'Lockdown' IPA

About

India Pale Ale (or IPA for short) is one of the signatures of the modern craft brewing revolution! Its a subtype of Pale Ale (like we have in our 'Pail' Ale kit) that focuses on hops flavours balanced by a slightly higher alcohol content. This makes IPA a great ‘next step’ in your exploration of beer as it fuses tastes you already know with insights into the possibilities of hops. And it does it in something altogether crisp and refreshing.

Our 'Lockdown' IPA is a wonderful deep orange colour and will brew to around 5.0% to 5.5% ABV depending in how well you mash it

There is a tale that the style originated from british brewers in the 1800s attempting to increase the alcohol of their ales so that they wouldn't spoil on the voyage to be sold in India. The tale goes that brewers then had to increase the hops to disguise the alcohol content. While this is disputed, we still love it as a story to tell over your next round with friends.

The powerful characteristics and refreshing taste of IPA make it great for a hot summer's afternoon and also means it pairs well with spicy food such as curries or mexican dishes.

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What's in the Kit

Short answer: everything you need for your beer that you don't already have in your kitchen. For the items you need from your kitchen, check the top of the recipe page.
The rest of this page has the long answer.

Specific to 'Lockdown' IPA

Light Caramel Malt

Our IPA uses the same light caramel malt as our 'Pail' Ale to ensure a nice satisfying white foam at the top of every glass. We then double down on the flavour and mouthfeel by combining it with another caramel malt from German malting house Weyermann.

The light caramel malt is pictured on the right next to the other caramel malt.

Caramel Malt

The second drum-roasted caramel malt in our IPA is also made from quality spring 2-row barley. It contributes a gentle malty sweetness that accentuates the bitterness of the hops in our recipe. It also provides some body to finished beer and brings subtle notes of caramel, honey and biscuit.

The defining characteristic of this malt though, is that it gives our 'Lockdown' IPA its distinctive deep orange. Just looking at it, you know that this beer is something distinct from the rest of the amber-coloured beverages in your fridge. When not in our IPA, this malt is typically used to make Red Ales well red.

This malt is pictured on the left next to the light caramel malt

All our grain is freshly milled just before shipping to help you make the best beer possible. Your Speciality Malt will be delivered already mixed in with your Pale Malt and Flaked Corn

American 'Citra' Hops (Green Dot)

Released in 2008, Citra took the craft brewing world by storm in a way not matched by many other hops. As a result, if you're in to craft beer, you may just recognise its intense citrus profile from other IPAs and hoppy beers you've tried elsewhere. It has a rich flavor profile of grapefruit, lime and tropical fruits.

Citra is a 'dual use' hop as it can be used for both bitering and aroma making it ideal if you want to experiment with the hop timings of your batch.

Be sure to give it smell when your kit arrives - its distinctive. You can identify our citra by the green dot on the bag

South African Hops (Yellow Dot)

Our 'Lockdown' IPA also makes use of the the same familiar local hops as our 'Pail' Ale. Its clean, smooth bitterness with subtle hints of red berry, citrus and wood combine well with the citrus-dominant flavours of the the other two hops in the kit,

This hops is packaged with a yellow dot on the bag

American 'Cascade' Hops (Orange Dot)

We love to pair Cascade with Citra. Cascade imparts a wonderful citrus flavour that is slightly spicier than those in Citra. Its also a popular 'dual use' hop which allows you to create your ideal mix if aroma to bitterness if you're interested in experimenting with hop timings.

Unlike Citra, which is the new kid on the block, this other imported American hop has been a staple of brewing for almost 50 years. Similar to Citra, Cascade is popular. It currently makes up 10% of all hops grown in the USA

Our cascade is packaged in a bag with an orange dot.

Flaked Corn

Flaked corn is included in our recipe as an Adjunct Grain. It makes up a similar weight to the Speciality Malt to further give your beer a full body and mouth feel. "But corn in my beer?" we hear you ask. Next time you are in the store, you'd be surprised how many commercial beers include 'maize' on their list of ingredients. This adjunct grain is commonly used in Ales as well as American Lagers

Your Flaked corn will arrive pre-milled and mixed in with your Pale and Speciality Malt

In All Kits

All of our 4L Kits contain the following items

Pale Malt

Pale malted barley makes up the majority of most Craft Beers. Our Pale Malt is locally grown and malted by South Africa's very own SAB Maltings. Malting is the a process whereby raw barley is prepared for beer making by starting its germination process to break down proteins and foster enzymes. These enzymes will help convert starches into fermentable sugars that will ultimately put the alcohol in your beer.

This choice of Pale Malt wil give you a beer that you're already very familiar with. All our grain is freshly milled just before shipping to help you make the best beer possible

Brewer's Yeast

Our kits contain a specially engineered brewing yeast that is guaranteed to make a far better beer than that baker's stuff you get at the supermarket.
In more technical terms, our choice of yeast has a high 'attenuation'. This means that it's able to covert most of the sugars into alcohol giving you that 'dry' taste you expect from beer. It has a low 'ester production', so it doesnt make those weird banana/bubblegum flavours. It also has good flocculation, which means that it doesnt remain suspended in your beer after fermentation thus giving you a clearer beer.

Priming Sugar

No one wants to drink flat beer. We include a carefully measured amount of dextrose priming sugar to add to your beer just before bottling. This additional priming sugar with continue to ferment in the sealed bottles for a couple of days, releasing CO2 and naturally self-carbonating your beer without making an explosive mess on your ceiling :)

Dextrose is chosen as it is highly 'bio-available' resulting in fast natural carbonation without altering the taste of your beer

No-rinse Sanitizer

The most important part of making your own beer is keeping out any microbes or wild yeast. This ensures that all of the fermentable sugars are consumed by your brewers yeast and not something else that will produce 'off flavours'. As long as you keep everything sterile, you'll make good beer.

To help with this, we include a 50ml sachet of a concentrated, SABS Approved, no-rinse sanitizer that is specially formulated for the food industry to not leave a residue once it dries. This is the 'purple' sachet pictured to the right. If you still have an older kit with a bottle of clear sanitizer, see the [Show More] block below.

You will need sanitizer on both Brew Day and Bottling Day. The new sachets of sanitizer are very stable, so either you can mix half the concentrate on either day (storing the open sachet in a sealed container in between) or you can even mix the full amount and store the diluted mixture to use both days. We recommend the first option. The 50ml sachet should be diluted with 10L to 20L of water (10L as described on the packaging, is for 'soiled surfaces', so given that everything is already clean when your are brewing, you can mix up to 20L is it is easier for you)

Beeswax

During the mashing step of brewing, you need to achieve very specific temperatures in order to facilitate the enzymes in the malt converting starch into fermentable sugars.

Our kit leverages an ancient brewing technique that relies on the fact that beeswax melts around this perfect temperature. We thus include a couple of beeswax pellets to help you hit the right temperature. Of course if you have access to a good thermometer you can use that too - albeit with less 'craft'. You also have twice as many pellets as you need, in case you mess up.

Tube (Airlock and Siphon)

We include a length of tube in the kit that fulfills two purposes.

For the first case, fermentation produces a lot of CO2 (Carbon Dioxide) gas. You want to let this CO2 out of the fermentor while not letting any oxygen in. Yeast needs to respire anaerobically (i.e. without oxygen) to produce alcohol. Our solution is to insert the one end of the tube into the hole in the top of the fermentor and put the other end in a glass of water to create a one-way airlock

In the second case, you want to gently transfer your beer into your bottles without introducing air into it. This is needed in order to keep your beer fresh. You can use this same tube to siphon the beer out of fermentor without creating any bubbles

5L Fermentor

This is the bucket for your grain!

Our kit is shipped in a 5 litre food-safe bucket that can be used to ferment your beer. It has a hole in the lid to insert your airlock

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