Triple the Fun
Style: Imperial India Pale Ale
ABV: 10%
IBU: 120
Malt: 2 Row, Wheat, Crystal
Hops: Simcoe, Citra, Amarillo
Triple Citrus was born during the summer of 2020 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. My neighbor works at Lehigh Valley Hospital Cedar Crest and as she came home exhausted from work one day she mentioned the staff needed something strong to drink and I should brew something. I said “How about Triple Citrus?”. She said “Is that a thing?!”. I replied “It is now!”
That was the easy part, now I had to make a 10% ABV IPA that honored the Citrus name while making it stand out as a unique beer on its own.
With an ABV that high you need some firm hop bitterness to balance the sweetness of such a high gravity wort. Yeast health and yeast strain selection become paramount to ensure the little critters don’t die off as the ABV increases in the beer.
Then there are the hops. With a name like Triple Citrus it’s gotta have a lot of hops in it, right?
This doesn’t disappoint as this beer contains the most hops of any Funk recipe. Amarillo, Citra and Simcoe are layered throughout the boil and whirlpool and then added to the fermenter for the dry hop 4 different times over 1 week to maximize extraction.
The end result is an IPA that defies categorization. It’s no NEIPA and it’s not a West Coast IPA, it’s not a combination of the two. Tasting is believing.