Transatlantic Golden Ale

[Skyler]

So the brewday was Saturday and it's got a good bit of krausen going right now. I have a 2 month-old at home, so brewing has been going slowly, but I managed to pull one off after a lot of recipe planning. I had originally planned on going a fully English-style bitter, except using mild European-style US-grown hops (Glacier and Mt. Hood). That recipe was Crisp no. 19 Maris Otter, Crisp medium crystal malt and a touch of American white wheat malt. But I made a rather last-minute decision to scrap that and brew something somewhere between a British Golden/Summer Ale and an American Pale Ale (or perhaps just like a British Golden Ale that uses a touch of Amarillo hops).

Recipe AS PLANNED (20L):

10 lbs Maris Otter (Crisp No. 19)
8 oz Carafoam (Weyermann)
8 oz White Wheat Malt (Great Western)
6 oz corn sugar

.5 oz Glacier 5.2% AA FWH (60 mins)
.3 oz Millennium 16% AA 60 mins
.5 oz Glacier 5.2% AA 30 mins
1 oz Amarillo 7% AA 5 mins
1 oz Amarillo 7% AA Flame-out

Water profile: 60 ppm Ca, 30 ppm Na, 11 ppm Mg, 220 ppm Sulfate, 40 ppm Chloride, ~0 ppm Bicarbonate
Whirlfloc and Wyeast nutrient added at 10 mins, Brewtan B added at 5 mins (and at mash)

Mash: 149F 60 mins (batch sparge, no mash-out)

WLP002 English Ale (2L SNS starter)

Target Gravity: 1.049 - 1.011 (~5% ABV)
Target IBUs: ~40
Target Color: 4.5-5 SRM/9-10 EBC

The day began well. I hit my mash temp, no stuck sparge, and I didn't forget the FWH. However, and this is unusual for me, but I did forget a few things (I blame the baby for having assorted infancy-related needs):
1. I wasn't really watching the wort, so it may have begun to boil ~10-15 mins before I noted it (not a serious concern, rdwhah).
2. I set my timer for 10 mins after my 30-min addition instead of for 20 mins.
3. When I went to make my 10 min addition (whirlfloc and Wyeast nutrient), I brought my 5 min hops to add them, too, as though they were meant to be a 10-min addition. Since this was actually only 40 minutes into the boil and not 50 minutes into the boil, the hops, whirlfloc and nutrients all became 20-min additions unless I made a change. I determined to shorten the boil by 5 minutes, making them all 15-minute additions.
4. I set the boil a little too low (barely rolling) at first, so I adjusted it and it ended up being a pretty vigorous boil. This wouldn't be an issue if it wasn't for the evaporative effect of a vigorous boil.

So I ended up with a different beer than I set out to make:

Recipe AS BREWED (21L):

10 lbs Maris Otter (Crisp No. 19)
8 oz Carafoam (Weyermann)
8 oz White Wheat Malt (Great Western)
6 oz corn sugar

.5 oz Glacier 5.2% AA FWH (~65 mins)
.3 oz Millennium 16% AA 55 mins
.5 oz Glacier 5.2% AA 25 mins
1 oz Amarillo 7% AA 15 mins
1 oz Amarillo 7% AA Flame-out

Water profile: (8 gallons) 60 ppm Ca, 30 ppm Na, 11 ppm Mg, 220 ppm Sulfate, 40 ppm Chloride, ~0 ppm Bicarbonate, phosphoric acid added to mash and sparge for pH ~5.32
Diluted with: 1 gal (US) Crystal Geyser Spring Water (that's the size bottle it came in).
Whirlfloc and Wyeast nutrient added at 15 mins, Brewtan B added at 10 mins (and at mash)

Mash: 149F 60 mins (batch sparge, no mash-out)

WLP002 English Ale (2L SNS starter)

Calculated IBUS: 37
Measured SG: 1.049 - 1.011 (expected)

Yeast pitched at 17C, high krausen at 18C and holding steady there. When krausen falls, I will raise it to 71C for a few days before crashing it to 1C for a week or 5 days and kegging with gelatin. Most beers of mine get 2 weeks minimum in the fermenter before cold crashing, but WLP002 (purportedly the Fuller's strain) is so fast that I don't see the point.

Wort boiled too hard, ended up with 17L of 1.060 wort. I decided to add a gallon of spring water. I am sure that will muck with the balance/water chemistry a bit, but probably not too much, as their water reports indicate the water coming from the 2 nearest sources to me are very low in chloride and sulfate. Looking at the side of the fermenter, I appeared to have 21L of wort, which is fine with me. I'll decide when I am done whether I should call it a golden ale or a pale ale or whatever.

 

[jMac]

.5 oz Glacier 5.2% AA FWH (60 mins)
.3 oz Millennium 16% AA 60 mins
.5 oz Glacier 5.2% AA 30 mins

I don’t know those hops (but have just had a quick read up on hopslist). Have you used them before? How are they?

 

[Skyler]

Millennium is a neutral bittering hop -- fairly smooth, but not quite as smooth as Magnum.

Glacier is considered an "English-style" US hop, which generally means mild and floral and/or earthy/herbaceous and not dank, citrusy or fruity at all. In terms of aroma it is floral and very slightly piney (I only noticed this when consuming a 100% Glacier IPA). In terms of bittering properties, it is very low in co-humulone, so a very smooth bittering hop. It is often considered a replacement for Willamette, as its aromatic properties are similar (though maybe a bit less earthy), but its bittering qualities are generally preferable to Willamette. Think if First Gold and Perle somehow had a milder, more delicate offspring. I like Glacier as a "backup" hop if I am not going too hop-forward in a beer. It is clearly "hoppy" in aroma without overpowering anything, and some hops (like Amarillo) can be one-note if they aren't blended appropriately. Amarillo in moderate quantities without any other hops can come across like reconstituted frozen orange juice, IMO, so I like to give it something either piney, dank, grapefruity or floral to build on. Amarillo/Simcoe is a classic IPA combo, but I was shooting for something more restrained and refreshing in this beer.

Many of the top US aroma hops before the IPA boom in the '00s were classified as either Noble-type or English-type if they weren't citrusy and piney. Sterling, Mt. Hood, Ultra, Crystal, Liberty and Mt. Rainier are all generally "noble-type," while Willamette, Glacier, Delta, Comet and Palisade are all "English-type."

 

[jMac]

Thanks! You obviously know your hops! Me, I’m far too conservative, tending to stick to EKG for English (and my Wit!) and Simcoe, Citra, mosaic for my Americans. I’m just experimenting with Apollo and Ekuanot combined though - so maybe there is hope for me!

 

[Skyler]

Yeah, living in Portland, OR for six years, walking distance from several excellent breweries while keeping 9 homebrews on tap gave me a pretty good sense for certain hop varietals. FWIW, Simcoe/Amarillo is a classic West Coast IPA combo (with/without additional C-hops), fwiw. Apollo, like Summit, can either be very citrusy or somewhat more herbal (even a bit like spring onions), depending on how it is grown. Usually you can tell which you have by giving it a good smell before you brew.