Because the journey is more important than its destination, each year we finish with a beer that champions our discovery of hop things in the inevitable Pursuit of Happiness. Four things we learned in 2025; Mash hopping drives biotransformation, Simcoe is the perfect Red IPA hop, more hops at more times is more and Riwaka Amplifier from Clayton Hops is a powerful ally.
2025 saw us return to our favourite IPA style: Red. Mucking about with terpenes, thiols and esters is all well and good, but the confluence of rich malts with rich hops is what floats our boats. This year we focused on hopping all over the gaff, from mash in to first wort, coolpools, day 0, high krausen, chill back and cold DH. The results were clear: adding more hops at more times points gives richer hop experience. Intuitive, for sure, but you never never know if you never never jam them in everywhere. Some hoppings didn’t work for the Reds, in our opinion. Day 0, late ferment and too much in high krausen were all either just not impactful or too astringent. Overall, the strategy for hopping Red IPAs is congruent with the malt bill, just add more!Â
2025 saw us return to our favourite IPA style: Red. Mucking about with terpenes, thiols and esters is all well and good, but the confluence of rich malts with rich hops is what floats our boats. This year we focused on hopping all over the gaff, from mash in to first wort, coolpools, day 0, high krausen, chill back and cold DH. The results were clear: adding more hops at more times points gives richer hop experience. Intuitive, for sure, but you never never know if you never never jam them in everywhere. Some hoppings didn’t work for the Reds, in our opinion. Day 0, late ferment and too much in high krausen were all either just not impactful or too astringent. Overall, the strategy for hopping Red IPAs is congruent with the malt bill, just add more!Â
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