#4: American-style IPA

Recipe: 
Dead Ringer IPA by Northern Brewer (which is totally not the copyrighted Bell's Two Hearted, no sir)

Grains:
1 lb Briess Caramel 40L (hey, I learned what that means this week!)
9 lb Briess Golden Light dry malt extract (because we couldn't find Gold liquid malt extract)

Hops:
5 oz (!!) Centennial (60 min, 20 min, 5 min, and dry hop additions)

Yeast:
Safale US-05

Priming Sugar:
4 oz corn sugar

Batch Size/Yield:
5 gallons/46 12-oz bottles

Original Gravity:
NR (expected was 1.064)

Final Gravity:
1.012

Alcohol Content:
6.83%

Primary Fermentation/Time:
5 gallon plastic fermenting bucket/6 weeks

Secondary Fermentation/Time:
None (we fully intended to, but never had time!)

Conditioning Time:
14 days

Tasting Notes:
Update #1: This beer hasn't even finished fermenting yet, and I can already tell Centennial hops are going to be one of my favorites. The smell alone is much nicer than other hops we've used, and once they were added to the wort, the scent became downright delicious. I keep poking my head in the fermenting closet just to get a whiff...I sincerely hope this beer tastes as good as it smells!

Update #2: I tasted this beer while we were bottling, and it was super sweet and malty. I would say we had stuck fermentation, but the final gravity was spot on. All my research is telling me to relax because the finished product will taste very different after carbonating and conditioning, so...fingers crossed!

Final notes: After conditioning, this beer did not wow us. The same semi-sour aftertaste was present as our other beers, despite the strong hop flavor! When we moved, we actually ended up pouring quite a bit out. We loved the Centennial hops, but it just wasn't enough to save this IPA. But fear not, we have a plan! I've done tons and tons of research, and I've come up with several possible causes of the off flavor.

1) Yeast. Online reviews are mixed for the Safale line, so next time we'll be trying something different.
2) Water. We've just been using tap water, so next time we'll be grabbing gallons of water from the store.
3) Plastic. We have upgraded to a glass fermenting carboy and will be completely ditching the plastic buckets.
4) Heat. Apparently there is such a thing as the "homebrew tang," which sounds exactly like the taster we're noticing. So, we add the ingredients later in the boil, at a lower heat, and stir a lot more.

All in all, we will be trying this recipe again, once we nail down our off flavors!

Next Up:
Honey Weizen repeat