For two weeks in February, frenzy falls upon the west coast. Sick calls in to work grow exponentially. People’s Twitter accounts are refreshed at alarming rates. Long lines form at bars hours before they open. All of this, to sample the elusive Pliny the Younger. Younger at Heart is inspired by this rare release and brewed as part of the Fountain of Younger project for the National Homebrewers Conference being held this June in Bellevue, WA. I’ve been lucky enough to sample it on a couple of occasions and decided creating a beer inspired by it would be a fun challenge. The hop intensity is the first thing that strikes you followed by a mouth feel that is medium, but not nearly as huge as you’d suspect from a 10.5% ABV beer. The malt is present but clean with little if any toasted or caramel malt qualities. The color is light; incredibly lighter than most standard IPAs. With the arms race of bitterness raging between most west coast IPA’s, the bitterness The Younger exhibits is relatively gentle. The hops show there personality in flavor and aroma with just enough bitterness to balance such a big beer.When approaching the recipe formulation for this beer there are several known factors that can be used. Russian River’s website, as well as their tap board, lists the beer as having a starting gravity of 1.088 and an alcohol percentage of 10.5-10.7% by volume. With these numbers, we can calculate a target attenuation rate of 92%! This is dry beyond even the level most Belgian beers go and is probably the key to making such a big IIPA drinkable. Additionally from various interviews, websites, and magazines we know:
I deviated from the Younger’s hop profile a bit, favoring less pine and trying to get more tropical fruit notes in the aroma. With all of this in mind, I took a shot and used the following recipe. Younger
at Heart Size:
6.6 gal Original
Gravity: 1.088 Fermentables: Hops: 1.5
oz Citra Pellet (13%) - added dry to secondary fermenter for 3 days, pull and
add second DH Misc.: Yeast & Fermentation: |
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