What is an XPA??

[Beer Baron]

I made the assumption that an XPA (extra pale ale) beer would be even more pale than a regular pale ale but it seems that I was wrong. 

 

“An XPA (Extra Pale Ale) is a recent US style that sits somewhat in the no mans land between an American Pale Ale and an India Pale Ale.

Pale golden to deep amber. Moderately large white to off-white head with good retention. Generally quite clear, although dry-hopped versions may be slightly hazy”

 

It seems like I was wrong. I want to try and brew every style a couple of times to see if I like it and this might be next. 

Has anyone made an all gain XPA and if so what did your recipe look like??

By the way is anyone losing track of all the different styles now.............XPA, pale ale, IPA, session IPA, hazy IPA, Brut IPA, NEIPA just to name a few. 

Beer Baron

[Beerlust]

Hi Beer Baron.

I gave my thoughts about the XPA category in another thread about a week ago...

Just my 2 cents,

Lusty.

[Beer Baron]

Thanks Lusty. 

Interesting thoughts. I was thinking of making it with pilsner malt to make it nice and light.

The LC XPA has pale malt and toffee malt. 

The style just seems like a hoppy pale ale or even a session IPA.

 

 

[Hairy]

No one knows what an XPA actually is. It is supposed to sit between an APA and IPA but I have seen commercial varieties in low 4% and high 5%.

Hopping doesn’t seem to be more than most pale ales nowadays. Most aren’t that bitter either.

I just look at them as pale ales.

[Beerlust]

I feel the XPA style has been driven by the yanks. It's their way of cautiously dipping their toe into the space of the Australian Pale Ale category pioneered & presented by none other than the generous hosts of this forum we enjoy (Coopers).

Traditionally the American Pale Ale has a good whack of crystal/cara malts as part of their make-up, so this is an obvious move away from the flavours typical of their style of Pale Ale. The yanks are trying to create their own version of our Pale Ale with their own yeast(s) & added hopping methods. Our craft brewers are fuddling around following the yanks moves in this space I feel.

A combination of The "Pacific Pale Ale" style of beer pioneered by Stone & Wood & Coopers Pale Ale are the undertone for the current XPA (IMHO). Think these pair hopped up.

That's my way of approaching it anyways.

Cheers,

Lusty.

[Malter White]

1 hour ago, Beer Baron said:

By the way is anyone losing track of all the different styles now.............XPA, pale ale, IPA, session IPA, hazy IPA, Brut IPA, NEIPA just to name a few. 

Yes and I wouldn't know the difference between any of them either.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

You missed Imperial IPA

[Norris!]

Forrest & Bubba came up with all the new ale styles after their shrimp business went down.

[The Captain!!]

I follow Lusty on this. 

As far as style is concerned if Sierra Nevada pale ale is the style maker of American pale ale, Coopers Pale is the style maker of XPA.

[Otto Von Blotto]

So it's basically an APA without the crystal, and maybe a bit heavier on the late/dry hopping. A relatively small variation with a relatively large amount of hype IMO... 

That said, I have enjoyed the commercial examples I've tried, but they're not significantly different in flavour from an APA to my palate. Just a little less malt flavour.

Edited March 21, 2019 by Otto Von Blotto

[The Captain!!]

9 hours ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

So it's basically an APA without the crystal.

Yeah that the way I see it,

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

13 hours ago, Beer Baron said:

Thanks Lusty. 

Interesting thoughts. I was thinking of making it with pilsner malt to make it nice and light.

The LC XPA has pale malt and toffee malt. 

The style just seems like a hoppy pale ale or even a session IPA.

 

 

I’ve actually grown quite attached to the XPAs. I’ll agree with everyone else on the similarities to the APA, particularly Coopers Pale, with the addition of some extra late hop aroma and flavour.

I’ve brewed two of them now, one using the Coopers recipe and an extract  based clone of it, and both were very good beers. I’ve also enjoyed quite a few commercial examples including the one you’ve shown here.

I’ll probably continue to brew them, but there are so many other beers out there to try!

[joolbag]

1 hour ago, The Captain!! said:

Yeah that the way I see it,

And that’s how I prefer it those days too. I’ve gone off crystal malts for my pale ales and IPAs

[King Ruddager]

I thought it was what comes in a seven-pack

[ChristinaS1]

On 3/21/2019 at 6:12 AM, Beer Baron said:

Thanks Lusty. 

Interesting thoughts. I was thinking of making it with pilsner malt to make it nice and light.

The LC XPA has pale malt and toffee malt. 

The style just seems like a hoppy pale ale or even a session IPA.

 

 

Interesting thread Beer Baron. Thanks for starting it. I was not aware of this style.

LC XPA sounds delicious, but of course it is not available where I live. 

I can't get Gladfield malts. Can someone with the Gladfield malt conversion app (I don't have and i-OS device) tell me what a substitute for it would be?

Lusty, what percentage Gladfield Toffee malt would you guess Little Creatures use?

Thanks,

Christina.

Edited March 26, 2019 by ChristinaS1

[Beer Baron]

Hi Christina. 

I couldn’t find a substitute for Toffee malt however I did find information on it and have pasted it below  

 

Toffee in the confectionery world can mean almost anything, sugar and butter with almost any ingredients added in such as raisins or nuts. It can be soft and sticky or aerated and crunchy. However in the world of malt it means only one thing Gladfield Toffee Malt.

Toffee is perfect malt for those summer-time beers. It brings some nice light caramel sweet flavours and a refreshing – but not over the top sweetness that compliments summertime pale ales, light lagers and golden ales. It is best utilized in lighter colour beers where it can impart all of its great flavours without increasing beer colour.

There are some tricks to utilizing this malt, due to its low colour it retains more moisture than a typical crystal malt. This gives the malt its unique chewy toffee texture and flavour, but also makes it difficult to mill on its own. Due to the small kernel size it can simply slip through a mill gap that is setup for our plump base malts, this problem can be overcome quite easily by mixing the Toffee malt in your recipe with the base malt. Then mill them both together to make sure the Toffee malt is crushed properly.

It is no surprise that Gladfield Toffee Malt makes an appearance in most of the summer beers we brew here at Gladfield. Including the staff favourite – Gladfield Harvest Wheat!

[joolbag]

@ChristinaS1 I can check my Gladfield booklet when I get home to see what they recommend to substitute for Gladfield Toffee.  It sounds like an interesting and certainly unique malt.

 

That said, I have spent some time over the last 4 months trying to nail a malt bill to emulate one of this country's best selling and best known XPAs.  Balter XPA.  I found some good information on another Australian HB forum that bascially the Balter guys used to work at Stone & Wood and their XPA is an amped up version of the Pacific Ale.  I agree with this to an extent.

 

This is the malt bill that I have settled on for my XPA recipe.  It has taken 4 iterations to get to this point and I feel it is right on in colour, mouthfeel and residual sweetness and maltiness for Balter's XPA

2150	g Gladfield Ale Malt (6.0 EBC)	50%
1300	g Gladfield Vienna Malt (6.8 EBC)	30%
850g	BEST Wheat Malt (BESTMALZ) (4.8 EBC)	20%

 

Any pale ale malt would do.  I'd like to brew this with Marris Otter one time to see how it compares.  The Vienna at 30% is noticeable too.  The 20% wheat will result in quite a hazy beer with nice head retention and that is where the mouthfeel comes in.  Note there is no crystal or dextrin malts in this bill.  I don't think it suits for a summery XPA.

 

I will brew a batch where I use 10% wheat and 10% oats.  Just because I like the silkiness that oats brings to a beer.

[Beerlust]

10 hours ago, ChristinaS1 said:

...Lusty, what percentage Gladfield Toffee malt would you guess Little Creatures use?

It's very pale to look at in the glass, almost Pilsner-like in colour. The percentage of Toffee malt would be minimal from what I tasted. That said, there's enough of it in there to take the flavour away from a Pilsner malt flavour. I think the Toffee malt choice here was to offset the increased hopping levels of this style of beer. The Toffee malt balances the higher hop shift beautifully I reckon without comprising EBC & malt flavour by a whole whack. It's a very well thought out beer (IMHO), & lovely to drink.

I hope that helps,

Lusty.

[ChristinaS1]

10 hours ago, joolbag said:

@ChristinaS1 I can check my Gladfield booklet when I get home to see what they recommend to substitute for Gladfield Toffee.  It sounds like an interesting and certainly unique malt.

 

That said, I have spent some time over the last 4 months trying to nail a malt bill to emulate one of this country's best selling and best known XPAs.  Balter XPA.  I found some good information on another Australian HB forum that bascially the Balter guys used to work at Stone & Wood and their XPA is an amped up version of the Pacific Ale.  I agree with this to an extent.

 

This is the malt bill that I have settled on for my XPA recipe.  It has taken 4 iterations to get to this point and I feel it is right on in colour, mouthfeel and residual sweetness and maltiness for Balter's XPA

2150	g Gladfield Ale Malt (6.0 EBC)	50%
1300	g Gladfield Vienna Malt (6.8 EBC)	30%
850g	BEST Wheat Malt (BESTMALZ) (4.8 EBC)	20%

 

Any pale ale malt would do.  I'd like to brew this with Marris Otter one time to see how it compares.  The Vienna at 30% is noticeable too.  The 20% wheat will result in quite a hazy beer with nice head retention and that is where the mouthfeel comes in.  Note there is no crystal or dextrin malts in this bill.  I don't think it suits for a summery XPA.

 

I will brew a batch where I use 10% wheat and 10% oats.  Just because I like the silkiness that oats brings to a beer.

Nice looking recipe, thanks for sharing.

I wonder if Toffee Malt (EBC12) can be substituted with a blend of American Light Munich (25EBC) and Vienna? 

[King Ruddager]

I have a question ... what the hell is a session XPA?

Seems to be some kind of paradox. Where's the "extra"?

[Otto Von Blotto]

Extra bandwagon jumping

[The Captain!!]

Extra penile appendage 

[Popo the Reprobate]

1 minute ago, Otto Von Blotto said:

Extra bandwagon jumping

Hahaha.

It's a pretty broad category. Philtet XPA only comes in at 4.2%. I've seen a few of them around that strength.

[Otto Von Blotto]

27 minutes ago, The Captain!! said:

Extra penile appendage 

Maybe extra stroking of said appendage

[ChristinaS1]

On 3/26/2019 at 9:12 PM, Beer Baron said:

Hi Christina. 

I couldn’t find a substitute for Toffee malt however I did find information on it and have pasted it below  

 

Toffee in the confectionery world can mean almost anything, sugar and butter with almost any ingredients added in such as raisins or nuts. It can be soft and sticky or aerated and crunchy. However in the world of malt it means only one thing Gladfield Toffee Malt.

Toffee is perfect malt for those summer-time beers. It brings some nice light caramel sweet flavours and a refreshing – but not over the top sweetness that compliments summertime pale ales, light lagers and golden ales. It is best utilized in lighter colour beers where it can impart all of its great flavours without increasing beer colour.

There are some tricks to utilizing this malt, due to its low colour it retains more moisture than a typical crystal malt. This gives the malt its unique chewy toffee texture and flavour, but also makes it difficult to mill on its own. Due to the small kernel size it can simply slip through a mill gap that is setup for our plump base malts, this problem can be overcome quite easily by mixing the Toffee malt in your recipe with the base malt. Then mill them both together to make sure the Toffee malt is crushed properly.

It is no surprise that Gladfield Toffee Malt makes an appearance in most of the summer beers we brew here at Gladfield. Including the staff favourite – Gladfield Harvest Wheat!

Sounds like a unique and yummy malt. Okay, so maybe 5% Vienna and 2% Honey Malt as a substitute.  Honey malt has, "suggestions of bread crust, honey, toast, warm cereal, and toffee." But the colour is too dark, hence the Vienna.

Edited April 2, 2019 by ChristinaS1