Brewer's Best Imperial Pale Ale Recipe Review -

April 2, 2024

Last Updated on April 17, 2024 by Doug Hall

Imperial Pale Ale is essentially an IPA that is kicked up a notch. Some refer to it as a double IPA. We have never tried this style before and this is our first kit with Brewer’s Best.

We paid $40.25 for the recipe kit from Label Peelers. They are one of our top 10 online beer supply stores. One of the cool things about the recipe kits from Brewer’s Best is that they include bottle caps, yeast, and priming sugar. Those usually cost extra when you buy from other large online supply stores.

With shipping, the total was $53.27. That comes to $1.11 per bottle.

Table of Contents

Brewer’s Best Imperial Pale Ale Ingredients

Fermentables:

6.6 lb. Light DME
3 lb. Light DME

Specialty Grains:

8 0z. Cara Brown
8 oz. Biscuit
4 oz. Carapils

Hops:

2 packs of 1 oz. Columbus
1 oz. Cascade

Yeast:

Safale S-04

Cooking the Imperial Pale Ale

We started, as usual, with 2.5 gallons of water in our 5-gallon pot. Once the strike water reached 150 degrees, we put the specialty grains in the mesh bag into the water and steeped them for 20 minutes. During this time, we reduce the heat from our gas stove to medium-low. You don’t want the temperature to surpass 170 degrees.

Once done with the steeping, raise the water temperature to boiling. Remove from the burner and add the fermentables as described in the instructions.

Adjusting the Recipe for the Final ABV

We did a slight deviation at this point. As with many Imperial Pale Ales, this was a high-alcohol beer. It is intended to come in around 8% ABV. That is just too much for me. I don’t enjoy beers much above 6%. I’m essentially one and done with a high ABV beer and I enjoy drinking beer!

Doing some rough calculations, I decided to use about 80% of the fermentables and would target alcohol by volume of around 6.5%. This also meant I needed to adjust the hops, reducing them by 20%.

One of the few additional pieces of equipment I purchased was a food scale. I paid $10 for one on Amazon. It is great for measuring out hops, bottling sugar, fermentables, and more.

We added our reduced hop amounts and after 60 minutes, put the kettle in an ice bath in my kitchen sink.

It usually takes 10 to 15 minutes to cool the wort to around 90 degrees. Adding cold water to the fermenting bucket will lower the temperature to a perfect range to pitch the yeast. Our total volume is a little over 5 gallons.

Aeration hack: It is always recommended to aerate the wort to create the best environment for the yeast. We put our metal spoon in the fermenting bucket and pour the wort over the handle of the spoon. It is a great way to easily aerate the wort.

I grab a sample using my sanitized turkey baster to get an original gravity reading using my hydrometer. Then I pitch the yeast, seal the fermenter, and put it in a dark place that keeps a temperature in the range of 66 to 70 degrees.

Fermentation and Bottling

There is a lot of debate about whether to rack the homebrew to a secondary fermenter to get it off the yeast cake at the bottom of the primary fermenter. Opinions are like belly buttons, we all have one. To me, the risk of oxygen exposure and potential contamination is higher than that of the dead yeast cells pushing any off-flavors into the beer. Commercial brewers use much larger fermenting tanks. The volume and weight of the fermented beer can be heavy enough to crush dead yeast cells, thus providing unwanted flavors. A 5-gallon batch isn’t heavy enough. A few extra weeks in the primary fermenter to clarify and condition an ale isn’t going to hurt the final product, in my opinion.

Having said all that, I kept the Imperial Pale Ale in the primary fermenter for 18 days. Fermenting was completed in 4 days and an additional 14 days to condition and clarify the beer.

I took a final reading and the ABV came in at 6.6%. Again, this is about the alcohol limit of what I am comfortable with drinking.

I racked the beer into my bottling bucket and was able to get 2 cases, 48, 12-ounce bottles.

There was even enough to get a glass to taste. Granted it is uncarbonated and room temperature but it always gives me an early sample of what is to come.

Brewer’s Best Imperial Pale Ale Tasting Notes

Pow, right in the kisser! From the nose to the first sip, this Imperial Pale Ale packs a hop punch. I was worried that reducing the hops by the same percentage as the fermentable wasn’t a good ratio to work with. My first reaction made me compare it to somewhere in between a 60 and 90-minute Dogfish Head IPA.

After 4 weeks of aging in the bottles, the beer has mellowed quite a bit. Don’t get me wrong, it is still a very hop-forward beer. I would estimate that it comes in around 70 IBUs.

The color is a dark amber. The malt comes through. Almost a nutty aftertaste with a slight caramel. Despite the hop punch, it is a complex beer I will thoroughly enjoy sipping.

If you are a hophead, you will want to include this on your list of recipes to try.

Brewer’s Best Imperial Pale Ale Final Numbers

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Doug Hall

President at Target Marketing Solutions, Inc.

Doug Hall owns Target Marketing Solutions and started his homebrew journey in the 1990’s. He took a hiatus in the mid-90’s and started the hobby back up in 2019. Since then Doug has been actively creating his own beer and has managed to brew 33 of the 150+ styles recognized by the Brewer’s Association. More-Beer.com is intended to share the journey and, hopefully, bring other beer enthusiasts together.

Color	SRM Score	15-Deep Amber
Malty	0 to 10	4
Hoppy	0 to 10	7
Bitterness	IBU score (0-120)	70
Alcohol	ABV %	6.6%

Brewer’s Best Imperial Pale Ale Recipe Review