The Resistance double IPA

Having gotten a handle on my beer making skills after my last IPA, I wanted to try to make something really big. So began my Double Trouble IPA, The Resistance. I wanted to make a beer that had high alcohol content, but still really bright floral and citrusy hoppy notes. In order to achieve this I tried my first dry hop. For those unfamiliar with the process, dry hopping involves adding hops to the beer after the initial fermentation. It helps to get that fresh hop taste I was looking for.

.5 lb English Crystal 37L

.5 lb English Crystal 17L

6 lbs Pale malt extract

3 lbs Munich malt extract

1 lb Light DME

I did a 1 oz Summit addition at 60 min

1 oz Summit addition at 30

1 oz Summit addition at 20

1 oz Amarillo addition at 0

I let my primary fermentation go about a week, then my second fermentation was around 3 weeks before I started dry hopping. I used 1 oz Simcoe whole hops to dry hop. Whole hops I now know are really hard to dry hop with because both putting them in the carboy and filtering out the pieces is a problem. But live and learn. I let the beer dry hop for about 4 weeks and then finally aged in the bottle for another three weeks.

All and all, I achieved what I was going for in term of hop taste. The beer is very bright and you can really taste the dry hopping. However, I didn't get the vigorous ferment I was hoping for and alcohol content is only around 5-6%. I also feel like it could use a little more malt sweetness to round out and balance the flavor a bit.