Kane Rye Head High

Our last tank was filled with our American-style IPA called Head High. More specifically it’s closer to a west coast style IPA. This style is typically lighter in color and drier in body then a traditional American-style IPA. We used a mix of American two-row and German pilsner for the base malt and added a small amount of light English crystal and Carapils malt for some color and body. We used Columbus and Chinook in the boil, and Ahtanum, Citra and Centennial in both the whirlpool and for dry hopping. The resulting beer is not too bitter but hoppy and aromatic. At 6.5% ABV it’s manageable enough that you can have a few pints. We did a lot of pilot batches for this beer. The reason is that we were unable to get our hands on a couple of the hop varieties that we’ve been using in our IPAs for years—specifically Simcoe and Amarillo. So we had to tweak the IPA recipe we planned to use and began playing with different hop varieties and combinations. We are really happy with the combination we came up with and think this is a better beer than the original.