Homebrew Summer: Hammerhead
The co-founder of Santee's Sunny Grove Brewing shares a recipe from his amateur days he still uses to brew up his house West Coast IPA
Like so many brewery owners, Sunny Grove Brewing‘s Scott Christian took the leap from fervent, accomplished homebrewer to opening his own commercial concern. When doing so, he brought along some recipes from his days of recreational fermentation, ramping them up into house beers, including his Santee operation’s core IPA. A mid-six-percent (alcohol-by-volume) West Coast model hopped with Mosaic and Strata, it’s a modern hop-bomb that’s extremely popular with Sunny Grove’s regulars, and may prove to be just as much of a hit at your home bar should you use the recipe Christian has so generously contributed to recreate it.
This is one of over 20 beers we’ll be sharing recipes for throughout the summer, so be sure to check back with us often. Or, if you prefer, you can sign up for our email newsletter, and we’ll send all of the recipes directly to your inbox. Cheers to homebrewing and another fun Homebrew Summer!
Scott Christian
Co-founder & Head Brewer, Sunny Grove Brewing
We chose to share Hammerhead because it’s one of our most popular beers, which doesn’t require any special equipment at home (no lagering, etc.). It’s also one of my favorites and came from my homebrewing days. Hammerhead is a simple recipe that packs a lot of bright hop flavors of passionfruit, stone fruit, pineapple and some nice dank notes in a crisp, dry West Coast IPA. The biggest key to making this beer is making sure you finish nice and dry (targeting a final gravity of 1.006 if you can). Feel free to use some dextrose to help dry it out if you need to, although we don’t here at the brewery.
Sunny Grove Brewing is located at 8665 Argent Street, Suite B in Santee