Ben Edmunds

Yeah, dry, thin, bitter is a real problem in a lot of West Coast IPA. It's definitely, and so is dry-thin flabby. So if you don't have the bitterness, that might be even worse, honestly. But it is tricky because as you use these very, very, very pale Pilsner malts, it's easy to end up with a beer that's too wispy and that doesn't have enough body. So going to things like flaked wheat or low-color malted wheat, which were in the recipe that we used yesterday, are ways to build that back in without doing like a Carafoam or a Dextrin malt that I think increases your risk of extended hop creep and prolonged hop creep and a potential diastyl spike after the beer has been crashed. We're finished. Another thing that I would make a pitch for is kind of the unusual use or use of unusual Pilsner malts for building body in West Coast IPA. The Pilsmalt discourse to me always struck me a little bit odd because at least with our experience using European Pilsner malts, like if we add that to an IPA, I feel like that adds body. It doesn't make the beer lighter. It actually makes it like maybe it can color nominally lighter, but it like actually is more of a bodybuilder, that doughiness that if you get from like a Weyerman pills or something like that, I think it stands out. But that is a way to build some body back in. So we've been using things like Bow Pills in our session IPA, for example, in addition to two row to try and kind of create some balance and malt structure without leaning on a more high-colored malt.