Session NEIPA - Homebrew Recipe

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Session New England IPA Homebrew Recipe

This Session NEIPA recipe was submitted by our fans Luis & Sarah, who live in New York City and also have a YouTube channel of their own. Session beers are perfect for day drinking and hot summer nights because they’re so light and crushable. New England IPAs are known for being juicy and tropical with a super soft mouthfeel, but they can often be a little too boozy. A Session NEIPA is the best of both worlds, making a beer that’s extremely light and flavorful. 

Full Brew Day Video

For the first time on the Clawhammer YouTube channel, we let our fans film a brew day video. Watch the video below to see Sarah & Luis make a Session NEIPA on their balcony in New York City.

Benchmarks

  • Starting Gravity - 1.050
  • Final Gravity - 1.013
  • ABV - 4.86%

Water

Start your brew day with 7 gallons (26.5 liters) of water. This recipe does not call for any water chemistry adjustments.

filling kettle with water

Filling kettle with water

Grains

The grain bill for this recipe is:

Make sure to crush your grain really fine in order to get maximum efficiency

Mash

Heat your 7 gallons of water to 155° F (68.3° C) and recirculate for 1 hour.

mashing in

Mashing in

Hops

Once your mash is complete pull the grain basket and crank the heat up to start a 60 minute boil.

pulling grain basket after mash

Pulling the grain basket

The hop schedule for this beer is as follows:

  • 60 minutes - .25 oz (7.1 grams) of Falconer’s Flight
  • 15 minutes - 1 whirlfloc tablet 
  • 5 minutes - 1.5 oz (42.5 grams) of Falconer’s Flight

Once the 60-minute boil is over, chill your wort down to 170°F (76.7° C) for a whirlpool addition

  • Whirlpool - 2.65 (75.1 grams) of Falconer’s Flight for 45 minutes

whirlpool addition

Whirlpool addition

Yeast and Fermentation

After the 45-minute whirlpool addition, chill your wort down to 70°F (21.1° C), transfer to a fermenter, and pitch one pack of Denny’s Favorite yeast from Wyeast.

pitching yeast

Pitching Yeast

Dry Hops

After 3 days of fermentation dry hop the beer with 

  • 1.6 oz (45.4 grams) of Falconer’s Flight
  • 1 oz (28.3 grams) of Citra

dumping dry hops into fermenter

Putting dry hops into the fermenter

Dry hop for five days before conditioning and bottling or kegging.

In the picture above, Luis is dumping the hops straight into the fermenter and not using any kind of bag. If you do the same, cold crash the beer at 34° F (1.1° C) for about 48 hours to drop all the sediment to the bottom.

Tasting

Luis drinking finished beer

This beer ended with a 4.86% ABV and a soft yellow color making it just right for a session NEIPA. The aroma of the beer was citrusy and tropical and the flavor was slightly sweet and extremely refreshing. Overall, the beer turned out to be a light, easy-drinking NEIPA which is exactly what Luis and Sarah wanted. However, Luis did not that it was slightly more bitter than other NEIPAs he’s had, so if bitterness isn’t your thing you could go easier on your bittering additions.

If you have a recipe that you want to share with us, email it to info@clawhammersupply.com. Please make sure your recipe has been brewed on a Clawhammer system before sending it to us.

If you like this recipe you should check out

Summer Session IPA 

Hazy Session IPA

Portrait of Kyle Brown

Kyle Brown is the owner of Clawhammer Supply, a small scale distillation and brewing equipment company which he founded in 2009. His passion is teaching people about the many uses of distillation equipment as well as how to make beer at home. When he isn't brewing beer or writing about it, you can find him at his local gym or on the running trail.

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2 Comments

  • B
    Comment Author: beazerflea@gmail.com

    Totally Cool vidio dude! Ilove claw hammers site it has helped me alot. as I am an dld schooler when it comes to shining brightly,

  • B
    Comment Author: Ben

    Hello,
    How many gallons should we be at post boil?
    Thanks!