Someone gave me a Brewer's Best India Pale Ale kit. I have not made this kit before. Can I expect it to be decent? It uses Cascade 6.0% hops for flavoring and bittering. Will this provide enough hoppiness for it to taste like a good IPA? I have some centennial pellets - Would dry hopping with this add any benefit? I hate to put the time into this kit if its going to be a poor example of the style...Thanks for any thoughts.

I am not familiar with this kit, so I don't know what the starting gravity would be, or how much cascade it came with, but I imagine it would be ok. The heavier the beer is, the less you will likely notice the strength of the hops. As far as tossing in the centennials as a dry hop...It may not have a huge effect. If it were me, I would throw in the centennials somewhere in the middle of the boil, and leave some of the cascades as a late addition, just for aroma. This comment is purely subjective, because I like hoppy beers, and I really like what cascades do to an ale. I used to be an extract brewer, and really enjoyed going to my local brew shop with a rough idea what I wanted, and sort of mixing and matching hops together with the owner of the shop, who knows a lot more about brewing than I do. I do all grain now, so I like to have a little more of a plan, but just throwing things together can be a lot of fun.
Don't be afraid to wing it with a kit!

Update: I checked the info for this kit, and it is very vague, but it does say it has "tons of hops". Not sure what that means, but I don't think you could go too far awry with cascades, they are not super strong. I guess it comes down to how much you like hops. Don't be afraid to experiment with it though. Worse case scenario, it will be a little too bitter for your taste, bu then you will know for next time. RDWHAHB, then go brew this beer!

I brewed this kit. It made a decent IPA as is but my experience with all of the Brewer's Best kits I made was that they make decent beer just not very complex beer. I liked the finished product but who doesn't want a little more hop aroma or flavor? Depending on how much of the centennials you have I'd probably split them between a 10 min add and a dryhop.

To my tastes it made a good / representative IPA and people I gave it to recognized it as an IPA but as the others said don't be afraid to experiment. For the most part you really can't go wrong with additional hops in an IPA.

Love the hop!

Just saw your profile Doug. If you like DFH 90 I don't think you have to worry too much about your hop adds to the kit

Thanks everyone. I'm brewing this tomorrow. Going to add half the centennial at 30 min and the other half dry hopping. Can't have too much hop.

Doug,

What are you trying to get out of your hops? Bitterness? Aroma? Flavor? I'm confused by the 30 minute addition. It seems that you're going for bitterness, but if that's the case, I'd add it earlier in the boil, unless you are only doing a 30 minute boil. In which case, I'd recommend a 60 minute boil. But if you're going for hop flavor, I'd wait at least 15 more minutes and add the hops with only 10 or 15 minutes to go in the boil.

-Vince

Use the calculator on this site. You need to know how many ounces of the Cascades. It will give you the expected bitterness. My 2 cents.

+1 Vince

Actually, sub the centenial in the bittering and use some of the cascade for dry hop.