What this is
A 6.2% red IPA on a Gladfield bill with three crystal malts, hopped with Pacific Jade and Mosaic. Brewed six times between November 2020 and January 2023, and the recipe Owen is best known for.
Not to be confused with Matt’s West Coast Red IPA, which is a separate lineage that happens to share a style. Different grain, different hops, different search.
A bill that did not move
Gladfield Ale at 4.6 kg and Aurora at 1.2 kg are identical across all six brews. The three crystal malts barely shifted either — Light and Medium sat at 0.55 and 0.44 for five brews before nudging to 0.50 and 0.50, and Dark Crystal moved by 10 g in two years.
The Aurora is standing in for the Melanoidin malt of the original recipe this was adapted from, and at 17% it is the second largest component. Between it and the three crystals, nearly a third of the grist is doing colour and body work.
What actually changed
Three things, none of them dramatic.
Pacific Jade doubled from 25 g to 50 g at the third brew and stayed.
A cryo experiment that reverted. The second and third brews replaced 200 g of Mosaic pellets with 100 g of Mosaic Cryo — the conventional half-rate substitution. It went back to pellets for the fourth and has stayed there since, which reads as a decision rather than a supply problem.
Special W out, Shepherds Delight in at the fourth brew, at the same token 0.06 kg, then nearly doubled to 0.10 kg at the sixth.
The yeast held at M44 for five of six, with a single BRY-97 brew in September 2021.
Brewing it
Mash at 67°C. With 17.5% crystal already in the bill there is no need for a high mash, and the target FG of 1.013 is where it should land.
The calcium carbonate in the mash is worth noting — it is not a common addition, and it is there to lift pH against a grain bill dark enough to drive it low. Measure rather than assume, particularly if your water is not Auckland’s.
Gravity has trended down across the lineage, from 1.070 on the first brew to 1.060 on the canonical, without the grain bill changing. That is efficiency drifting rather than the recipe, so check your pre-boil against 27 L.