I am planning an English summer beer. My first stab at a recipe:
7# Pale Malt (3L)
4 oz. Honey malt
1# Honey @ 0 min.
1 oz. EKG @ 60 min
1 oz. EKG @ 0 min.
Danstar Nottingham yeast
1046 OG
23 IBU
I have never had an English Summer Ale. I only know it falls in the BJCP blonde ale category. I like honey blondes so I just made one of those with EKG.
Any thoughts on the recipe?
Should I use Pilnser malt instead of the Pale malt?
Should I ferment low (mid 50’s) to keep it clean or mid 60’s to get some esters?
Other guidance?
PS. This beer won’t be going in to a contest so veering from the style guidelines is not a problem.
Use British base malt. My suggestion is Optic, especially if you haven’t tried it.
I’d use one of the British liquid strains and make some esters. I’ve heard Nottingham is good when fermented cool and clean, but not good when fermented warmer. Never tried it.
I have had a few in London. They are fairly hoppy, easy to drink, and quite pale. Some malt, yeast character, and water high in sulfate comes through. Fullers Honey Dew uses honey, so try and find a recipe for that for comparison.
I didn’t mention I am trying to brew this beer from inventory I have on hand. I will have to try Optic malt another time. I have Pilsner and Pale Ale base malts in my inventory. I have 2 English yeasts in the fridge, both Dry, Danstar Nottingham and Danstar Windsor. I chose the Nottingham because I wanted less esters and more attenuation. After reading the English Golden Ale description from the new BJCP proposed guidelines (thanks, hopfenundmalz) I think Nottingham is the better choice. The description says “Moderately-low to low esters.” They also use words like quenching and refreshing. The style guidelines also mention some of these beers use sugar, corn, or wheat in the grain bill. So I think I will keep the honey.
One thing the style guidelines and the video below mention is hop forward/hop show case. The guidelines mention American citrus hops are common. A video describing Morland Old Golden Hen talks about a Tasmanian tropical fruit flavored hop. As such I may move some more EKG to the bittering addition and then mix in an American hop at flame out. Maybe a bit of Amarillo or Citra?
I read through some of the commercial example descriptions. I think I am close enough for my purposes.
My thoughts…as an Englishman
Blonde ales have gained a lot of popularity here in recent years.
They are a bit of a mongrel beer IMO…sort of a cross between a traditional English ale and an American Pale.
The majority of the base malt would be British pale ale malt…Crisp, Fawcetts etc.
Most have an inclusion of lager or pilsner malt to help get a point or two lower FG than a traditional bitter and it also gives a bit of graininess.
Some that I’ve tried (and made) include a fair bit of munich malt to enhance the malt character.
The grain bills are pretty simple really.
Hop wise…anything goes really, providing that you don’t bitter it up too much. You need to keep it drinkable, that is crucial IMO.
EKG blends well with virtually anything and particularly so with the fruity US/Aus/NZ hops.
Some of my best beers of this type have been made using my chosen US/Aus/NZ hop for a moderate bittering addition, a heap of EKG with 15-20 mins of the boil remaining and then back to the bittering hop for the hop stand / whirlpool addition.
Yeast wise, I think Nottingham strips out hop flavour. It is reliable and flocs well, but is rather bland IMO.
WLP002 and 005 are popular, though my favourite is 007 as it produces a nice dry beer with a touch of fermentation character.
My shout for a dry yeast would be Safale S-04.
Lots of smaller micros here are using US-05/WLP001, but I like a bit of fruitiness in English styles.
Thanks for the post, Mark. I have to admit, I hadn’t given this style a second thought until I saw your post. But the thought of EKGs plus Galaxy really intrigues me. Now I think I may have to brew one to step up a pitch for my next ESB. Not sure whether I’m going to go with WLP002 or WLP013 yet.
My first thought was to follow what Mark said about brewers cutting the pale malt with pilsner malt to add some grainy flavor and cutting back some of the British pale malt sweetness.
Good tips. Thanks. Summer is coming to an end but I plan to brew this in the next couple of weeks. Where I live (Deep South) summer practically never ends.
STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.047
Final Gravity: 1.016
ABV (standard): 4.1%
IBU (tinseth): 28.93
SRM (morey): 7.35
FERMENTABLES:
2 lb - United Kingdom - Maris Otter Pale (44.4%)
1.5 lb - German - Pilsner (33.3%)
6 oz - Torrified Wheat (8.3%)
6 oz - Cane Sugar (8.3%)
4 oz - United Kingdom - Dark Crystal 80L (5.6%)
HOPS:
1 oz - Challenger, Type: Pellet, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 28.93
0.25 oz - Challenger, Type: Pellet, AA: 4, Use: Boil for 0 min
0.5 oz - East Kent Goldings, Type: Pellet, AA: 5, Use: Boil for 0 min
0.5 oz - Galaxy, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Boil for 0 min
0.5 oz - East Kent Goldings, Type: Pellet, AA: 5, Use: Dry Hop for 0 days
0.5 oz - Galaxy, Type: Pellet, AA: 15, Use: Dry Hop for 0 days
Ideally, I’d use a lighter color English Crystal malt (and if I can track down some English C-30 I will). I’d still rather use an English crystal malt that is too dark rather than a lighter US malt.
That’s pretty low attenuation even for that yeast. I wouldn’t count on it stopping at 1.016. Not sure if you even pay attention to fg numbers from brewing programs but I thought I would throw that out there.
I would go with the light carastan from Bairds, only 17-20L and it does give some appropriate flavors. The regular carstan at ~35L might be another choice. The Golden Ales I have had are really light in color, but still have that British flavor.
Sorry, I didn’t see this until now.
Looks like it will work well to me. Galaxy bends well with English hops; and one of my favourite combos is with EKG
Personally I would mash a little lower - 149 in your money (65 deg. C) as most beers of this type are quite dry.
WLP002 is a great choice, finishes dry but does still give a touch of fruitiness.
Have a good brew (if you’ve not already done it).
I brewed today. I hope I am close to an English Summer Ale. I followed some of the inputs above, but, I didn’t want late citrus hops. I tried to compensate a tiny bit with Chinook as the bittering hop though it won’t add much citrus if any.
16 lbs. Maris Otter,
1.5 lbs. torrified wheat
1 lb. Belgian light candi sugar (added to boil kettle)
Mashed in 6 gallons of strike water at 158°F for 90 minutes
Boiled for 90 minutes
2 oz. Clusters 75 minutes
3 oz. Styrian Goldings 15 minutes
3 oz. EKGs 5 min
Split between two primaries. One was pitched with WY1968 Fuller’s yeast, the other received WY1469 Tim Taylor yeast.
The Tim Taylor version is excellent. The Fuller’s version, I believe, got some sort of wild yeast infection. It is cloudy and slightly tart…not what I would expect from Fuller’s yeast. It still tastes better than PBR, though.
