Gladfield Big O NEIPA (Hazy)

About This Beer

This was a Gladfield-inspired NEIPA built around their Big O Malted Oats as the centrepiece adjunct. Gladfield markets Big O as producing a better haze and more oat flavour than standard flaked products, and the recipe was designed to test that claim directly. The grain bill pairs Gladfield Pilsner as a clean, low-colour base with Munich for malt backbone, a substantial Big O charge for mouthfeel and haze, and Harraways Flaked Wheat for additional protein and body. A small amount of Aurora adds the faintest Maillard warmth without pushing colour.

The hop schedule followed the Gladfield NEIPA format closely: a modest bittering charge of Amarillo and Citra at 90 minutes, a larger flavour addition at 30 minutes, a split whirlpool charge at two temperatures, and a dry hop of 70 g each. The idea was to layer both varieties throughout the process so each stage built on the last rather than relying on a single massive dry hop.

Ingredients

LalBrew Verdant IPA was the yeast choice here and its first use in the brewery. Developed in collaboration with Verdant Brewing Co, it is the dry equivalent of London Ale III and was specifically bred for hazy styles. Its medium-low flocculation and strong ester production (peach, stone fruit) suit a NEIPA better than a cleaner US-style strain would, and it was pitched at 2 packets for the 25L batch size.

Amarillo and Citra are a classic NEIPA pairing. Amarillo anchors the citrus character with its distinctive orange and tangerine profile, while Citra pushes toward grapefruit, passionfruit and tropical fruit. Used together across boil, whirlpool, and dry hop, they reinforce rather than compete.

Brew Day

Brewed on the BrewZilla 35L Gen 4. The grain bill at 7.75 kg pushed the system toward its practical limits for a 25L batch. Mash-in at 69°C with 24L, sparged with 13L at 78°C. A 2L top-up was needed to reach pre-boil volume. Boil ran the full 90 minutes as planned, with the large whirlpool charge (70 g total per variety) added in two splits at different stand times.

Into the fermenter at 25.0L, hitting the target OG of 1.062 exactly.

Fermentation

LalBrew Verdant IPA was pitched at 2 packets. Fermentation started vigorously; a foam overflow occurred on days 2 and 3, requiring blowoff management. Once that settled, fermentation proceeded normally using a hazy-style conditioning approach. The dry hop went in at 70 g Amarillo and 70 g Citra, with a 1-day contact time.

A final gravity was not recorded for this batch. The tasting date of 23 March, two weeks after brew day, suggests packaging and carbonation were completed by then.

The Result

Packaged on 23 March 2023 by bottling, targeting 2.5 vol CO2. Packaged volume came in lower than expected due to trub losses from the large grain and hop load — a known limitation of the 35L system at this grain bill size.

Tasting notes on packaging day: tasty and hoppy with a soft hazy body as intended. Specific flavour recall is limited, but the beer was enjoyable and the haze and mouthfeel landed where they should for the style. The Big O oats produced the soft, silky body that Gladfield describes.

What’s Next

The main lesson from this batch was around headspace and blowoff capacity when using LalBrew Verdant IPA in a high-protein hazy grist. The foam overflow on days 2 and 3 would be straightforward to manage with a proper blowoff tube from the start. The Big O oats performed well and became a regular component in later hazy recipes.