This beer turned out to be pretty good. My only complaint at this point is that it has a minerally flavor and kind of a thin body. Could that be related to 225 ppm of SO4? I have never had this flavor when using that amount before so I assume it is not.
For the hell of it, I threw a couple of cans of pureed mandarin oranges into the fermenter which comes through slightly in the flavor. This beer is definitely high on the cascade/citrus character which I was going for and is definitely less malty than previous attempts. I need to rebrew it soon because I had some efficiency and fermentation issues that I would like to correct. I may make some adjustments to the water as well. This is obviously a bad style to judge yeast on so I it’s hard to make any judgments on my first usage of K97.
I made a blonde ale with K97. I think you and I purchased it at the same time. I cannot tell the difference between K97 and US05 for blonde ale. If I did a side by side I might notice a difference, but, based on my memory of my blonde ale, which I brew a lot, I can’t tell.
The K97 beer is more cloudy, but, gelatin cleared it up very nicely (and fast).
Mine was extremely murky going into the keg. It has been in the keg for about a week and it just starting to clear up. For a while it resembled orange juice which was interesting.
Good to hear your impressions in a blonde ale. I have it going in a brown ale right now and plan to use it a bunch over the next few months.