I was able to get a hold of a few ounces of coveted Citra hops, so what to do...what to do? Here's a shocker: make an IPA! The Citra will be showcased late in the boil, and then in a dry hop as well. The small addition of Cascade was an effort to balance the tropical fruit from the Citra with a bit of classical grapefruit flavor and aroma.
Citrabulous - brewed 10/19/2013 (3 gallons post-boil) - Pale Malt: 5 pounds - Munich: 1 pound - Crystal 40: 4 ounces - Columbus pellets: 1/3 oz @ 60 - Citra pellets: 1/2 oz @ 15, 7, and dry hop for 4 days - Cascade pellets: 1/4 oz @ 10, and dry hop for 4 days - US-05 yeast
OG: 1.056 - FG: 1.011 - IBU: ~60 - ABV: 5.9%
The brew day went well, and all of my numbers were hit. I think the efficiency was around 75%. Beersmith anticipated the US-05 finishing at 1.014, but this beast of a yeast went low yet again! shouldn't be a problem I'm sure ;-)
This batch was bottled on 11/3/2013, and I netted (26) 12 oz-ers, and 2 more short fills of around 10 oz each. That's because I had a bottle neck break during capping, which resulted in a slight loss of beer (and blood from my poor thumb! don't worry, I'm a-okay though).
One potentially disturbing thing about this beer is a slightly persistent "cat pee" aroma that was present in the sample I had. There was also some sweet and bitter citrus notes, but I had fully expected a "tropical fruit bomb" that is typically associated with the Citra hops. There is still a solid 2 week conditioning time here before I pop a short-fill bottle for QC purposes...so we shall see how this evolves.
update: the catty thing has faded out of the beer, but the remaining aroma/flavor is predominantly grapefruity. so that's not too bad, but I feel a little gypped that I paid a premium for Citra just to get a jacked up Cascade profile in the final beer. I don't know if I should go stronger or lighter-handed next time with them, but I am doubting that my batch of these hops is going to change much either way.