I plan on brewing an experimental beer tomorrow. I would like to dial in a couple low calorie, low carb beers for this summer that I can have a few of on summer afternoons without getting bogged down or consuming a days worth of calories or carbs.
I am starting with an IPA. I used to hate “session” ipas due to a harsh bitterness without malt backbone but recently I have tried some ipas with soft bitterness in the 85 calorie, 3 carb per 12 oz. range that I really like. Lagunitis makes one as does Peak Organic.
I will finalize the recipe tonight but I am thinking 95% pale malt and 5% crystal (possibly subbing some rye for base malt) about 1.035 OG. Maybe 30 ibu with citra and cascade and wy1469 using NEIPA hopping techniques. The kicker is that I will be adding some “beano” to the fermenter for the enzymes to convert the unfermentable carbs into simple sugar, bringing down the carbs.
I don’t expect to hit a home run on the first time but I hope to have something I like by summer. It should be a fun experiment. If I get it dialed in I intend to send it to a lab to get an accurate sense of calories, carbs, and abv.