Table Golden Ale

So, its been a couple of weeks since my last brewday, and the kegs are running a little low as I’ve managed to find some time in my busy schedule to visit the shed on a couple of occasions for a pint or 2 and a video chat with friends and relatives. As such, its time for something a little different…

I’ve been loving lower ABV beers recently, something I can sit and have 3 or 4 pints of and not feel like I’ve been on a session. Todays recipe is as below….

If you listen to the podcast, you’ll know that I’ve moved back to a very simple BIAB setup for my brewing, and I’ve found that with a few stirs I can hit 70% efficiency easily, a value I’m very happy and content with. I’ve been wanting to use up my leaf hops so this is an opportunity to do just that with this brew.

Lets hope that everything comes together and the wife drags herself out of her pit early enough for me to do this brew before the weather closes in and it ends up not happening.

So, first update, I’m out of Jester, so that’s gotta be changed and I’m also low on First Gold so they are gonna be saved for a Boondoggle Clone later on this month. I’m gonna use Challenger to bitter and then use up my Olicana leaf hops. In the meantime here’s a picture of my brew buddy helping me just after mash in lol

Ozzy about to Mash in, love my little brew buddy!
The brewing setup…
Vigorous! BEGONE DMS! BEGONE FOUL FIEND!

Updates

Due to the UK currently being battered by winter storms Ciara and Dennis, myself and the Trickster are finding it quite difficult to sync up our timetables to get the podcasts done, as well as dealing with the fact we both record in sheds, and sheds don’t do well with wind and rain. We have one currently in edit, this should hopefully be released within the next few days, and if the storms die down a little we’re hoping to have a couple more recorded this week as its half term.

Please bear with us while climate change gets in the way of even our podcasting! We haven’t forgot and are wanting to put out content for you guys, but these storms aren’t pretty.

This brew was based on a clone recipe that I found for Brooklyn Lager, I am not a massive fan of the original (its decent just not one of my favourites) but I really liked the look of the recipe. Malty Vienna style grain bill and a hefty hop schedule mixing US and Noble hops. I made a few alterations, the original recipe used 2 row pale as the base malt, I opted for a blend of pilsner and vienna. Hops I used Hersbrucker in place of Mittlefruh and subbed Perle for Saphir but kept the quantities the same. I decided to use Munich Lager yeast as it has worked very well in malty lagers for me before. This beer came out really well and I actually prefer it to the real thing as it has a bit more body and depth, plus as expected with a homemade beer versus an import the hops and aroma are a bit fresher. Anyway heres the recipe if you fancy giving it a go.

Batch size: 21 Litres
Brewhouse efficiency: 78%
OG: 1.052
FG: 1.011
IBUs: 33
EBC: 14.8
ABV: 5.4%

MALT/GRAIN BILL

2 kg Pilsner Malt
2 kg Vienna Malt
0.4 kg Munich Malt
0.24 kg Crystal 60L

HOPS & ADDITIONS SCHEDULE

28g Willamette 60 minutes
10g Cascade at 30 minutes
10g Perle at 30 minutes
14g Cascade at 2 minutes
14g Hallertau Hersbrucker at 2 minutes

42g Hallertau Hersbrucker Dry Hop 5 days
22g Cascade Dry Hop 5 days

YEAST

Wyeast Munich Lager 2308

Mash at 67c

Ferment at 11c for 1 week

Step up Temperature to 18c over next week

Cold crash and Lager in Keg or Bottle

This was another experimental brew that I did using the 30/30 method. It is still conditioning so not sure how it will turn out but taste tests at bottling were looking good (although I don’t think I would use dark crystal again, I had to sub this in as I didn’t have any 60-80L). Apparently you aren’t supposed to use big fruity hops in steam beers but hey rules are there to be broken right! Northern Brewer is the standard hop for this but I didn’t have any and Northdown is related apparently.

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