As featured in CAMRA’s – The Modern Homebrewer – Andy Parker & Jamil Zainasheff and sponsored by ourselves The Malt Miller.

We would highly recommend purchasing and reading this book as it feature not only a wide selection of recipes but some great knowledge and techniques from Andy and Jamil on how to brew the best beer possible at home.

This recipe was provided for the book from a professional brewer, all of the recipes were scaled by the writers to a 20ltr batch size using 75% efficiency.

Where ever possible we have matched the exact ingredients, however in some recipes slight changes may be required and volume adjustments based on ingredient available to homebrewers. Be sure to fully read the below details before purchasing so you are fully confident in the process and aware of any ingredients which are not included with this kit that you will need to add.

Weights are removed on this page due to publishing agreements but will be provided on the bags when the recipe is purchased or are present in the book for those who purchase it.

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Ingredients Included

Simpsons Malt – Caramalt
Simpsons Malt – Malted Rye
Simpsons Malt – Low Colour Maris Otter
Mosaic – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (20 grams)
Columbus – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (60 grams)
Simcoe T90 Pellets (60 grams)
Citra® – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (60 grams)
Chinook – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (53 grams)
Hallertauer Magnum – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellet (15 grams)
Fermentis SafAle US-05 11.5g (1 pack)

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Method

Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): American-Style India Pale Ale
Batch Size: 20
Original Gravity: 1.052
Final Gravity: 1.008
ABV %: 5.8
IBU: 60
Mash efficiency: 75

THE MASH
Temperature °C (Step 1): 67
Length (mins) (Step 1): 60

Mash notes: Water Aim for 200ppm sulphate and 50ppm chloride

THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60

Hop / kettle additions and timing:

Magnum 15g/0.88oz @ 60 mins
Chinook 12.5g/0.44oz @ 15 mins
Chinook 20g/0.7oz @ 5 mins
Chinook 20g/0.7oz @ 0 mins
Citra 60g/2.1oz @ 0 mins

Whirlpool / hop stand:

N/A

Yeast: Pitch 1 pack (11.5g/0.4oz) of Fermentis SafAle™ US-05
Fermentation temperature/steps: Ferment at 19°C/68°F for 7 days until gravity is stable, then dry hop.

Secondary additions:

Dry hop (at terminal gravity)

Simcoe 60g/2.1oz
Columbus 60g/2.1oz
Mosaic 20g/0.7oz

Comments:

When I started all grain home brewing in 2012, it was Green Flash West Coast IPA 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 home brew 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 followed by flavour and aroma additions of Simcoe, Columbus and Cascade through the boil amounted to almost 300 grams 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!

I didn’t revisit the West Coast IPA style until a customer approached us and asked to collaborate on one to help launch their beer club. The old recipe was dusted off and used to inspire this new beer. 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 Caramalt 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 200ppm whilst keeping chloride levels in check at around 50ppm. 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.

NOTE: This is the 2024 version of Oregon Trail, as with most recipes they evolve and change over time as brewers tweak their beers, this differs slightly to the original 2021 version which we also offer as a recipe kit.

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