RAPA (Red APA)

About This Beer

RAPA stands for Red APA — a hybrid sitting between an American Pale Ale and a red ale, built around the Nectaron and Simcoe hop pairing. The goal was to carry those two varieties onto a slightly richer, redder grain bill: Gladfield Shepherds Delight pushing the colour and adding cola depth, with Caramalt for body and subtle sweetness. The American Ale Malt keeps the base clean and hop-forward despite the heavier colour.

Candied ginger was the other experiment here. Rather than a pronounced ginger beer character, the intent was just enough spice warmth to add complexity without announcing itself — working with Nectaron’s tropical fruit rather than competing with it.

Ingredients

Nectaron brings intense tropical stone fruit and passionfruit; Simcoe grounds it with pine, resin, and a slightly dank edge. Together they create a push-pull between NZ tropicality and West Coast resin that works well in the red IPA format, used at both boil and whirlpool additions and then across two dry hop rounds.

Gladfield Shepherds Delight is a concentrated specialty malt — bready, cola-ish, with a deep red hue. At 4.6% of the grain bill it is doing colour and flavour work without dominating the palate. The Caramalt contributes a small amount of residual sweetness and body.

The crystallized ginger (75 g at 20 minutes) was chosen over fresh or dried ginger for a cleaner, less sharp spice contribution.

Brew Day

Brewed on the BrewZilla 35L Gen 4. Mash in at 66.6°C with 18 L, sparge with 14.5 L at 76°C. Sixty-minute boil. Candied ginger at 20 minutes, both hops at 10 minutes and then into the whirlpool at 80°C for a 10-minute stand. Volume into the fermenter hit the target of 24.5 L with OG at 1.060.

Fermentation

Fermented under low pressure (around 5 PSI). Two dry hop additions were planned from the outset: a first charge at day 3 during active fermentation, and a second at day 6 post-ferment. This two-stage approach was a deliberate improvement over the single-charge method used in earlier batches. A final gravity was not recorded for this batch.

The Result

Bottled on 2023-04-07, targeting 2.3 vol CO2. First tasting was the same day.

The ginger read as subtle rather than dominant, working alongside the beer rather than sitting on top of it. The red APA base came through clearly, and the Nectaron and Simcoe combination delivered layered hop character. The two-stage dry hop was noted as a clear improvement over a single charge.