You’ve seen us on many occasions including Double IPAs, Triple IPAs and even some Quadrupel IPAs over the years in Schmooze, but this might actually be the first time our Hop Quest box has featured a Quintuple IPA, all thanks to the Wollongong legends at Seeker brewing.
Although the Brewers Association and the BJCP (Beer Judge Certification Program) only feature IPAs and Double IPAs as part of their definition of styles, the terms Triple and T are not too rare in the craft beer industry. From ABVs and description comparisons we can tell it really comes down to each brewery and their own releases to see where lines are drawn. We reached out to Jeffrey Argent (Owner & Head Brewer from Seeker Brewing) to ask a couple of questions about this massive release and these big hoppy brews.
Where do you see the lines between each step for an IPA?
Double 8 to 9.9%, Triple 10 to 11.9%, Quad 12 to 13.9%, Quintuple 14 to 15.9%. Probably (even) higher than this really.
What makes this beer a Quintuple IPA and how was it made?
Our collab with Behemoth Brewing had to be big so we decided to see how far we could push the new brewhouse. Using just over 800kg of grain we managed to get most of the gravity and then to get us up to the starting gravity we needed we added a couple of bags of dextrose which also helped the beer ferment out a little dryer.
Not having done a Quintuple IPA before, I followed suit from a brewery I got to hang out with over in San Diego - North Park Brewing. 14% being the start of Quintuple territory we thought we'd push it to 15% as the yeast we used had an alcohol tolerance up to 15%
Hop wise we pushed as much IBU into the bittering editions as the kettle could handle and for the whirlpool, we kept it hot also to get as much IBU as possible.
For the dry hop we used roughly 35g/l on paper as we used a lot of Cryo Nelson, T90 and even Hop Oil to help boost aroma and to help with the booziness of the beer. Made for sipping!
Thank you, Jeffrey! And beware hop fiends!
