Scruggs-style Rye-PA

Wow- It's been a long time... Barely Brewers is back and we are crafting beer for the fall and winter right now. We bottled our second batch of our highly successful mocha stout last week and this week we had a guest brewer in the brewhouse – uh, I mean – kitchen! Sam and I had the idea to brew up a beer (maybe three, even) for the wonderful, marvelous, one-of-a-kind Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in October. This year was a sad year for the genre of bluegrass and the Festival with the passing of some of the bluegrass greats - Hazel Dickens, Doc Watson, and Earl Scruggs – and one of its greatest supporters, Warren Hellman.
Sam, not really a brewer, asked me if it would be possible to incorporate rye whiskey into a beer and, of course, I did a bit of research and decided not only is it possible but awesome! So yesterday Sam and I brewed up batch #1 of what we are calling Scruggs-style Rye-PA.

It's a malty IPA base with some rye grains that we will add some rye whiskey to in the secondary. Grizz, owner and head recipe-maker at SF Brewcraft, recommended we use oak chips soaked in whiskey to get the flavor we wanted but I'm pretty sure he misunderstood our intentions and gave us a recipe for simulating aging the beer in an oak former whiskey barrel.

The recipe is below:

6.5# Malt Extract
1.5# Marris Otter
3/4# Rye
1/2# 30-37 Crystal
1/2# Oats

1 oz. Centennial @60min
1 oz. Cascade @30 min
1/2 oz. Cascade @ 15 min
1/2 Cascade @5 min

London Ale Yeast

The brew is fermenting away in the living room with a huge krausen and plenty of activity! Check it out here!

We are going to dry hop it with 1 oz. Centennial hops and add a yet-to-be-determined quantity of rye whiskey to the secondary. I'm super excited about this beer! Stay tuned for the second installment of our Hardly Strictly brews in the coming weeks...