I am drinking my IPA that I kegged yesterday. It will be a few days at least before it hits it’s stride: it needs to carb a bit more, clear up, and I tend to find the first few pulls of an IPA to have a sharper bitterness than the rest of the keg.
The stats as I remember are 3.9% abv, 98 calories and 4 carbs per 12 oz. Very happy with that.
What I am most happy with though is the body of this beer. It really drinks like a “regular “ beer. My previous light/low carb brew had a pretty thin body as did commercial beers that have similar stats. I was prepared to accept this and was actually ok with it for summer beers as they are refreshing.
There are multiple factors so I can’t say for certain why this drinks like a 5 or 6 percent IPA and it’s probably a combination. I used a pretty high percentage, almost 30%, of rye malt. I also used wy1450, known for leaving a full mouthfeel.
The new to me thing is that I used monk fruit, in liquid form, at kegging. I think that was probably the biggest factor. I dosed some water to get a sense of the amount and ended up adding a half teaspoon to five gallons. It was just enough to not actually taste sweet (I can’t taste it at all) but give the mouthfeel that balances the hops. I am very sensitive to sweet and don’t at all like it where I don’t think it belongs so I was very dubious about this working but it really does and I am very excited about future brews.