Can’t, I’m Chew’n

By Jeremy McClure

The Brewer

My name is Jeremy, and I live in Lynchburg, Virginia. I purchased a Spike Trio back in September 2020. From then until May, I’ve renovated an existing garden shed in my backyard into a fully conditioned home brewery. There is a twist to my design though. From 2016 to 2018 I designed a zero-waste brewery in diagrammatic and non-physical form for my architectural thesis project at Drexel University, and now, I’ve scaled down the design from 30bbl to 10 gal and have brought my hypothesis to the real world. My build includes a full water reclamation system that will, with some more experimentation, recycle 100% of the water my home brewery uses and bring it back to the front end of the process again. The goal of my experimentation is to be able to produce beer that uses 1 gallon of water to make 1 gallon of beer. 1:1 beer/water. After I tweak the water side of my system I'll be moving on to the energy side. Hence my brewery’s name, Zero-Waste Brew.

The Beer

The ingredients in this recipe are built on a series of recipes I brewed trying to nail down a solid NEIPA. For that reason, I use a lot of protein-rich ingredients to create and sustain a hazy appearance.

The Why

-My base for this recipe is 30% Maris Otter and 20% 2-row Barley. Together, these grains create a nice Euro-style base on which to build on. 

-White Wheat and flaked wheat both introduce a great deal of haze, mild bread-like flavor, a very mild aroma, and increased head retention. I used oat malts to add haze, increase perceived body, and add more grist-derived aromatics to the beer. 

-Carapils is added in small amounts to increase head retention. The hops I chose all deliver a high amount of citrus flavors and I based their time and addition amounts on the perceived IBUs I would get from them during the boil. 

-CTZ is the standard (in my opinion) for bittering an American IPA. It’s piney, spicy, and clean. Galaxy, Amarillo, Mosaic, and El Dorado all can be described as adding high levels of citrus, melon, and stone fruit flavors and aromas. I find the El Dorado is especially fragrant, so I dry-hopped with it during fermentation. 

-As for the yeast, my standard yeast is S-04. It is a British Ale yeast and tends to produce very clean flavors and aromas (esters) that work very well with fruity, citrusy hops.