Brewing a New England Pale Ale with Funktown Pale Ale yeast

By now, I think we're all quite familiar with the whole New England (Northeast?) IPA subject, a beer which many in the Northeast USA love, and those in the Western states despise. I actually don't think it's as cut-and-dry as all that, but if you were to read (and I'm sure most of you have) the constant arguments online over this, you'd be easily fooled. It seems to boil down to a beer that is super-hoppy (with an emphasis more on hop flavour and aroma than bitterness), hazy, and with a creamy mouthfeel (but still finishing fairly dry). It seems to be the haze that bothers non-believers the most; I fall on the side that doesn't care about the haze. If the beer is delicious, I'm ok with it; and as I've said before, when I now see a pale, super-hazy beer, I get excited! It's like Pavlov's dogs, but with tasty beer instead of dog treats or whatever he used (maybe he DID use beer, secretly).

There's plenty of commercial and home brewed NEIPAs and NEPAs out there now; even New Brunswick is coming through with some. TrailWay Brewing, here in Fredericton, releases many beers that are big on hop aromatics and flavours, hazy to the point of downright murky, and often sub-5% ABV. It's great! Personally, I've brewed a lot of beers in this area as well, even if I haven't really labelled them "New England" (or Northeast), specifically.

One thing I haven't been doing in my recipes that many others do is add oats (flaked or malted). It's not that I'm against it, it's just that I've had pretty good success in achieving the goals I've aimed for by fermenting with London Ale III, limiting use of fining agents to a bit of Whirfloc near the end of the boil, and adjusting my water chemistry to have roughly equal amounts of chloride and sulfate (in the 100-120 ppm range). When putting together a new Pale Ale recipe early in the summer, I decided to try incorporating oats into the recipe, and immediately remembered that I had always wanted to try brewing the Tired Hands HopHands clone on Ed Coffey's site. Obviously this is a very popular recipe, as there's around 90 comments on that post alone (no wonder he's gone semi-pro now!), and I've seen it pop up on other homebrew sites since.

Ed's recipe is made up of roughly 82% Superior Pale Ale malt, and 18% Flaked Oats; the beer is hopped with equal amounts of Amarillo, Centennial and Simcoe, with the emphasis being on a large dry-hop addition of all three. Fermented with London Ale III, he compares it to a "fruit juice cocktail", which sounds pretty damned good to me. However, I decided not to brew this exact beer this time around, although I imagine I will come to doing that, eventually. No, this time I wanted to "borrow" from this recipe, and take it in a slightly different direction.

How? Mainly by fermenting with The Yeast Bay's Funktown Pale Ale, which they describe as a "blend of our Vermont Ale strain and a unique wild strain of Saccharomyces that is well-suited for primary fermentation". The blend is a collaboration with White Labs, so let me just put out there what you're immediately thinking on that description - this is Conan blended with what used to be called Brett Trois (until White Labs confirmed that it's actually not Brett, and reclassified it as a wild Saccharomyces). A friend of a friend had some Funktown Pale Ale slurry left over, and I was lucky enough to get some, so I grew it up over a couple of steps to have enough for a Pale Ale. I hadn't set out to use it with Ed's HopHands clone grist and hopping schedule, but that seems as good a place as any to use it! I've never actually brewed with Conan, either by purchasing it, or growing it up from a can of Heady Topper, but I've heard plenty of good/frustrating things about it. I feel like I've read (from other homebrewers) that after several generations, it can be finicky to finish fermentation, but maybe I'm wrong.

As mentioned, while I kept the hop schedule, I changed two of the three varieties. The Simcoe remained, but I dropped the Amarillo and Centennial, mainly because I'm planning on brewing a Maine Beer Co. Lunch clone very soon, which uses these three varieties as well. So, I gave it some thought and mostly-randomly settled on subbing in Chinook and Hallertau Blanc, two varieties I've used before and always enjoy. With these three, I was expecting to get pine, grapefruit, pineapple, and citrus, which sounds like a decent mix to me. Roughly equal amounts of all three, the dry-hop amounts were a bit skewed due to inventory levels, but the overall amount used for that addition is still fairly large, at a total of 5 oz.

It was a relatively normal brew day; my OG came in on target, no major issues that I noticed. I pitched what I calculated to be about 200 billion cells. Who knows how accurate that is; I estimated to have a very small amount of cells to begin with, 3 billion, and like I mentioned built that up over a couple of starters on my stir plate. Fermentation started by that evening, however, so things were looking good. Unfortunately, when I checked the gravity a week and a half later, it wasn't at the 1.008 that BeerSmith had estimated (based on the apparent attenuation of the Funktown yeast)... it was 1.016! I'm not really sure what happened here - the temp didn't drop, and it appears that I pitched plenty of cells, so I'm going to assume it has something to do with the finicky nature of Conan? I'll never know. When I tried a taste, however, I didn't find it overly sweet, so I wasn't extremely worried. I dry-hopped the beer, and then kegged it six days later and force-carbed.

I'm pretty happy with how it came out in the end. The hops seem to work well together, although I don't really get much pine in either the aroma or flavour; mainly a fruit-blend, if that makes any sense. I can't really pick out any one or two specific types of fruit, but I've never really had a nose/palate for that, anyway. Definitely a creamy, smooth mouthfeel, the beer could still benefit from a bit of a drier finish. It's not sweet, exactly, but another 3-4 points lower in the gravity would improve it.

As for the real question, what does the yeast add to this beer... I'm not sure I can really answer. Since this isn't a recipe I've brewed before, or a yeast I've used before, all I can say is that it's a tasty, wonderfully hoppy brew. But how much does the yeast strain have to do with this? In hindsight, I should have split the batch and fermented half with US-05 or something, but it was the beginning of summer and I had limited fermenting space at this time. So, while I'd recommend the recipe as a whole, I'm not sure how different it would be with a more readily-available yeast strain. I'm interested to hear of others' experience(s) with Funktown Pale Ale, however!

Recipe Targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.052, FG ~1.008, IBU ~38, SRM 4.1, ABV ~5.7%

Grains:
1.95 kg (41.7%) Canadian 2-row
1.95 kg (41.7%) Maris Otter
600 g (12.8%) Flaked Oats
175 g (3.7%) Acid malt

Hops:
Polaris - 5 g (20% AA) @ 60 min
Chinook - 14 g (11.8% AA) @ 5 min
Hallertau Blanc - 14 g (8% AA) @ 5 min
Simcoe - 14 g (11% AA) @ 5 min

Chinook, Hallertau Blanc, Simcoe - 21 g each @ 0 min (with a 20 min hop steep)

Chinook - 35 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)
Hallertau Blanc - 51 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)
Simcoe - 54 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: Funktown Pale Ale (with a starter, ~200 billion cells)

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 5 g Gypsum and 8 g calcium chloride added to mash

- Brewed on June 27th, 2016, by myself. 50-minute mash with 13 L of strike water; mash temp on target of 150 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 7 L of boiling water to 168 F. Sparged with ~3.75 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- Pre-boil gravity at 1.043 (target 1.042). 60-minute boil. Final volume ~5.5 gallons; OG on target at 1.052. Chilled to 64 F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched yeast at 64 F.

- Airlock showing activity by that evening, temp up to 68 F. By the next morning, regular bubbling going on, temp at 72 F. Fermentation seemed pretty much done by the next couple of days; temp never got higher than 72.

6/7/16 - Added dry hops into primary; FG higher than planned, at 1.016.

13/7/16 - Racked beer to keg; LOTS of hop sludge left in the carboy that did not settle well, so I left more beer behind than I would have liked. Set in keezer for ~12 hours to bring temp down, then force carbed.

Appearance: Pours a very light-golden colour (lighter than it appears in this crappy picture), with a medium-sized, white head that settles at about 1/2 finger. Quite hazy, as expected.

Aroma: All hops, with the emphasis on fruity (pineapple) and citrus; not really getting much grapefruit or pine, surprisingly.

Taste: A little more malt character in the flavour, but it's definitely still in the background compared to the hops. I wouldn't say a particular fruit flavour jumps out at me; I find it a pleasant mix of tropical fruit. Medium to medium-low bitterness in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, very smooth and creamy. Moderate carbonation.

Overall: I enjoyed this beer, and found that it continued to improve over weeks in the keg, surprisingly. One could argue that the hops were a bit muddled at first, but I found the fruit character came through more once it settled down a little. A fine beer that I wouldn't necessarily rush back to brew exactly the same, but I'd definitely experiment with this yeast some more.

American Pale Ale with Azacca and Galaxy, fermented with London Ale III

In 2014, I brewed the widely-available clone recipe of Russian River's Row 2, Hill 56, a Simcoe single-hopped American Pale Ale. I had been looking to brew something for my older brother's wedding, and I had heard good things about this beer. Simcoe is a great hop, and despite being used in relatively-small amounts in this recipe (only 4 oz for a batch; compared to a lot of hoppy recipes nowadays - my own included - that's really not that much!), the beer had a great aroma and flavour, and was enjoyed by non-beer-drinkers and beer geeks alike.

Since then, I've always meant to brew that recipe again, except change up the hop(s) used. I know other homebrewers have used that recipe to feature other varieties, continuing the trend of single-hopped beers. But for me, I more just wanted to stick with the grist and go from there. I don't know why the grist seems to work so well, but it does. The combination of Pilsner malt and Maris Otter (instead of just using 2-row, which is pretty common in APAs) works really well at providing enough of a slightly-bready malt character to the beer, topped off with a little bit of light Crystal (~20 L) and Carapils. As usual for my system, Acid malt is also added to bring the mash pH down to the 5.4 region; I've been doing this consistently now, and I've been quite happy with the effect it's having (I fully acknowledge that a blind-tasting has not been done to confirm this!).

So, with the grist already decided, I had a hell of a bunch of hops to pick from. I've made several hop orders since late fall, and along with quite a bit left from last year's crop, there were all sorts of options. I wanted this beer to be REALLY juicy; ever since I was lucky enough to have tried Scaled Up, a DIPA from Trillium Brewing, a month or so ago (have you tried this beer? It's amazing!), I've been craving hops even more than usual. Damn these delicious beers for spoiling me! Luckily, many of the hop varieties I have in my freezer should be more than satisfactory, so, what to pick?

Ultimately, I settled on two varieties, to keep things relatively simple. And I picked two that are becoming two of my favourites as I use them more and more - Azacca and Galaxy. I really don't think you can go wrong with either one, and as I was giving it some thought, I realized that I hadn't actually used them together before. Travesty! But what better beer to showcase how these two blend than a fairly simple APA? And how could these not work together, right? They've definitely got to be two of the more-tropical, fruity, citrusy varieties out there, in a world with one heck of a lot of fruity hop types.

I didn't follow the hopping schedule for R2H56; I went with what I almost always use now for hoppy recipes that I develop on my own: a small bittering charge at 60 minutes (to only 10-15 IBUs; in fact, I'm starting to drop this altogether in some beers), an ounce at 10 minutes, then large WP and post-chilling additions, along with a dry-hop of 3 oz total. I've had good results with this method, and don't usually stray too far. The ratio is skewed slightly towards Galaxy (5.5 oz vs. 3.5 oz of Azacca), but only because I had more Galaxy on hand.

For fermentation, I went once again with London Ale III. I've brewed several different variations on the IPA style with this strain now, and you can count me as yet another believer... it is truly great with hoppy beers. It doesn't attenuate as highly as US-05, usually finishing for me to 1.013-1.014, giving the beer a nice, creamy mouthfeel without tasting under-attenuated. I find the beers I brew with this strain come out very hazy/cloudy in true Hill Farmstead/Trillium fashion, but that's ok with me! I know not everyone is thrilled by a hazy beer, but many of the best hoppy beers I've had have been cloudy, so I kind of expect that, now.

The brew day for this beer was uneventful, everything going smoothly. Fermentation was going strong by the next day - normal for my experience with London Ale III - and after 10 days or so I dry-hopped the beer in primary for about a week, then transferred to a keg and started carbing. I was really looking forward to this beer.

And what a tasty beer this is! I have to say, if Azacca and Galaxy were easier to get, this would be my new house APA. I've made very few beers juicier than this - big blast of tropical fruit and citrus, with maybe just a touch of pine in there. Lately, as the keg is getting down, the beer looks and tastes a lot like OJ, and of course I mean that in a good way. Creamy, smooth body, but it still finishes quite dry with a moderate bitterness. It's definitely been one of the best-received of my homebrews; it's rating on Untappd is the highest of any I've brewed, tied with my Equinox Session IPA.

Ok, so it's no big deal that I've confirmed what we all would have guessed: Azacca and Galaxy work great together, especially when fermented with London Ale III. But hey, I'm still glad I took the time to try it!

Recipe Targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.056, FG ~1.013, IBU ~45, SRM 5.2, ABV ~5.6%

Grains:
2.9 kg (57.7%) Bohemian Pilsner
1.65 kg (32.8%) Maris Otter
200 g (4%) CaraRed (20 L)
150 g (3%) CaraPils
125 g (2.5%) Acid malt

Hops:
Polaris - 5 g (19.8% AA) @ 60 min

Galaxy - 28 g (12% AA) @ 10 min

Galaxy - 56 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Azacca - 28 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)

Galaxy - 28 g @ 0 min (when begin chilling)
Azacca - 28 g @ 0 min (when begin chilling)

Galaxy - 42 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)
Azacca - 42 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: Wyeast 1318 London Ale III (with a starter, ~200 billion cells)

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 7 g Gypsum and 7 g calcium chloride added to mash

- Brewed on January 13th, 2016, by myself. 50-minute mash with 15 L of strike water; mash temp on target of 151 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 7.5 L of boiling water to 166 F. Sparged with ~3.25 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- Pre-boil gravity 1.044. 60-minute boil. Final volume ~5.75 gallons; OG 1.055. Chilled to 62 F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched yeast slurry at 64 F.

- Active fermentation by the next day, continued for 2-3 before settling down. Dry-hopped in primary on January 25th; FG 1.013. Kegged on February 1st.

Appearance: Pours with a moderate-sized, white creamy head (not normally as large as in that picture) that fades to about 1/2-finger and sticks around. Body is a light-orange colour, and very hazy/cloudy.

Aroma: Big punch of orange juice, along with a tropical fruit character that I unfortunately can't pick apart to actually name which fruit(s). Very little malt character.

Taste: A little more malt presence here - lightly bready, maybe a touch of wheat character? - but still mostly juicy, fruity hops. Bitterness in the finish comes across as medium-light, to me.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light bodied, very creamy, moderate carbonation. Smooth.

Overall: A great beer, made great by great hops. Will brew again, and don't think I'd change anything... at least not to a large degree.

Brewing a Columbus Pale Ale (inspired by Epic Pale Ale)

With summer over (yeah, it's been a couple of months already, but I'm way behind), the annual brewing-lull has come to an end. Time to get back into it!

Around the beginning of September, I needed to brew. The summer was really busy with the usual combination of work and being away for vacations, so I was looking to brew up something fairly simple that didn't involve a lot of planning, and that I could quickly turn around and have on tap within a few weeks. I have a short list of beers that I would like to rebrew, and after a quick scan I picked out an Epic Pale Ale clone that I brewed years ago, just a few months after starting this blog. Epic is a great brewery in Auckland, New Zealand; I've had several of their beers, back when they were distributing to Maine (I assume they are no longer? I don't recall seeing their beers on recent trips to Portland). Their Pale Ale is brewed with all Cascade hops; the clone recipe I followed was one from the old Can You Brew It? podcast. Featuring plenty of Cascade, it was a great clone recipe, so I thought it would be a nice beer to brew again.

However, before I entered the recipe into BeerSmith again, I did a quick scan of my hop inventory. I had just enough Cascade to brew a smaller batch of this beer, but realized that I had more than twice as much Columbus. Now, I've always planned on brewing a Columbus single-hop beer; it seems like such an underrated hop variety to me. It's used in plenty of beers, but because it's been around for a long time, it often gets overlooked, what with all the fancy new varieties out there (I'm admittedly a victim of this overlooking, myself). I've used it in several beers with one other variety, and I always like what it brings to the table. It seems to offer a combination of dank and resiny tones, with some fruity qualities as well. With extra on hand, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to finally brew a beer that brought Columbus front and center.

The grist for this recipe is definitely for an "olden-days" APA; that is, it's not just a super-light, lower-ABV IPA (I DO love those types of APAs, by the way). There's a fair amount of Crystal malt in it (over 20% is CaraRed and Carapils, combined), but luckily it's still mashed low at 148 F, to keep it as dry as possible. The rest is made up of equal amounts 2-row and Maris Otter; I of course planned on adding some Acid malt to bring down the mash pH, but when brew day came along, I forgot yet again that I was out of Acid malt. Dammit! Oh well, the first time I brewed this beer I wasn't using Acid malt, so I figured the beer wouldn't suffer too much. I also added some gypsum and calcium chloride to the mash this time around.

This APA, however, is still hopped pretty heavily for the style... 9 oz of hops in total, with most of that being from flameout on. Two separate flameout additions are used, one for a hop steep, the other after chilling begins (the original recipe calls for a 10-min steep, then ANOTHER 10-min steep, so I changed it up a bit this time), and then two separate dry-hop additions after fermentation ends. The beer was fermented with US-05; I should point out that the original Epic Pale Ale recipe calls for Wyeast 1272 American Ale II. I didn't go through the trouble of ordering it when I actually brewed the clone recipe, and I didn't have a chance to here, either. However, if you're looking to actually clone Epic Pale Ale, I recommend you try to track down the 1272, at the recommendation of Epic's brewers.

I was pretty happy with how this beer came out. It's definitely a bit sweeter than most of the APAs I've been brewing lately; I think part of this is due to the grist, and partly due to Columbus. While the beer's aroma and taste are both quite dank and resinous, there's this kind of sweet, candy-like quality in there... reminds me a lot of Rockets. Oddly enough, it all works. The bitterness is about perfect, probably in the moderate category, and the beer finishes just dry enough to make it easy-drinking, but balanced with enough maltiness to make it clear that it's not an IPA. While not my favorite APA I've brewed, it IS tasty, and an interesting experiment to focus on the Columbus hop.

Recipe Targets: (5.5 gallons, 80% efficiency) OG 1.052, FG ~1.010, IBU ~42, SRM 6.5, ABV ~5.7%

Grains:
1.7 kg (39.1%) Canadian 2-row
1.7 kg (39.1%) Maris Otter
600 g (13.8%) CaraRed
350 g (8%) CaraPils

Hops:
CTZ - 14 g (10% AA) @ 60 min
CTZ - 35 g @ 10 min

CTZ - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
CTZ - 42 g @ 0 min (after started chilling)

CTZ - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)

CTZ - 63 g dry-hop for 5 more days (DH keg)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale (1 pack, rehydrated)

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 4 g Gypsum and 4 g calcium chloride added to mash

- Brewed on September 9th, 2015, by myself. 50-minute mash with 13 L of strike water, mashed in at target of 148 F. Sparged with ~4 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- Pre-boil gravity a bit low at 1.040 (target 1.042). 60-minute boil. Final volume ~5.75 gallons; OG low at 1.048. Chilled to 66 F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast at 68 F (a bit higher than I like, but the ground water was still quite warm).

- Good fermentation activity over the next few days; the temperature luckily never went higher than 70 F, thanks to keeping the BB in my laundry sink with some water and ice packs.

- 16/9/15 - Added first round of dry-hops into primary. FG 1.010.

- 22/9/15 - Racked beer to DH keg, added second round of dry-hops, purged again with CO2.

- 27/9/15 - Transferred beer to serving keg and began carbing to ~2.3 vol CO2.

Yeah, yeah, don't remind me

Appearance: Pours with a moderate-sized, slightly off-white head that shows very good retention, before fading to 1/2-finger. Body is dark orange/light amber coloured, with very good clarity despite the two dry-hop additions.

Aroma: Resinous, slight candy-like aroma that is definitely interesting, and something I don't really recall experiencing before. Pleasant malt backbone keeps the beer out of IPA territory, but still does a nice job of allowing the hops to express themselves.

Taste: The hop characteristics in the aroma pretty much come through the same in the taste, with a resiny/dank overtone that is quickly followed by that candy-sweetness. It finishes more on the dry side, with a moderate bitterness that kind of sticks around a bit.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light bodied, moderate carbonation.

Overall: Enjoyable. Don't think I'll probably go out of my way to brew it again, but I wouldn't mind doing one of my one-hop Session IPAs with Columbus, to really let the hop express itself more. Would probably work really well in a SMaSH beer, too.

Brewing a Maine Beer Co. Peeper clone (No. 7 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

After my attempt to brew a clone of Maine Beer Company's highly-coveted DIPA, Dinner, I didn't want to wait too long to try brewing another one of their beers. Why? Because that clone attempt came out pretty crappy. Probably one of my worst homebrew attempts of all time. If I hadn't had so many people that wanted to still try it, it probably would have turned out to be my first drainpour batch. It didn't, in the end... but it wasn't too far off. More on that failure in the link above.

Anyway, time to move on, right? I've had several successes since then, and have learned from the experience; this is what homebrewing is all about. I know now that a pound of hops for a 5 gallon batch dry-hop is probably a WEE bit too much. And I've had some good results with some other Maine Beer Co. recipes, with one I'd been sitting on for awhile that I've always been wanting to try - a clone recipe of their very first beer, Peeper.

When Maine Beer Co. came on the scene in Portland six years ago, they initially only had one beer available. Spring Peeper was an "American Ale", basically a really hop-forward APA that was dry, refreshing, and immensely hoppy. I remember my very first trip to Portland's Novare Res Bier Cafe in the fall of 2009; one of the bartenders there insisted that I had to try this beer (even though "the brewery name is kinda crappy"...!). They didn't have it on tap, but they did have the 500 mL bottles available (which were being delivered, I believe, to bars and beer stores in the area by owners/brewers Dan and David Kleban, who still had their day jobs at the time as well). The hype was real - this beer was delicious. And it was, of course, eventually followed by many other amazing beers over the years.

The name was eventually changed to Peeper (I assume so people wouldn't be confused and think it was only a seasonal release?), but the beer stayed the same. Peeper is like Coors Light in Portland - it's hard to go into a beer bar, restaurant, etc. and NOT find it... which speaks volumes as to the awesomeness of Portland. Several years ago, I came across a post on Home Brew Talk where someone included a clone recipe of Peeper that they had received from Dan Kleban. I've had great luck and lots of help from Dan on other clone recipes of his beers, but this was even more... it was quite detailed. I assume that he was simply less busy back then, and had a little more time to answer pesky homebrewer's emails! I held on to this recipe for quite awhile before I finally decided to brew it. Here it is in its entirety:

I use American 2-row base malt (88%), then red wheat (3.5%), Vienna (3.5%), and C-10 (5%). U.S. Magnum as bittering charge, then equal amounts Cascade, Centennial, and Amarillo at beginning of whirlpool. Dry-hop equal amounts Centennial and Amarillo only (4.5 oz/5 gal). House yeast is a variant of Wyeast 1056. Mash at 150 F and sparge with 180 degree hot liquor to raise runoff to 172ish. 60 minute boil. 

OG: 1.053
FG: 1.011
IBU: approx 45
SRM: no idea

My secret: extreme late hopping (up to 50% of IBUs come from whirlpool hops)

Pretty helpful! I imagine that most of their hoppy beers follow the same approach, where a good hunk of the bitterness comes from whirlpool additions. All of their beers are so smooth and easy-drinking, with tons of hop aroma and flavour; this is the approach I've used with all my Maine Beer Co. clones (not to mention a lot of other recipes).

So, obviously the grist was extremely easy to put together. I threw in 100 g of Acid malt, as per usual for my pale beers, for mash pH purposes. I also didn't have any Crystal 10L; I first thought of just using Carapils, but I have a lot of CaraRed, which is about 20 L. So, I used that one, but decreased the amount to ~3% to hopefully-account for the slightly-darker color. For the hops, I went with 1.5 oz each of Amarillo, Cascade, and Centennial at flameout, for a 15-minute steep (I basically just went with a quantity that would yield about half of the 45 IBUs I was aiming for). I probably should have steeped longer, since there were no other flavor/aroma additions until this point, but I was on a tight schedule and have had good results with 15-minute steeps in the past. For the dry-hop, I followed the instructions exactly... and assumed that it was 4.5 oz TOTAL, not 4.5 oz of each hop.

That's about all the work I had to do with this one. The brew day went smoothly; while taking place in June, the temperatures really weren't that high, so the groundwater was still manageably cool, and the fermentation never got out of control.

I was quite happy with how this one came out. While I've had Peeper plenty of times - like I said, it's everywhere - the last time I had it was in March. And of course I don't have access to it here, and unfortunately I haven't been to Maine in months... so, no side-by-side tasting, which would have been great. I can say that the beer is very tasty - while there's a pretty good background note of bready malt, the hops are quite prevalent. But this isn't your typical BANG hops in your face hoppy beer... I find them somewhere between subtle and prevalent. That sounds contradictory, but it's hard to explain. Fruity and kind of tropical, not quite in the background, not quite overpowering. Maybe just really nicely balanced?

Either way, it's good. I think the beer, despite cutting back on the CaraRed, is a touch too dark for a Peeper clone. It seems darker than the calculated 4.5 SRM, to me. Now that I look at the website, I see that Carapils is listed as an ingredient for Peeper, not C-10. And I feel like Peeper finishes drier, which wouldn't surprise me since Maine Beer Co. normally has extremely high attenuation in their beers (the OG and FG provided in the recipe must have been adjusted for homebrew purposes (they list the beer as 1.047 on their site, which means for 5.5% ABV it would be finishing at about 1.005).

So, if you're a fan of Peeper, or just of hoppy, tasty Pale Ales, give this recipe a try. I suggest subbing in Carapils for C-10 or CaraRed or whatever. Cheers!

Recipe Targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.053, FG ~1.010, IBU ~45, SRM 4.5, ABV ~5.6%

Grains:
4.25 kg (87.8%) Canadian 2-row
170 g (3.5%) Vienna
170 g (3.5%) Wheat malt
150 g (3.1%) CaraRed (20 SRM)
100 g (2.1%) Acid malt

Hops:
Hop extract - 2.5 mL @ 60 min (or 14 g of a 10% AA hop variety)

Amarillo - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Cascade - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Centennial - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)

Amarillo - 63 g dry-hop for 5-7 days (in primary)
Centennial - 63 g dry-hop for 5-7 days (in primary)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale, 1 pack, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Gypsum and 5 g calcium chloride added to mash

- Brewed on June 16th, 2015, by myself. 50-minute mash with 15 L of strike water, mashed in at target of 150 F. Sparged with ~5.25 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- Forgot to take a gravity reading pre-boil. 60-minute boil. Final volume ~5.75 gallons; OG on target at 1.053. Chilled to low-60s F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast at 64 F.

- Good fermentation over the next couple of days, slowed down quickly by the third day. Temp never higher than 70 F. FG close to target, 1.011.

- Added dry-hops in primary about 12 days after pitching, kegged beer 5 days later and started carbing.

Appearance: Pours with a medium-sized, white head; retention isn't bad, but the slightly-low carbonation has it fading a bit faster than I'd like. Body is a burnished-gold color, with very good clarity.

Aroma: I get fruity, citrusy hops in the aroma, but with a firm background of bready malt. A bit of sweetness in there, too. Otherwise, clean.

Taste: Again, nice presence of malt character in this beer. The hops win (tropical and fruity), but as mentioned above, it's not an overpowering presence, but they're firmly there and linger perfectly. Medium-low bitterness in the finish, which is somewhere between dry and sweet, with the tilt towards dry.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light bodied, medium-low carbonation.

Overall: Quite enjoyable. Somewhere between one of your classic APAs where the malt comes through more (think the original Stone Pale Ale) and one of the way-more-hoppy APAs you see more often today.

Tasting : Hoppily Ever After (Russian River Row 2, Hill 56 clone)

Well, my brother's wedding went off without a hitch (ha ha, I'm awesome)... great weather, great people, no one got jilted, and most importantly, the beer was a hit! I had high hopes for this Russian River Row 2, Hill 56 clone, an all-Simcoe American Pale Ale, and I wasn't disappointed. More importantly, neither was the groom or his guests.

Things really worked out well for this beer. The brew day and subsequent fermentation went smoothly - the only aspect that was off was the higher-than-expected efficiency, resulting in an OG of 1.061 (5-6 points above target), but the beer still fermented fine. I then bottled the beer a little over two weeks before the wedding, which gave it plenty of time to carbonate (always easier this time of year), but still allowed it to be consumed very fresh during the festivities.

And it really came out tasty. As I stated in my original post, I was a little skeptical as to how hoppy a beer would be with only 3 oz of hop additions for aroma and flavor (1 oz at flameout, 2 oz dry-hop), but had read a lot of positive feedback on this beer from others who had brewed the recipe. I'm really starting to think that crazy-high hop additions at flameout and for the dry-hop may not be completely necessary, especially if you're using as-fresh-as-possible hops. For this beer, all of the Simcoe I had was this year's crop, so I'm sure that made a difference.

More research is needed, however... which I'm happy to dive into. In the meantime, you can add my name to the long list of homebrewers recommending this recipe. Hoppy, delicious, highly drinkable... and VERY approachable as a craft beer for any population. Brew it!

Appearance: Poured with a moderate-sized white head that fades fairly quickly to a thin film on the beer. Body is a dark gold color, approaching amber/light copper, with good clarity (despite the picture shown above).

Aroma: Big fruity hop aroma, with a bit of pine... but surprisingly, the fruit is way ahead. A bit of malt sweetness in there, with the grainy pils character slightly noticeable. No flaws.

Taste: Again, the hops are the dominant flavor, but are backed up nicely by the slightly grainy and sweet malt character. Finishes fairly dry with a medium bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Light-bodied, possibly medium-light; moderate carbonation.

Overall: A very tasty beer. Great hop character; the Simcoe definitely comes through with a mostly fruity presence. I really like what the malt bill adds to the beer as well, very supportive for an APA, without overbearing the hops. Quite drinkable, and a nice beer for beer geeks and non-beer geeks alike.

Brewing a Russian River Row 2, Hill 56 clone

Ah, summer. The season of warmer weather, vacations, and of course, beer! Also, fortunately or not, weddings. And next month, my older brother Geoff is getting married. I'm in the wedding party, but luckily I'm not responsible for making any speeches or really doing much of anything, other than standing there and looking pretty. There IS a big party the night before the wedding, however, and I was happy to volunteer to make a batch of beer to go with it.

Like me, Geoff is a big beer fan. He's not into homebrewing, but still loves trying new beers. Also like me, his favorite beers are hoppy ones, especially American Pale Ales and IPAs. I gave him some options of beers that I could brew for the party, and we both decided to settle on an APA - it's always a great style, because if you brew it right, beer geeks can love it, but it can also be fairly accessible for people who aren't necessarily into beer. Think of a hoppy Pale Ale, but not an overly bitter one. There's tons of APA recipes out there, and I have a lot of hops on hand that it would have been pretty easy to throw together a new recipe of my own, but I wanted to brew something that was tried and true, since the opinion of many beer drinkers was weighing on it. After doing a big of digging, I came back to a recipe I had come across a few months ago, a clone of a fairly new APA by Russian River Brewing Company.

The beer is called Row 2, Hill 56. Kind of an odd name for a beer at first glance, but when you read into it a bit, it makes perfect sense. The beer is brewed with 100% Simcoe hops; Row 2, Hill 56 is the location in an experimental hop yard in Yakima, WA, where Simcoe was first created. Now, anyone who is a fan of hoppy beers has experienced Simcoe. Released back in 2000, it's a dual-purpose hop that is mainly used for flavor and aroma purposes, as it gives a very unique profile of both citrus and pine. Russian River uses it in a lot of their hoppy beers (it's very prevalent in Pliny the Elder), as do a lot of breweries and homebrewers.

You don't need me to tell you any more about Simcoe; pretty much anyone reading this is already bored. The clone recipe for this beer was originally posted here, on the popular HomeBrewTalk forum. The recipe and beer stuck out for many reasons: I'm a big fan of Simcoe, but have never brewed a beer using it all on its own; a mid-5% ABV beer with ~40 IBUs sounded perfect - not too high to be accessible only to beer geeks or hop heads; and the recipe appears to have been brewed by many people that stand by its deliciousness. Perfect! Let's get started.

As far as APA grain bills go, this one struck me as a little odd, strictly because the majority of it is made up of Pilsner malt. Most APA recipes incorporate 2-row as the base malt; I'm not sure how much of a noticeable difference there is using Pilsner, but after brewing this recipe, several homebrewers commented on how much they enjoyed the malt bill, so I'm more than willing to give it a shot. There's also a good amount of Pale Malt used (I had Maris Otter on hand); the rest is a fairly small proportion of light Crystal (15 L and Carapils). The mash is performed at a fairly high sacc rest, 154 F, I'm assuming to provide the beer with some body, due to the light use of specialty grains and lower gravity (compared to IPAs, anyway).

Now, look at that hopping schedule below. I will admit, I was hesitant at first. I've brewed a lot of hoppy beers over the past few years, including some APAs with 3/4 lb of hops (or more) per 5 gallon batch. This recipe calls for a comparably scant amount of ~4 oz for a 6 gallon batch; luckily, the majority is used at flameout and for the dry-hop, but 1 oz at FO and 2 oz for the dry-hop is still low when you look at a lot of other APA recipes out there. That being said, I've questioned in previous posts whether there may be a ceiling effect when it comes to hop aroma/flavor; of course we all know there is for perceived bitterness, but what about the aspects that count? I think this will be a good test of that, and again, this recipe has received rave reviews, so I'm more than happy following it as-is, before tweaking it.

The wort is fermented with a neutral American strain (as usual for me lately, US-05) in the high-60s F. For water treatment, I chose not to go too heavy on anything - I didn't add any acid malt to the grain bill to fiddle with mash pH this time. I DID add a very small amount of gypsum and calcium chloride, but that's it. I won't be kegging this beer, unfortunately; the wedding is in our home province of Prince Edward Island, and I likely won't have the room to take a keg and 10 lb CO2 tank with me, so bottles it is!

A lot of Geoff's friends are beer drinkers, so unlike all of my other homebrews, I don't expect I'll get to really consume much of this batch. However, I'll be sure to set a bottle aside to do an official tasting, to post on the blog. Look for that sometime next month!

Recipe targets: (6 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.056, FG ~1.014, IBU 41, SRM 5, ABV ~5.6%

Grains & Sugars:
3.325 kg (60.5%) Pilsner malt
1.782 kg (32.4%) Maris Otter
225 g (4.1%) Crystal 15 L
165 g (3%) Carapils

Hops:

Simcoe - 14 g (12.4% AA) @ 60 min

Simcoe - 15 g @ 30 min

Simcoe - 28 g @ 0 (with a 5-minute steep)

Simcoe - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale, 1 package, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Gypsum and 2 g calcium chloride added to the mash

  - Brewed on June 10th, 2014, by myself. 50-minute mash with 15 L of strike water, mashed in at 153.5 F, slightly below target temp of 154 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 6.5 L of boiling water. Sparged with ~4 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~7.75 gallons.

- SG a bit high at 1.046 (target 1.044). 60-minute boil. Added flameout hops for a 5-minute steep, then turned on chiller. Final volume ~6 gallons. Chilled down to 66 F, then poured into Better Bottle. Gravity quite above target at 1.061. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast. Placed BB in room with ambient temp at 68 F.

- Over the next few days, fermentation gradually got going until reaching maximum activity in the airlock, bubbling every second, with the temperature getting as high as 72 F (warmer temps made it a bit tricky to keep it down to 68 F). The activity and krausen eventually settled after about a week.

- 24/6/14 - Gravity reading of 1.014, right on target. Added dry-hops directly into primary.

- 2/7/14 - Bottled with 115 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 for 5 gallons, with a max temp of 72 F reached.

- 30/7/14 - Tasting notes up... a delicious beer. Lots of hop presence with low bitterness; a fantastic beer to introduce non-beer drinkers to hoppy craft beers.

Brewing a Maine Beer Company MO clone (No. 4 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

While I've been brewing clone recipes left, right and center the last year, it's been quite a while (about 8 months) since I last brewed one for my Maine Beer Clone series. It's not that I ran out of ideas of beers from Maine to try to clone; on the contrary, it seems that every time I go back to Portland, I discover a new Maine beer/brewery that really impresses me. That being said, now that I'm taking the time to brew another entry in the series, I just can't help but attempt another beer from my favorite Maine brewery, Maine Beer Company.

Back in May, I brewed my first beer from MBC, a clone attempt of Zoe, their excellent hoppy American Amber Ale. I put together the recipe based on notes from their website, tasting experience on my part, and some help from brewer/owner Dan Kleban. I was very happy with how the beer came out; it's still up there with some of the best beers I've brewed. I've always been a big fan of Zoe, but now that MBC has a larger selection of beers, it takes a back seat to a couple of their other products.

I'd have to say my all-time-favorite beer from MBC is MO, an American Pale Ale that comes in at 6% ABV. I'd even go so far as to say it may be my current favorite APA of all the ones I've tried so far. If you think their Peeper is a fresh, hoppy beer, you'll be blown away by MO - it's a super-hoppy, delicious beer that you could drink pint after pint. Here's the more-eloquent description by the brewery:

"Flavors and aromas of zesty citrus, passionfruit, and pine present themselves throughout. A very subtle malt sweetness for balance, but this is intended to finish dry." 

Photo courtesy of Letspour.com

I've wanted to try to brew something along the lines of MO for awhile now. When I looked at the ingredients for the beer (MBC lists these for each of their beers on their website), the grist looked completely doable; it consists of "American 2-row, Carapils, Caramel 40 L, and Red Wheat". However, when I looked at the hops, one of them stood out as unrecognizable to me - the hops listed are Warrior, Falconer's Flight, and Simcoe. Any guess as to which one I didn't recognize?

Looking into it a little more, Falconer's Flight has only been around commercially for a few years. Developed by Hopunion, FF is a high-alpha acid aroma hop described as having an aroma of "distinct tropical, floral, lemon and grapefruit characteristics". Apparently it's actually a blend of hops from the Pacific Northwest, including experimental hops. Does this mean that what you buy as FF hops will differ from year to year? Not sure, but it sounds interesting, if a little inconsistent. Either way, I know they work fantastic in MO, and I finally bought a half pound of them, specifically for use in brewing this beer.

Ok, so, finally time to approach how to put the recipe together for this beer. As with the Zoe clone, I took the ingredients that I knew were in the beer, and plugged them into my brewing software (Beersmith), playing around with the percentages and such until it "looked right". In this case, my main concern was the hopping... obviously, Warrior was most-likely to be used for bittering. I knew that it probably wasn't a large amount at that; I've seen a homebrew Peeper recipe from Dan Kleban that is extremely detailed, and he said then that half the IBUs for that beer were from the flameout addition. I assume this would apply to MO, and maybe even more so. The IBUs for MO aren't listed on the MBC website, but with a 6% beer that isn't painfully bitter to me, I assumed about 60. Therefore, I initially went with a small addition of Magnum at the beginning of the boil, to about 30 IBUs.

As for the aroma and flavor hops, I knew they were FF and Simcoe, but how much of each? Equal amounts? Or is it more FF, or more Simcoe? For the Simcoe, Centennial and CTZ of Zoe, I went with equal amounts, but I really wasn't sure this time if it would work as well for a MO clone. So, I ASSUMED equal amounts for the recipe, going with a flavor addition at 10 and 5 minutes, and then a big flameout and dry-hop addition.

I then took this recipe and emailed Dan Kleban again, as I did for the Zoe clone. This is what I told him I'd probably be going with:

"~88% 2-row, 5% wheat malt, 3.5% each Carapils and Crystal 40 L. Mash in the high 140s. 60-minute boil, Warrior at the beginning to about 30 IBUs, then equal amounts Falconer's Flight and Simcoe at 10 and 5 minutes to bring the IBUs to a total of ~60. Lots of equal amounts of FF and Simcoe at flameout for a hop-steep, then lots in the dry-hop (maybe even a 2-stage DH). Ferment with a neutral American strain at ~68 F. Not sure if you use equal amounts of FF and Simcoe, or if one is higher than the other...?"

I waited for a few weeks for a response, and then shamelessly emailed him again, swearing to myself I wouldn't bug the poor man; if he didn't reply, I'd just go with it as-is. He did respond, however, with the following:

"Hey, Shawn - Grain looks good.  I would stick to equal amounts FF and Sim. Also, way less IBU from Warrior and more from late hop additions (don’t forget, you get isomerization at whirlpool too)."

The obligatory hop photo shoot

As with the Zoe clone, basically very few changes to make. From his advice, I decided to decrease the 60-minute hop addition in half to ~15 IBUs (I also had to sub Magnum for Warrior based on what I had on-hand). I also dropped the 5-minute addition and bumped the flameout hops even more. The calculated IBUs come to 43, but with the large flameout addition, it should be closer to my target of ~60. In the end, I'll be using 13 oz of flavor/aroma hops in this beer... quite a lot for an APA. But, I know that Peeper calls for a lot of hops, and MO is definitely hoppier than Peeper, so I don't think I'm overdoing it.

A word about the grist for this recipe. I aimed for an OG of 1.057, even though MBC lists their OG for MO at 1.051. I discussed this in the post for the Zoe clone; MBC obviously has crazy-high attenuation to be able to get a 6% ABV beer with an OG of 1.051... that would put their FG at about 1.005. That ain't gonna happen for me, even with using US-05 Safale for my yeast, and mashing low (about 148 F). I'd be happy seeing a beer of this size finishing at about 1.010-1.011, so 1.057 would put me in the range of 6% ABV. Your system may be different than mine, so adjust accordingly. I also added a bit of acid malt to drop the mash pH, as I've been doing lately for pale beers.

I unfortunately don't have any plans to be in Portland in the near future, but I'm hoping I'll somehow be able to get a bottle of fresh MO to compare to this beer when it's ALSO fresh.  

Recipe targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.057, FG ~1.011, IBU ~43 (calculated), SRM 6, ABV ~6%

Grains:
4.54 kg (86.1%) Canadian 2-row
254 g (4.8%) Wheat malt
191 g (3.6%) Carapils
191 g (3.6%) Crystal 40 L
100 g (1.9%) Acid malt

Hops:
Magnum - 11 g (10.8% AA) @ 60 min
Falconer's Flight - 28 g (10% AA) @ 10 min
Simcoe - 28 g (12% AA) @ 10 min
FF, Simcoe - 42 g each @ flameout, 20-minute hop steep
FF, Simcoe - 42 g each when started chiller
FF, Simcoe - 35 g each dry-hop for 4 days
FF, Simcoe - 35 g each dry-hop for 3 more days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: US-05, 1 package, re-hydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 7 g Gypsum added to the mash

- Brewed on January 7th, 2014, by myself. 60-minute mash with 17.5 L of strike water, mashed in at target temp of 148 F. Sparged with ~4.75 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- SG 1.045, a bit below target of 1.047. 60-minute boil. Final volume 5.5 gallons. Chilled down to 62 F, then poured/filtered (lots of hop sludge) into Better Bottle. OG low at 1.055. Aerated with 75 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast. Placed BB in laundry room, ambient temp about 68 F.

- 8/1/14 - 11/1/14 - Lots of activity over the first few days, temp rising from 64 F to 70 F over 4 days. By the 11th, activity had pretty much stopped in the airlock.

- 13/1/14 - Gravity reading of 1.010.

- 19/1/14 - Racked to secondary, added first dry-hops.

- 22/1/14 - Second dry-hop addition.

- 26/1/14 - After cold-crashing in beer-freezer for one day, bottled about 1 gallon with 25 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 with max temp of 70 F reached. Racked the rest into a keg, purged with CO2, and set at 14 PSI (set in cellar, temp 46 F).

- 25/2/14 - Tasting notes... despite being a very tasty APA, the beer isn't near as hoppy or tasty as the real thing. Dang.

Tasting : Belmade Pale Ale (APA with Belma and Cascade)

I have a lot of homebrew tasting notes to get caught up on, so you'll have to excuse a potential flurry of posts; actually, this isn't really a bad thing since I've been pretty terrible at posting in general, lately.

This beer is the American Pale Ale I brewed in September, which I hopped with equal amounts of Cascade and Belma hop pellets. Except for a very small bittering addition, most of the hops were added at flameout (3 oz each) and in the dry-hop (1.25 oz each). I wasn't completely sure what to expect, but was ultimately aiming for a medium-strength, medium-bodied APA with a good amount of fruity hop presence in the aroma and flavor.

For the most part, I think I hit that goal. More details below, but the beer is definitely fruity and citrusy. What the beer definitely could use more of is bitterness; in hindsight, I should have either let the hops steep longer than I did, or maybe thrown in a 10-minute addition to up the IBUs a bit. You CAN get IBUs from flameout additions, but you have to add a lot of hops, and I guess make sure to let them steep long enough. How long, exactly? Well, I still haven't found anything concrete that says "x" amount of minutes with "y" amount of hops gives you "z" amount of IBUs. Maybe a good blog post for the future...

Still, it's definitely a tasty APA, and at 5% ABV (along with a low-perceived bitterness) makes for some easy-drinking.

Appearance: Pours with a moderate-sized, slightly off-white head that shows pretty good retention. Fades to 1/4-finger. Body is golden with really good clarity.

Aroma: Definitely getting some of that now-expected Belma character... strawberries, and some citrus fruit from the Cascade. A touch of malt sweetness, but the hops dominate.

Taste: Similar to the aroma, big hop flavor of strawberries and citrus. The beer finishes nicely balanced, tilting towards the dry side. Medium-low bitterness, needs to be higher. No flaws detected.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, medium carbonation. Smooth.

Overall: Nice APA; I'd consider brewing it again if I had a lot of Belma on hand sometime, but as mentioned, I'd either steep the flameout hops longer, or more likely add maybe 0.5-1 oz of Belma and Cascade at 10 or 5 minutes.

Brewing an American Pale Ale (with Belma and Cascade)

Crap, I let it happen again! An almost-two-month hiatus from brewing! I won't lay on the excuses, but am I the only homebrewer that finds it more difficult to brew regularly in the summer? Temperature issues aside, there always seems to be so much going on, it can be tough to squeeze in a brew day. Luckily I got a couple batches brewed in both June and July, so I didn't run out of beer for August and September... but I sure did miss brewing!

Anyhow, back to business. I had ordered a smackpack of Wyeast 3711 French Saison from my LHBS a few weeks ago, but it arrived later than expected. Before I could get a starter made, an impromptu brew day came up. All I had on hand was good ol' US-05, so I decided to whip together an American Pale Ale. I took a quick look at my inventory list, hop-wise, and picked out a couple of varieties that I still had 1/2 lb of, but hadn't used much of lately... Belma and Cascade.

Anyone who's homebrewed is familiar with Cascade, but Belma is definitely a newer variety. I used a small amount of it in a Witbier I brewed a few months ago, but this time I really wanted to use it in higher quantities. As mentioned in the Witbier post, Belma is a variety created by the farmers at Hops Direct, and is supposed to be quite fruity, described as having notes of orange, melon, pineapple... and especially strawberry. I had thrown around the idea of brewing an APA solely with Belma hops, but thought I'd try mixing it in with equal amounts of Cascade. With the typical characteristics of Cascade, I'm aiming to have an APA that is REALLY fruity.

Once I had the hop varieties picked out, I threw together a recipe. As I said, at first I had intended on brewing the beer with JUST Belma, so I planned on using a recipe in For the Love of Hops, by Stan Hieronymus. In one section of the book, Stan talks to Russian River's Vinnie Cilurzo concerning a standard recipe Vinnie uses when he wants to get a feel for what characteristics a single hop brings to a beer. The recipe is really more intended to be for an IPA, but I just scaled it back to an OG of about 1.050. It's made up of 74% 2-row, 13% Maris Otter, 10% Crystal 15 L, and 3% Acid malt. The hopping amounts he used in this recipe are a little lower than what I wanted to go with, so I created my own hop schedule from here.

I really hopped this beer... I wasn't trying to overdo it, by any means, but I tried to take advantage of the "hop bursting" method that I've been using more lately, where you add the high majority of your hops at the end of the boil. In this case, I only made one hop addition during the boil... a very small amount of Belma at 60 minutes to about 10 IBUs. I then added a large amount - 3 oz each of Cascade and Belma - at flameout, and let the hops steep for 15 minutes before turning on the chiller. You still get some IBUs when the wort is this hot, but you're mainly trying to extract a lot of flavor and aroma from the hops. This is the method used in the Modern Times Fortunate Islands clone I brewed in July, and that beer came out pretty fantastic. I then, of course, had to dry-hop the beer, so I decided to go with equal amounts Belma and Cascade again, 1&1/4 oz of each for 7 days.

This brew day was also the first for two new pieces of equipment for me. First, I finally replaced my crappy turkey fryer with a Blichmann burner. I was given the opportunity to buy this product brand new for an extremely reasonable price, and I couldn't resist. With an evenly-distributed flame, the burner is supposed to be much more efficient with propane, and provide a better boil in a faster time. I CAN say, after using it once, that it's a damned-sturdy product, and is obviously built to last. And standing next to it in my garage when the wort is boiling no longer sounds like I'm in the engine of a 747. This thing is QUIET. I also had zero soot on the bottom of my kettle after the 60-minute boil was complete, a first for me in homebrewing.

My other new product is a Thermapen. I wouldn't say that I've had major problems with my fairly-cheap digital thermometer that I've been using for a couple of years now, but it takes a long time to get an accurate (?) reading. I've been hearing a lot of highly-exuberant testimonials about the Thermapen over the years (both for brewing and cooking), and an opportunity came up (again!) to buy one at a reduced price. It really is very fast... only takes about 2-3 seconds to get a temperature reading, and the accuracy seems pretty fantastic.

I plan on fermenting the beer at around 68 F for a couple of weeks, tops, and then adding the dry-hops directly into primary for a week. Bottled from there, I hope to be drinking this beer by mid-October. I'm also behind on some tasting notes for more-recent brews, but I'll try to get the results for this APA posted soon after starting to drink it.

Recipe targets: (5.5 gallons, 78% efficiency) OG 1.052, FG ~1.012, IBU ~35, SRM 5.3, ABV ~5.2%

Grains:
3.41 kg (74%) Canadian 2-row
591 g (13%) Maris Otter
454 g (10%) Crystal 15 L
136 g (3%) Acid malt

Hops:
Belma - 7 g (11.3% AA) @ 60 min
Belma - 84 g @ 0 min (steeped for 15 minutes)
Cascade - 84 g (5.5% AA) @ 0 min (steeped for 15 minutes)
Belma - 35 g dry-hop for 7 days
Cascade - 35 g dry-hop for 7 days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: 1 package Fermentis US-05 dry yeast, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 5 g Gypsum, 3 g CaCl in the mash

- Brewed on Sept 18th, 2013, with Jill. 60-minute mash with 15 L of strike water, mashed in at target temp of 153 F. Sparged with 5 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons in the kettle.

- SG at 1.043, slightly over target of 1.042. 60-minute boil. Flameout hops steeped for 15 minutes, then turned on immersion chiller. Chilled down to 64 F, then poured/filtered ~5 gallons into Better Bottle. OG a bit low at 1.050. Aerated with 75 seconds of pure O2 and placed in laundry room, ambient temp about 68 F (a bit high).

19/9/13 - Some light activity in the airlock in the AM, temp 68 F. By the evening, bubbling vigorously, temp still at 68 F.

20/9/13 - In the AM, still lots of airlock activity, temp up to 70 F.

22/9/13 - Returned from being away for a few days, airlock activity has stopped completely. Temp 70 F. Took a gravity reading of 1.013.

28/9/13 - Added dry-hops directly to primary.

5/10/13 - Bottled with 101 g table sugar, aiming for 2.4 vol CO2 for 4.5 gallons, with a max temp of 70 F reached.

13/11/13 - Tasting notes... turned out pretty enjoyable. Easy-drinking, nice hop presence, but could definitely use a kick in the bitterness department.

Brewing a Rising Tide Daymark clone (No. 2 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

When I wrote my post on brewing the Oxbow Freestyle #5 clone, I mentioned that I'd like to start a series of beer clones from different breweries around Maine. As I mentioned in that post, Maine has a great number of excellent breweries that are making very tasty and border-pushing beers. I thought of several breweries that I'd like to contact about providing information for a clone; one of the first that came to mind was Rising Tide Brewing Co., located in Portland.

Owned by husband-and-wife team Nathan and Heather Sanborn, Rising Tide opened their doors in October of 2010. While Heather is in charge of the business side of the brewery, Nathan - a long-time homebrewer before going pro - is the brewmaster. Their first beer was Ishmael, a Dusseldorf Altbier. Over the next couple of years, they added other beer styles to their line-up, including an American IPA, a Black IPA, and a dark Wheat beer. They have also begun producing some seasonal beers, such as Tempest, a Brown Porter with local coffee beans and cold-steeped coffee. All of their beers are available in 22 oz bombers, and/or on tap at many beer bars and restaurants around Maine. They've also recently started distributing beers to Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

I've had all of Rising Tide's regular-release beers, and I've also had their Tempest on tap. They were all really good beers, but my favorite by-far has been their Daymark, an American Pale Ale made with a portion of rye malt; Rising Tide refers to the beer as a Rye Pale Ale. It's a fantastic beer regardless of what you want to call it, with a nice character coming from the rye malt, and a big hop presence both in the aroma and the flavor. Very drinkable at 5.5% ABV, and the bitterness is perfect for a pale ale - present and firm, but not overwhelming. I assume this is a very popular beer for Rising Tide, as it was available at a lot of beer bars and restaurants when I was on a recent trip to Portland.

Shortly after brewing the Freestyle #5 clone, I contacted Nathan by email and asked if he'd be willing to help with a homebrew version of Daymark. He got back to me within a week or so, with the following:

"Sure, I'd be happy to give you a little guidance on the Daymark. What I normally tell people is: 2-row, about 10-15% rye, and a touch of wheat. Centennial and Columbus to 45 ibus, mostly at the end of the boil. More in the whirlpool. Target 1050 starting gravity and mash cool. Ferment with a clean ale yeast and dry hop aggressively.

The most important aspect of the grain bill is the rye, and the character of the rye that you pick up will influence the amount you need to use. Our rye comes from a couple different farms here in Maine and Mass and varies slightly from batch to batch. You'll want to experiment with somewhere between 10 and 15% of the grist as rye."

It's always nice to actually see the recipe for a beer you've tried many times and enjoyed... it's a good way of confirming/negating an opinion you may have already formed about the ingredients or technique. Obviously the Centennial hops provide the citrus character in the beer, while the Columbus, known for giving a pungent, spicy aroma and flavor, would go well with what the rye malt brings to the table. After almost 60 batches of homebrew, I haven't actually worked with rye malt, so I won't give an opinion about whether or not rye malt actually makes a beer spicy (a hot topic on many homebrew forums!).

With Nathan's info, it wasn't too difficult to put together a homebrew recipe for Daymark. I went with ~12.5% rye malt; I know that it came from Canada Malting Co., but that's all. Plus, I have no experience with rye, so I figured middle-of-the-road for Nathan's recommendation should be fine. The rest of the grist I made up with Canadian 2-row, and about 5% Wheat malt. I also added 1/2 lb of rice hulls, since Rye malt is supposed to be a bit tricky to work with, stuck-sparge wise (12.5% isn't a lot, but better safe than sorry). Daymark has always struck me as a fairly dry beer, so I'm going to aim for a mash temp of about 150 F.

Now, the hopping schedule: since the IBUs and perceived-bitterness for this beer aren't ridiculously high, I went with a very small addition of Columbus at 60 minutes. I then added healthy amounts of both Columbus and Centennial in equal portions at both 10 minutes and at flameout, where I let the hops steep for a further 10 minutes as the "whirlpool" step. As a result, the perceived bitterness of this beer will likely be higher than the calculated number of 42 IBUs. Of course, there will also be a fairly-large dry-hop addition of both Columbus and Centennial, as per Nathan's instructions. A total of 3 oz of dry-hops does seem a bit much for an APA, but Nathan DOES say to dry-hop "aggressively", so there it is!

In terms of the rest of the recipe, I'm using US-05 Safale for the yeast, and I'm going to add a small amount of gypsum to the mash, just to bring up the calcium levels slightly. I plan on fermenting the beer at about 68 F (a usual target temperature for clean, American ales) for 2-3 weeks, before throwing in the dry-hop addition. When this beer is complete I'd love to find the freshest Daymark I can get my hands on to compare... as usual in New Brunswick, definitely easier said than done!

Thanks again to Nathan Sanborn for the info!

Recipe targets: (5.5 gallons, 80% efficiency) OG 1.050, FG 1.013, IBU 42, SRM 4, ABV ~5% 

Grains:
3.64kg (82%) Canadian 2-row
568 g (13%) Rye malt
227 g (5%) Wheat malt
227 g Rice hulls

Hops:
Columbus - 8 g (10% AA) @ 60 min
Columbus - 42 g (11% AA) @ 10 min
Centennial - 42 g (6.1% AA) @ 10 min
Columbus - 28 g (14.5% AA) @ 0 min (with 10-min whirlpool)
Centennial - 28 g (9.9% AA) @ 0 min (with 10-min whirlpool)
Columbus - 42 g dry-hop for 7 days
Centennial - 42 g dry-hop for 7 days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale dry yeast, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 5 g gypsum added to the mash

- Brewed Feb. 21st, 2013, with Geoff. 50-minute mash with 12.8 L of strike water, mashed in just a touch under the target of 150 F. Mashed out for 10 minutes with 7 L of boiling water, resulting temp 165 F. Sparged with ~4 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons in the kettle.

- SG 1.039 (target 1.041). 60-minute boil. After letting final hop additions steep for 10 minutes, chilled to 62 F in about 25 minutes with immersion chiller. Poured into Better Bottle, end volume low at about 4.5-4.75 gallons due to hop sludge in kettle. OG 1.050. Pitched rehydrated yeast at 62 F, aerated by shaking for several minutes before and after pitching.

22/2/13 - Real activity in the airlock wasn't visible until late evening... the temperature was still pretty low in the morning at about 64 F, so I increased the temp in the room. By the end of the day, the temp had got up to 68 F and the airlock was bubbling steadily every second.

23/2/13 - Bubbling at least once per second in the AM, temp up to 70 F. Starting to slow slightly in the evening. By the next day, airlock activity slowed to every 3 seconds, temp holding at 70 F.

2/3/13 - Gravity reached terminal target, 1.013.

5/3/13 - Added dry hops directly to primary fermenter (no secondary currently available).

10/3/13 - Put fermenter in fermentation chamber with temp set to 50 F, to help the dry hops settle out.

13/3/13 - Bottled with 101 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 for 4.25 gallons, with max temp of 70 F reached. Also added ~1/4 pack of Nottingham yeast, rehydrated.

14/5/13 - Posted the tasting notes here. Close, but I'd like it to be closer... can't say it's cloned, yet.

Tasting/Recipe : E-C-K-E-S No. 7

Ah, the freedom of formulating your own recipe! There’s nothing like actually starting a recipe from scratch: having an end product in your mind, and putting together the right grain bill, hop additions, yeast strain, etc. etc., and having it turn out just as good, or even better, than you had hoped.

And, of course, there’s a flip-side. Putting all that thought and work into a beer, and having a big disappointment when you finally take that first sip. E-C-K-E-S No. 7, an American Pale Ale whose name I won’t even begin to try to explain, is that type of beer for me.

Back in September, I was ready to brew another APA. I always like to have at least one APA on hand... the good ones are flavorful, hoppy, bitter but not overly-so, and with an ABV that generally shouldn’t knock you out after one pint. I had a surplus of hops left over from a bulk order a while back, and wanted to use a couple of newer varieties that haven’t been out for too long. One of these was Citra, a high-alpha acid hop that is known for its intense citrusy aroma. The other was Sorachi Ace, which has been available in Japan for quite some time, but is relatively new to the U.S. and Canada. Also quite high-alpha acid, it has a unique lemongrass, lemon-peel aroma and flavor. In terms of the malt bill, generally I wanted to keep it fairly simple, but hopefully with enough character so that the hops wouldn’t COMPLETELY dominate.

Looking back, it seems pretty obvious now that any beer that uses two “intense” hops in equal amounts may have some problems, and that’s how this beer comes across to me. I can never really place exactly what it is, but every time I smell it or taste it, the citrus and lemongrass seem to be fighting against, instead of complementing, each other. Of course it’s entirely possible that I screwed up somewhere in the process, but I followed the usual routine that I use, had a clean fermentation from what I could tell, used a fairly neutral American Ale yeast... not sure. It’s definitely a shame, as I like both of these hops when I’ve had commercial beers that have specifically put one or the other front-and-center. Maybe they just weren’t meant to be combined! Still, it was an interesting experiment to say the least, and the beer certainly isn’t undrinkable... in fact, some people who have tried it actually enjoyed it. But in the end I definitely won’t duplicate this recipe again, or even likely use Citra and Sorachi Ace hops in the same beer.

Appearance: Poured with a moderate-sized, white, creamy head that exhibits pretty good retention. Fades slowly to 1/2-finger. Body is dark gold/light copper, with good clarity.

Aroma: Very strong citrusy hop aroma... orange, mango, grapefruit... and the lemongrass is pushing in there, too.

Taste: Strong hop flavor, again, very orangey and citrusy, and then, again, the lemongrass, ultimately giving an odd, half-sweet, half-fruity flavor. Low malt presence... maybe a bit grainy. Moderate bitterness in the finish.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, moderate carbonation.

Overall: Definitely a very hoppy (but not overly bitter) APA... as I mentioned above, ultimately I’m disappointed with the flavor clash. I think it would have been better just showcasing ONE of the two hops, and maybe using a more-neutral, earthy hop in the background. However, I’ve made worse beers... I DO like how the fermentation finished clean, and there’s no off-flavors that I can detect.

Recipe: (5.5 gallons, 78% efficiency): OG 1.055, FG 1.012, IBU 37.5, SRM 7.6

Grains:
2.05 kg Canadian 2-row
2.05 kg Maris Otter
227 g Wheat malt
227 g Victory malt
227 g Caramunich II (45 L)

Hops:
Magnum - 6 g (9.4 % AA) @ 60 min
Sorachi Ace - 28 g (9.5% AA) @ 10 min
Citra - 28 g (10.3% AA) @ 10 min
Sorachi Ace & Citra - 14 g each @ 5 min
Sorachi Ace & Citra - 28 g each @ 0 min
Sorachi Ace & Citra - 42 g each dry-hop for 7 days

Misc.:
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient @ 15 min
1/2 tab Irish Moss @ 5 min

Yeast: Wyeast 1056 American Ale (PD July 19/11) (with a 1.75 L starter)

- Brewed Sept 6, 2011, by myself. 60 minute mash with 15.75 L of strike water, mashed in at 154 F. Sparged with ~5 gallons of 170 F water for final volume of 6.75 gallons in the kettle. 60 minute boil.

- Chilled down to 66 F with immersion chiller and pump with ice water. Poured and filtered into Better Bottle. Pitched decanted yeast starter, aerating by shaking for several minutes before and after.

- Active fermentation for several day, temp getting up to 72 F. After 3 weeks, racked to 5-gallon secondary fermenter, and dry-hopped as indicated. Set fermenter in fermentation chamber with temp set to 50 F to cool-crash.

- Bottled with 122 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 for 5 gallons. Also added ~1/4 pack of rehydrated Nottingham yeast.