Hoppy Red Ale

A common mantra in the West Coast style of brewing hoppy beers is that crystal malts and hops do no mix well.  Therefore, in theory, a hoppy crystal forward beer like a red or amber ale should not work out.  However, beers like Founder's Red's RyePA (my favorite year round Founder's offering, which unfortunately has been relagated to a seasonal in bottles and year round only in draft due to freshness problems), Green Flash Hop Hed Red, and Maine Beer Company Zoe, haved proved that, when executed, the proper hops can complement the caramal and dark fruit flavors that come from crystal malts quite well. 

Maine Beer Zoe served as my inspiration for this beer.  Drinking it was one of my "wow" beer moments.  I was amazed how the malt character could be so complex with flavors of bread, caramel, figs, raisins, and even a subtle chocolate finish, but not detract from the grapefruit, pine, and fruity characteristics of the hops.  Over the past year or so I had accumulated a few half open grain bags of wheat, crystal 40 and 120, and chocolate malt.  So it seemed fitting to throw all that together and hop it like crazy and brew my interpretation of a hoppy red ale.

Mosaic hops are supposed to be next big hop in the craft brewing world.  They are a descendent of Simcoe and have a subtle grapefruit flavor, but additionally provide melon like notes as well.  I first had them in Great Lakes Alchemy Hour and was blown away.  I knew I had to buy some as soon as possible.  I thought that in a beer that has some fruit flavors imparted by the malt, the not-so-traditional Mosaic would complement that well.  I decided to pair the Mosaic with one of the more traditional hops, Centennial, in order to be sure that this beer does not end up too "out there".  I also threw in some Citra that I had in a half open bag in the dry hop to make the beer a more tropical.  The idea with the hopping was to have a foundation of the expected citrusy American hop character, but throw in some non-traditional flavors of melon and tropical fruit on top of it to play off of the complex malt bill.

A Hoppy Red Ale

Brewed 18 April 2013 by myself.
Batch size: 5 gallons
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.012
SRM: 17.5
IBU: 65

Fermentables
9 lbs. Rahr 2-row
1 lb. Briess Victory Malt
1 lb. Red Wheat Malt
8 oz. Crystal 40
4 oz. Crystal 120
4 oz. Chocolate Malt

Hops
0.50 oz. Warrior (Pellet, 13.7% AA) @ 60 min.
0.70 oz. CTZ (Pellet, 15.2% AA) @ 60 min.
1.00 oz. Centennial (Pellet, 9.2% AA) @ 10 min.
2.00 oz. Mosaic (Pellet, 11.6% AA) @ 0 min.
2.00 oz. Centennial (Pellet, 9.2% AA) @ 0 min.
2.00 oz. Mosaic (Pellet, 11.6% AA Dry hop (1/2 10 days, 1/2 in keg)
1.00 oz. Centennial (Pellet, 9.2% AA) Dry hop (1/2 10 days, 1/2 in keg)
1.00 oz. Citra (Pellet, 13.5% AA) Dry hop (1/2 10 days, 1/2 in keg)

Yeast
WLP007 - 1L starter made 4/16/2013

Misc.
1 tablet Whirlfloc @ 15 min.
1 tsp. yeast nutrient @ 15 min.

Mash
Sacch. rest 151F for 60 min., batch sparge.

Water
Carbon filtered DC tap water with 8g gypsum and 4g CaCl split evenly between the mash and sparge

Notes
Forgot to add the Red Wheat to the mash, so I added it to the batch sparge and let it rest for 30 minutes; didn't seem to cause much of a problem since I hit my expected efficiency.  Planned on using all Warrior hops to bitter but I had two half opened bags of Warrior and Columbus so I just weighed them to see what was left and added each bag.

Collected 6 gallons of 1.055 runnings. Boiled for 60 min to hit an OG of 1.064 (74% efficiency).
Tap water only let it cool to 72F, so I put it in the fridge to bring it down to 65F, after about 5 hours.
Gave it 60 seconds of pure oxygen and pitched the decanted starter, and left it at 63 ambient to ferment.

~12 hours solid fermentation, 12 hours after that it was blowing off!

4/26/2013 - Down to 1.013, raised ambient temp to 65F for fermentation to finish off.

4/28/2013 - Set temp to 50F to get some of the yeast to drop out prior to dry hopping.

4/29/2013 - Added 1 oz. Mosaic, .5 oz each of Centennial and Citra to the fermenter, bagged and weighed.

5/6/2013 - Down to 1.012, cold crashed. Tasty, would have liked a little more Mosaic character.

5/9/2013 - Kegged with the other half of the dry hops.

7/2/2013 - Tasting Notes:

Appearance: Deep mahogany with a cream had that lingers around nicely, providing nice lacing down the glass.  Slight haze from the use of wheat when held up to the light.

Smell: Sweet fruit and caramel with a subtle tropical and melon-like aroma from the Mosaic hops.  Very nice.

Taste: Flavor starts with sweet caramel malt and slight roast then leads into grapefruit, melon, and a little bit of tropical or stone fruit, maybe peach? Then the roast, strong caramel, and bitterness come and the end is a great dry, fruity, bitter finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-thin body, thinner than you would assume for a beer over 7% ABV with this much crystal malt, but I generally like my beers dry and drinkable so this really isn't a flaw in my mind. This makes it nice and refreshing with medium to medium low carbonation, just where I would like it.

Notes: Overall, for a kitchen sink beer, I'm very happy with this. I would say there is a little more roast flavor than I would like and next time I would opt for crystal 80 instead of the crystal 120, but I had to make do with what I had on hand. I really like Mosaic hops with darker malts, if I where to brew another hoppy red or a black IPA in the future, I'd definitely feature Mosaic heavily.