How would you describe the challenge of building a lighter-framed IPA that has plenty of hop flavor?
Our first couple of attempts [at Slightly Mighty] didn’t turn out so great, but once we discovered the power of monk fruit, our luck changed. Using monk fruit, we were able to brew a full-flavored, low-cal IPA that’s slight in calories and carbs with mighty hop character.
Typically, when brewing super-hoppy IPAs, brewers rely on malt sweetness to balance the hop bitterness, but more malt means more carbohydrates and more calories. The biggest challenge we faced when developing Slightly Mighty was trying to create enough body in the beer to withstand some serious doses of hops, and we were able to do that with monk fruit. Sweeter than sugar per ounce, monk fruit acts as the beer’s skeleton upon which we can build hop muscle.
What were the specific obstacles in developing Slightly Mighty?
Bringing Slightly Mighty from ideation to fruition was challenging in and of itself, but once we honed the recipe, we ran into an even more interesting obstacle: Monk fruit was not on the TTB’s list of preapproved brewing ingredients—no one had ever used monk fruit in a commercial brew! That said, we got our brewers and legal team together, formulated a plan of action, and advocated to the TTB that monk fruit be added to their list of preapproved ingredients.