reason for this is many of the hop aromatics that you are desiring in your finished beer can be ‘blown-off’ by the CO2 leaving the beer.
Hops can be added loose or contained in a hop bag. You will get slightly more contact with the beer if hops are added loose, but it will be harder to clean up.
I generally add the hops in a hop bag due to ease of clean-up, and I haven’t noticed a significant difference in flavor/aromas produced.
There is usually no reason to let hops sit in the beer for longer than 5-7 days as most of the flavors and aromatics have been extracted by that time.
Stats:
Volume: 5 gallons (18.9L)
Predicted SRM 6.33
Predicted IBU 60.63
Original Gravity 1.073
Final Gravity 1.016
ABV- 7.39%
Steeping Grain:
2lb (907.2 grams) Flaked Wheat
1lb (453.6 grams) Flaked (Rolled) Oats
2lb (907.2 grams) 2-row
0.5lb (226.8 grams) Carapils
Steeped at 162F (72.2C) for 20 minutes
Extract:
6.6lb (3kg) Golden Light LME (60 min)
1lb (453.6 grams) Golden Light DME (15 min)
0.5lb (226.8 grams) Cane Sugar (15 min)
Hops:
0.25oz (7.1 grams) Mosaic – 60 minutes
0.75oz (21.3 grams) Mosaic- Whirlpool
1oz (28.3 grams) Amarillo- Whirlpool
1oz (28.3 grams) Citra- Whirlpool
1oz (28.3 grams) Mosaic- Dry Hop Day 4
1oz (28.3 grams)z Citra- Dry Hop Day 4
1oz (28.3 grams) Amarillo- Dry Hop Day 4
1oz (28.3 grams) Mosaic- Dry Hop Day 7
1oz (28.3 grams) Citra- Dry Hop Day 7
Water:
Local Flagstaff, AZ Tap Water
1/4 tsp (0.85 grams) CaCl
1/8 tsp (0.5 grams) Gypsum
Yeast:
Imperial Yeast ‘Dry Hop’ A24 – 1 packet
Directions:
Heat 8 quarts (7.6L) of water to 162°F (72.2C). Add brewing salts. Add specialty grain including flaked wheat and rolled oats to water. Steep for 20 minutes. Remove steeping grain. Add water to reach 2.5 gallons (9.5L). Boil for 60 minutes, following the hop and extract schedule.
After the boil, chill the wort to slightly below fermentation temperature, about 64°F (17.8C). Top water off to 5 gallons (18.9L). Aerate the wort and pitch the yeast. Ferment at 68°F (20C) for 2 weeks, then cold crash the beer to 35°F (1.7C). Bottle or keg the beer and carbonate to approximately 2.25 volumes of CO2.
Tips:
Make it a Milkshake IPA!
Milkshake IPAs are super popular. You could easily give this even more of that soft, creamy mouthfeel associated with the milkshake IPA by adding lactose to this recipe!
I would recommend adding the lactose with 5-10 minutes left in your boil.
Lactose is a non-fermentable sugar. This means that your yeast will not be able to consume it to produce alcohol, thus, it will leave resulting thicker mouthfeel.
Brewing Salts
Given that this is an extract recipe, it is not necessary to add the Calcium Chloride and Gypsum. However, I found that these additions did help to get the resulting mouthfeel associated with the New England IPA.
Thank you for stopping by!
If you are interested in how to homebrew with the extract method, please see my post here.
I love the brew in a bag method! If you would like to take the next step into brewing in a bag, please click here!
For a very similar BIAB recipe, click here!
If you would like to see more small batch recipes, please follow this link.