Brewer’s Notes
What happens when five rad Texas breweries put their heads together to brew the ultimate West Coast IPA? You get Western Playland.
Bankhead Brewing, Bird Creek Brewing, Rollertown Beerworks, Southern Roots Brewing Company, and White Rock Alehouse & Brewery teamed up along with our brand ambassador and Cellarmaker Brewing Company co-founder Tim Sciascia for a collaboration beer built around an uber-light body and saturated hop flavor.
The crew brewed a single 15 BBL batch before splitting it into two 7.5 BBL fermentations. From there, each beer took its own path: one dry hopped with modern hops pushing ganja-like tropical intensity, the other leaning into the sharp, resinous punch of classic West Coast IPA tradition.
This leaves us with a question: which side of the Playland are you riding on? Choose your adventure!
Recipe Specs
- OG: 14.9°P
- FG: 2.9°P
- IBUs: 75
- ABV: 6.5%
Malt/Grain Bill
- 89% Weyermann Floor Malted Bohemian Pilsner
- 5% Flaked Rice
- 6% Weyermann Carapils
Hops & Additions Schedule
- 1.4 oz (40.0 g)/BBL Calcium Chloride (CaCl) to mash
- 0.25 oz (7.0 g)/BBL Calcium Sulfate (CaSO4) at first wort
- 3.5 oz (100.0 g)/BBL Simoce T90 at first wort
- 1.0 oz (28.0)/BBL Chinook Cryo at 30 minutes
- 1.0 oz (28.0)/BBL Columbus Cryo at 30 minutes
- 1.0 oz (28.0)/BBL Chinook Cryo at 15 minutes
- 1.0 oz (28.0)/BBL Mosaic Cryo at 15 minutes
- 2 whirlfloc tablets/BBL at 15 minutes from the end of boil
- 3.5 oz (100.0 g)/BBL Mosaic Cryo at whirlpool (195°F)
- 3.5 oz (100.0 g)/BBL Krush T90 at whirlpool (195°F)
- 3.5 oz (100.0 g)/BBL Columbus Cryo at whirlpool (195°F)
- 12.0 oz (340.0 g)/BBL Strata T90 at coolpool (175°F)
- 12.0 oz (340.0 g)/BBL Mosaic T90 at coolpool (175°F)
- 6.0 oz (170.0 g)/BBL Columbus T90 at coolpool (175°F)
- 0.004 oz (0.1 g)/BBL Zinc Sulfate Heptahydrate to the fermentor during wort transfer
Classic Version Dry Hop
- 8.0 oz (227.0 g)/BBL Columbus T90 at dry hop
- 8.0 oz (227.0 g)/BBL Mosaic T90 at dry hop
- 8.0 oz (227.0 g)/BBL Simcoe T90 at dry hop
Modern Version Dry Hop
- 8.0 oz (227.0 g)/BBL Strata T90 at dry hop
- 8.0 oz (227.0 g)/BBL Mosaic T90 at dry hop
- 8.0 oz (227.0 g)/BBL Krush T90 at dry hop
Yeast
- Berkeley Yeast FRESH™ Chico at 750k cells/mL/°P
Directions
- Mill the grains and mash at 150°F (65.5°C). Add the calcium chloride during mash in. Vorlauf for 15 minutes or until the wort runs clear.
- Adjust the pH of your sparge water as needed (target pH 5.5), then begin the lauter.
- Add the first wort hops, and the calcium sulfate to the kettle.
- Boil for 75 minutes, adding hops, and whirlfloc according to the schedule.
- Lower your whirlpool temperature to 195°F (90.5°C). Add the whirlpool hops.
- Lower your whirlpool temperature to 175°F (79.5°C). Add the coolpool hops.
- Begin wort transfer.
- Chill to 65°F (18°C) and aerate the wort.
- Pitch the yeast into the fermentor.
- Add the zinc to the fermentor. Ferment at 68°F (20°C).
- When fermentation has finished, drop yeast, trub, and hops for three days.
- Add the dry hops according to the schedule.
- When the beer is aromatic and free of acetaldehyde, crash to 40°F (4.5°C).
- Add finings and crash to 32°F (0°C)
- Cold condition for 3 days, dropping spent hops and yeast each day.
- Carbonate to 2.6 volumes of CO₂. Condition for 2 more days, then package.
