Brewing Eclectic IPA: Pushing the Boundaries of India Pale Ale

by Dick Cantwell

As a diverse but distinctive style, IPA bestrides the craft beer world like a colossus. As author Dick Cantwell says, “We are living in the heyday of IPA.” While hops remain front and center in the myriad examples of IPA available to beer drinkers today, the style is also now subject to vast experimentation and “dressing-up,” producing fruity, herbal, black, Belgian-y, and juicy versions of this perennial favorite. Brewers are pushing the boundaries of IPA by using flavors from cocoa, coffee, tea, fruits, vegetables, spices, herbs, chilis, and wood. Before describing how this multitude of ingredients can best be applied to crafting unique, eclectic, and tasty IPAs, Cantwell gives a potted history of IPA, acknowledging some of the fanciful notions the story often includes. When he arrives at craft brewing today, Cantwell opens up whole new vistas where experimentation can happen, involving spices and herbs of all kinds, fruits from every corner of the globe, vegetables familiar and not-so-familiar, coffee and chocolate, teas and botanicals. Along the way, he describes his thoughts behind his approach and how to treat these ingredients with free license while still being conscious that the aim is to produce something delicious that people will want to drink again. Brewing Eclectic IPA will inspire professional and homebrewers alike to explore the creative ways in which these ingredients can be used in brewing highly hopped beers. Try your own version using any of the 25 recipes for contemporary IPAs that the book contains, designed by some of America's top brewers.

Genres: Beer

182 pages, Paperback

Published May 31, 2018

Reviews

[Geoff Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick, easy read containing useful information mixed with a generous amount of editorializing. Section I discusses history and is largely review of material covered in detail elsewhere. Section II gets into ingredients: water, malt, hops, and yeast, of course, but also fruits, vegetables, herbs, spices, coffee, chocolate, wood, and bacteria.

This latter section includes recipes and tables to help guide brewers in their usage of ingredients. There are about two dozen recipes, maybe four or five of which I'll attempt to make as presented. Others I will modify according to taste (and possibly as something other than IPAs). Still others don't interest me at all beyond the academic sense.

The tables are the real gem here, suggesting how and when to add a wide variety of ingredients and what other ingredients to combine them with. It's a good complement to and extension of what Mosher presents in Radical Brewing.

An appendix presents flavor compounds (terpenes, esters, thiols, thioesters, lactones, aldehydes) and the foods that contain them. This could prove useful in creating fun combinations, e.g., matching basil and blueberry with Ahtanum or Perle hops to create a linalool bomb, or using the former to balance a hop variety low in linalool.

Between the recipes, ingredient tables, and flavor compound appendix, there is plenty of room for the inquisitive mind to wander. And if one ever tires of the endless permutations possible from perusing this material (unlikely) or just wants to dive further down the rabbit hole (likely), there is also a modest bibliography for that purpose.

[Literary Redhead · Rating 5 out of 5]

BREWING ECLECTIC IPA teaches do-it-yourself brewers how to adopt fresh new flavors being used now in craft beer’s top style, India Pale Ale. Dick Cantwell, one of the most talented brewers anywhere, shares his expertise in adding these creative twists to highly-hopped beers. Twenty-five recipes for delicious brews are included, featuring such ingredients as coffee, herbs and spices, fruits and veggies, cocoa nibs, and wood. Highly recommended for the new and experienced brewer wishing to expand IPA style. 5/5

Thanks to Brewers Publications and NetGalley for the review copy. Opinions are fully mine.

#EclecticIpa #NetGalley

[Dan Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does what it promises - Mr. Cantwell provides plenty of information, instruction and inspiration to monkey with your homebrew IPAs. His advice is thorough and non-prescriptive. Through helpful lists of potential ingredients, he gives you a hint of what to expect IF you employ a particular fruit, spice, herb, vegetable, tea, coffee, etc. in your brew but does not tell NOT to use any of them. Horseradish? Mace? Dill? This book may be most helpful of all to those maniacs who are thinking of tossing cardamom in their IPA without thinking through the consequences.

Mr. Cantwell's book is more of a conversation than you would expect. Rather, it is like a conversation about 3 beers in with an effusive friend who talks too much, and goes down conversational paths that are completely unnecessary but fun enough unless you're in a mood. If his editor had paid any attention whatsoever, the book would have been a longish pamphlet, but, instead, we are treated to this sort of thing (I swear I opened the book to a random text section and started copying what turned out to be his thoughts about sourcing ingredients, and he happens to lapse into a revery that is mostly focused on the concerns of professional brewers): "Well once more the world has changed. And yet, it's still about relationships. Without address books, even the Rolodex, has gone the way of the pteradon, not to have some kind of comprehensive list of contacts for the sourcing of specialty ingredients is to pretty much takes one's self out of the game where the crafting of new and innovative beers is concerned. The upside is that these days there are people out there, and the specialty companies they they work for, ready to do their best to get you what you need in whatever form you need it. And once you make their list as somebody habitually enquiring about the new and unusual, they're also likely to tip you off once something interesting creeps into the market. Larger craft breweries have people, even sometimes whole departments, dedicated to the acquisition of specialty ingredients, often writing contracts to ensure ongoing availability and specific source parameters. The brewers at such pioneering stalwarts as Anchor and Sierra Nevada didn't spend a minute during their early days sourcing such esoterica, but I assure you they do today. Good luck with all that Brazilian stuff, by the way."

Speaking only for myself, I am a willing verbal wanderer, so I'm happy to ride shotgun on his meandering path, but if you have a literary Reinheitsgebot law, this guy is going to drive you fucking nuts. But you will still be glad to have the book for its advice and thoughtful lists.

[Appleton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Considering the author, and that it was published by Brewers Publications I had high hopes that this would be an insightful and helpful book.

Unfortunately, this book has no new ideas and offers very little beyond what could already be found in the literature with regard to IPA. While it may be helpful to someone just beginning their career, or just starting out homebrewing there are many better resources and places to draw inspiration from. It is a far cry from "Pushing the Boundaries of India Pale Ale."

[Andreas · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book did almost nothing for me. I guess the recipes are kind of nice. However, the intended inspiration its suppose to give is very weak and if you think you gonna learn some techniques about brewing with special ingredients, forget it.

[Warren · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the book is written for homebrewers, intended to assist in the exploration and experimentation of the style, it should also appeal to beer nerds looking to geek out.

[Jennifer]

Ummmm, I have more interesting recipes.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of brewing IPA's, and good discussions on where the style is going and some ideas on where you can push your own recipes.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

#EclecticIpa #NetGalley

A fantastic brewing book. The book contains historical facts, recipes and techniques to create an infinity number of IPA blends.

[Nathan Keffer]

Not a great primer on IPAs or how to make them but some interesting ideas especially if your just starting out brewing