White Pale Ale: brewing with wet hops

I finally picked up a copy of Mitch Steele's book IPA. The book is centered around the historic, evolution of the modern IPA, but it does go into some variations of the style as well. There is a brief section on White IPAs, citing Deschutes Brewery's Chainbreaker White IPA as a commercial example. Here in Michigan, New Holland Brewery produces White Hatter, and is the only Michigan commercial example I can find. I have never brewer a White IPA, but have had a few commercial examples in the past. One memorable White IPA was when I lived in Chicago and Goose Island Brewery (before Anheuser-Busch) had  one on tap. I don't remember what it was called only that I bought a growler to go, went back a week later for a refill, and it had been replaced.

In summary, a White IPA is a combination of a Belgian Wit and American IPA. Wheat malt, flaked wheat, and flaked oats can all be used in the grain bill and the beer is hopped with pungent, pacific northwest hop varieties somewhere between an American Pale Ale and American IPA. Coriander and orange peel can be added in the boil, as well. Finally, a Belgian Wit yeast strain is used during fermentation with some dry hops. To me the merging of the two styles makes sense and doesn't seem too radical at all. Orange peel and coriander gives off a citrus, pine character, which are similar to the variety of hops used. The grain bill doesn't have a lot of carmel malt, or specialty malts which is perfect for hoppy styles. Belgian Wit yeast attenuates fairly well and gives the beer a unique character of its own. 



On my first attempt at brewing this style I decided to go on the lighter side of the spectrum. 34% of the grist is wheat malt, hopped to 45 IBUs, only using about half the spices of a belgian wit, and 6.0% ABV. So technically this beer would only be a White Pale Ale.

But, the recipe is heavy on the side of late hop additions and dry hops. I've never used Bravo as a bittering hop before and have wanted to try it for awhile. It has a fairly low cohumulune percentage for such a high alpha acid hop, so there shouldn't be too much bite to the bitterness. I also took an ounce of Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus, mixed it up and used it as a blend, for the the late boil additions and hop steep. Finally, I used some fresh Zeus and Centennial hop cones, that are ready, to dry hop with. Hopefully this will give me a nice base recipe for tweaking in the future.

Batch Size: 5.5 gallons

OG: 1.058
FG: 1.010
ABV: 6.2%
IBU: 45 
SRM: 5


Grain:
7 lbs. US Pale Malt (2-Row)
3 lbs. Wheat Malt
1 lbs. Flaked Wheat
.5 lbs. Caravienne
.25 lbs. Acid Malt

Mash: Single Infusion (1.25 Gal./qt.)
60 min @ 150 degrees F
10 min @ 168 degrees F

Boil:
.6 oz Bravo (15.2AA) @ 60
1 oz C-Blend @ 10
.5 oz Fresh grated Navel Orange Peel
.25 oz Coriander (crushed)
2 oz C-Blend @ Hop Stand (:60 between 140 - 150 degrees F)

Fermentation: w/ 276 bil. cells of WLP400, Belgian Wit Ale
14 Days @ 70 degrees F
7 days @ 70 degrees F + (6 oz Zeus and 6 oz Centennial Wet)