Homebrew in Focus Andy Parker from Elusive Brewing looks at how homebrewing influenced the creation of his best-seller, Oregon Trail

Way out West

Elusive Brewing’s Andy Parker ponders how his first foray into homebrewing eventually led to the creation of Elusive’s flagship beer, Oregon Trail…

Elusive Brewing Oregon Trail

Specification

Original Gravity 1.052 Final Gravity 1.008 ABV 5.8% IBU 60

Grain Bill

4.4Kg (91.3%) Simpsons Low Colour Maris Otter 300g (6.2%) Simpsons Rye Malt 120g (2.5%) Simpsons Crystal T50

Hops

25g Magnum (14.5%) - added during boil, boiled 60 m 12.5g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 15 m 20g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil, boiled 5 m 20g Chinook (13.0%) - added during boil at flame out 60g Citra™ (12.0%) - added during boil at flame out 60g Simcoe® (13.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter 60g Columbus (15.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter 20g Mosaic™ (12.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter

It must’ve been 2010 or 2011 when I first tried Stone IPA, which was pouring alongside Stone Ruination at The Rake in London’s Borough Market. Ruination especially was like nothing I’d tasted before. Intensely bitter and with a hop aroma that leapt out of the glass. It was Green Flash’s West Coast IPA that really grabbed my attention around the same time though. Pouring almost amber in colour, it had a captivating resinous aroma. The malt profile and intense hopping gave it almost a sticky mouthfeel and the flavours coated the tongue as it washed over the palate, punctuated swiftly by that trademark bitterness associated with the West Coast IPA style. When I started all grain homebrewing in 2012, it was the Green Flash beer I wanted to attempt to replicate – a bold move for a first brew! I scoured online and found a clone recipe tucked away on a homebrew forum. Ingredients were acquired and I dived straight in. The first thing that struck me with the recipe was that it relied upon a high quantity of hops in the boil. The bittering addition following by flavour and aroma additions of Simcoe, Columbus and Cascade through the boil amounted to almost 300 grammes of hops in a 20 litre recipe! The dry hop was modest by comparison. The malt bill was quite simple with some medium crystal and caramalt adding colour and body to a base of Maris Otter. The body from the crystal had some heavy lifting to do in terms of balancing out what amounted to a total of 116 IBUs!

That beer went on to win a bronze medal at London Amateur Brewers’ annual competition later that year and in the time between brewing and having that entry judged I was lucky enough to get to visit San Diego on holiday to try these famous commercial examples fresh and at the source. I was hooked on homebrewing and trying to perfect the West Coast IPA style from that point and many brews were committed to the cause, with varying degrees of success. When Elusive Brewing started commercially in 2016, it took some time for us to find our feet in terms of what worked well in the market. The 5% American Red Ale we launched with became a staple along with Overdrive, a 5.5% West Coast Pale. We didn’t jump straight into brewing IPAs but when a customer of ours, the West St Alehouse in Fareham, approach us about collaborating on a West Coast IPA, we used to opportunity to dust off that original homebrew recipe. Some tweaks were made to bring the ABV and bitterness down and Oregon Trail was born, initially being packaged into cask and keg at 5.8% ABV. That first brew was very well received but we didn’t get a chance to brew it again before the pandemic struck and plans to revisit were placed on pause. As part of our approach to pivoting our business to survive, with pubs being unable to open, we started canning our beers. Initially the beers were contract canned then we later acquired our own small line. When thinking about which products might work well in can, Oregon Trail was placed firmly back on the table. The nostalgia of a classically styled West Coast IPA seemed to strike a chord during what were challenging and strange times for many and by the end of 2020, Oregon Trail had become our best seller and accidental flagship beer.

I scoured online and found a clone recipe tucked away on a homebrew forum. Ingredients were acquired and I dived straight in.

Recipe Notes

In terms of recipe design, Oregon Trail is very much about layering flavour and aroma into what is essentially a dry and quite bitter beer. The grain bill uses a small amount of Simpsons Crystal T50 but the real trick is with the Simpsons Rye Malt, the spiciness of which really draws a line under the dank, resinous hop profile. The recipe as shown uses super clean Magnum for bittering but commercially we use Barth Haas’ Flex bittering extract, purely for efficiency and maximising wort volumes. Kettle additions focus on Chinook with some Citra being used later on to add some flavour. The beer is then fermented with a clean yeast strain which gives it a nice dry finish to really help the bitterness punch through. To finish, the beer is dry hopped with Simcoe, Columbus and a smaller amount of Mosaic. Those five hops deliver a profile that’s resinous and herbal at its base but with citrus and tropical fruit top notes to aid approachability and drinkability. The final thing we considered when evolving Oregon Trail as a recipe was water treatment. Berkshire water is hard with high levels of total alkalinity. This actually works quite well in the style but we add salts to push sulphate levels up to around 200ppb whilst keeping chloride levels in check at around 50ppb. Lactic acid is used to bring the mash down to around 5.3pH. The water profile helps to promote bitterness and dryness, which is key to producing a good example of the West Coast IPA style.