Wacky Blonde

Continuing the Golden Ale theme here is one that uses one of the less well know NZ hops, Wakatu, to deliver a really light and refreshing Blonde/Golden Ale, looking at the hopping schedule you would expect this to be more in the American Pale category but the Wakatu hops are very subtle and the end result was not the sort of hop bomb you might expect with that quantity of late additions. This is probably down to the noble heritage (hallertau) of this strain and the modest levels of oils they contain. My tasting notes for this brew ‘Smooth fruity taste with a zesty but mellow lime finish, clean malt profile and a light frothy mouthfeel’. The grist here is a good base for golden/pale ales generally, use different caramel/crystal malts to adjust the colour.

Batch size: 23 Litres
Brewhouse efficiency: 70%
OG: 1.041
FG: 1.008
IBUs: 37
ABV: 4.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

4 kg Pale Ale Malt
0.35 kg Munich Malt
0.2 kg CaraGold (Or Caramalt or Light Crystal etc etc)

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

22g Topaz at 60 minutes (or use any clean bittering hop)
20g Wakatu at 10 minutes
50g Wakatu at 0 minutes
30g Wakatu dry hop for 5 days

YEAST

US05 or consider an English strain for a more estery character

Mash at 65c

Ferment at 20c