Analysis of the Past Decade of NHC American IPA Winners

Here is a statistically driven recipe formulated from the data in this post.

Data: NHC and Here for 2014 Recipe

Brewing Process Averages

87.7% – Kegged their winning IPA recipes (3 didn’t specify) This correlation could explain why so many are kegging over bottling.

1.067 – Average Original Gravity

1.015 – Average Final Gravity

WLP001 – The most used yeast

65.9 °F – Average primary fermentation temperature

152.5 °F – Average mash temperature

11 Gallons – Average batch size

83 Minutes – Average Boil Time

164 – Average IBUs (Estimated, this figure could swing wildly with more information. I plugged the hop addition information that is available into Beersmith for each recipe to get an estimated IBU count without the malt build figured in.)

Hop Addition Timing

To calculate an average of each recipes hop timing additions, I took each hop addition for each individual recipe and divided it by the total number of hop additions in their particular recipe. This figure gave me the percentage of each hop additions to the total of all of their boil only hop additions. I then calculated the average percentages across all the recipes for each hop addition and below are the results. The additions in red show the majority or most typical hop additions (those over a 9% average). It’s interesting to see the rise over the years in using flameout additions as a larger percentage of total hop additions as the chart below shows.

Mash Hop First Wort 90 Minutes 60 Minutes 45 Minutes 35 Minutes 30 Minutes 25 Minutes 3.03% 4.17% 8.53% 18.10% 4.49% 0.69% 9.31% 1.03%

20 Minutes 15 Minutes 10 Minutes 7 Minutes 5 Minutes 2 Minutes 0 Minutes 0.69% 9.26% 4.22% 0.69% 4.93% 0.69% 33.21%

Hop Build in Boil

Below is the list of all the hops used in each recipe for the bittering additions (anything other than flameout). The average percentage of total boil additions is calculated for each hop only if it was used in a recipe.

Hops Average Percentage of Total Boil Additions When Used in Recipe Hops Percentage Times Hop Used Among All Recipes E.K. Goldings 50.00% Columbus 63.64% U.S. Goldings 42.95% Simcoe 54.55% Amarillo 42.52% Warrior 54.55% Magnum 39.65% Chinook 45.45% Cascade 36.99% Cascade 27.27% Chinook 35.02% Amarillo 18.18% Columbus 28.25% Centennial 18.18% Citra 27.27% Citra 9.09% Centennial 27.20% U.S. Goldings 9.09% Warrior 25.37% E.K. Goldings 9.09% Simcoe 22.90% Magnum 9.09%

Dry Hops

There seems to be a delay in the “new” hops entering into the winning recipes. The hops that are completely absent from previous years winners are Nelson Sauvin, Mosaic, Equinox, Palisade, Galaxy, Australian Summer, Motueka, Pacific Gem, Pacific Jade, Rakau, Southern Corss, Waimea, Wakatue, Falconer’s Flight, and El Dorado. This might suggest that if you really want to win the competition, you might have to play it safe and use hops that the judges recognize.

To calculate the average dry hops in grams used across all of the winning recipes, I first adjusted each recipe to reflect a 6 gallon batch. I then calculated the average grams used for each hop each time it was used in a recipe as well as the percentage of times that hop was used throughout all the recipes.

Interestingly, none of the winning recipes chose to dry hop with Chinook, which would agree with an earlier analysis of commercial beers online ratings correlated to hop choices, where chinook had one of the highest negative correlations to a beer’s average online rating (-.43 correlation).

Hops Average Grams Used When in Recipe (adjusted to 6 gallon) Hops Percentage Times Hop Used Among All Recipes Cascade 60 Simcoe 64% Columbus 37 Columbus 55% Simcoe 29 Amarillo 45% Amarillo 27 Centennial 36% Centennial 26 Cascade 27% Citra 24 Citra 27%

After adjusting all the recipes to 6 gallon batches, the average dry hop usage among the winners was 83 grams. However, there were outliers in the earlier years where two recipes reflected no dry hopping at all (who does that?). If I adjust by removing these outliers, the average dry hop usage among the winners for a 6 gallon batch is 102 grams. This isn’t a lot of data (only 11 recipes), but it may suggest that dry hopping peaks at a rate around 3.6 ounces per 5 gallons, any additional may not add much. #savethehops

Malt Percentage Averages