Black Rye West Coast IPA

• Post By: Scott
• Date: 04.15.2012
• Category: Recipes

My Black Rye IPA is finally on tap, and tasting delicious. I had talked about the recipe here, and I found out shortly after I brewed this, that Firestone Walker is brewing nearly the same damn beer. Now I’ll be honest, I had heard they were brewing a Black Rye IPA, but I had no idea our recipes would be so flipping close. Their beer is a little bigger (8.5% ABV), looks to be a little less dark, and uses a slightly different malt bill, but it still looks remarkably similar.

I haven’t had any Wookey Jack yet, but now I’m extremely excited to see how close these two beers are. They’re using some midnight wheat in addition to Carafa III, and Firestone Walker uses an English yeast for their beers, but other than that, I have a feeling these will be extremely close.

The brew day for this beer went rather smooth. I had a third set of hands during this brew day, as our friend Liam was hanging out while Greg and I brewed this. We mashed for sixty minutes, boiled for ninety, and whirlpooled for ten before we chilled the wort. This fermented out in around six days, I racked to secondary after twelve, dry hopped, then kegged and force carbed it.

Brewed: 03-18-12
Secondary/dry hopped: 03-30-12
Kegged: 04-09-12
OG:1.074
FG:1.015
ABV: 7.7%
IBU: ~70
6 gallons


12lbs 2-row
2lbs 10oz Rye
14oz Crystal 60
14oz Carafa Special III
Mash @ 151*
1.5oz Warrior (17% AA) @ 90
2oz Amarillo/Citra @ 15
3oz Amarillo/Citra @ 0
Dry Hop – 4oz Amarillo/Citra
Safale US-05 – Fermented at 62*F

This beer turned out jet-black with a light beige head, that holds rather well. Aroma is mostly citrus from the hops, with some apricot/peach in there. A little bit of rye comes through too.

The flavor is citrusy hops, spiciness from the rye, and a little bit of a smooth chocolate character. It all melds really well. The mouth feel is medium-full. I’m very happy with how this turned out. I think the one big difference between my beer and Wookey Jack is that I used a fair amount of Crystal malt, where the Wookey Jack does not. We’ll see when I finally get to try some Wookey.

This beer is definitely a repeat brew. The only change I would make would be a little more rye, probably closer to 20% of the grist. Other than that, it’s an excellent beer.