English Summer Ale

I stacked my brewing docket very ambitiously this winter.  So here we are, halfway through spring, and most of the beers still on it are kind of out of season.  I'm still planning to brew most of them, and several will hopefully be brewed to age over the summer for the next round of cold weather, but it's time to incorporate some more season-appropriate batches into the rotation, ones that are both light and sessionable.  First up, an English summer ale.

My enticement to this style came from the description (and recipes) in Radical Brewing:  "The moment begs for a perfect summer ale - crisp, dry, refreshing, but sturdy enough to satisfy, a citric hop aroma leaping from a dazzling white meringue." (83)  I've never had the pleasure of trying a commercial (or homebrew, for that matter) example of this style, so I used Mosher's description and recipes as a compass.  My aim was for a beer low in gravity with a significant proportion of wheat, hops heavier on aroma than bittering, and a characterful English yeast.

Perhaps perversely for this British-style beer, the grist came entirely from Weyermann.  Glacier hops provide light and (hopefully) neutral bittering.  I really wanted to try Styrian Goldings at the end of the boil, but, as seems to happen every time I want to use this varietal, my LHBS was out.  I subbed Fuggles as an English substitute at knockout with a thirty-minute hopstand; I've learned from my recent Facloner's Flight double IPA not to expect any bittering from this addition (good for this beer, but very unfortunate for the IIPA, which I've had to reclassify as an old ale).  My good friend Ted strongly endorsed the Wyeast 1028 for a yeast with lots of character, so into the fermenter it went.

This was the first beer I brewed since the end of our first year of doctoral study, which ended just a few days before brewday; it was followed by a quadrupel/Belgian dark strong that had been on the longstanding winter "big beer" docket, just to keep everything in balance.  I actually stuck around for the beginning of the boil for once, and thus avoided any nasty boilovers.  After giving the Fuggles a full half hour for the hopstand, I learned that five gallons of boiling liquid will still shed quite a bit of heat in that time; it was already at 110F when I started chilling.  My smack pack of 1028 had already begun inflating (with the inner nutrient pack still intact) when I picked it up at the LHBS; a little online searching let me know that I'd be fine adding the yeast to the fermenter then clipping
open the nutrient pack.  As an added treat, I pulled my reserve bottles of last year's summer beers, Sturm and Drang, to sample while brewing the first of this year's summer beers; while the hop aroma has diminished, they were still pretty damn tasty.
After about twelve hours, the fermenter started going like gangbusters; as it slowed today, I pulled it out of its water bath this morning.  I'll probably jog it every so often and give it a few more days to finish up before bottling.  This should be a fine porch sipper in the next couple months; now I just have to decide what to brew with the big ol' cake of 1028 I'll have.









Summer Ale

Batch size: 5.75 gallons
Projected OG: 1.044
Projected SRM: 5.3
Projected IBU: 22.0
Boil time: 60 minutes
Brewhouse efficiency: 85%

Grains
50.0% - 4 lb Weyermann Organic Vienna
25.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Organic Munich I
25.0% - 2 lb Weyermann Pale Wheat

Hops
.5 oz Galena (13.2%) (60 min)
1 oz UK Fuggles (4.2%) (0 min - 30-min hop stand)

Yeast
WY1028 London Ale (no starter)

Extras
1 tsp Irish moss (10 min)

Water additions (mash)
8 qts distilled water
1 g Gypsum

Brewday: 5 May 2012
Mash: 152F for 60 minutes
Pre-boil volume: 7 gallons
Pre-boil SG: 8.7P (1.035)

Started in closet, ~65F ambient; after activity started, moved to water bath at 62F ambient, adjusted down to 58F as activity picked up
Out of the water bath as activity slowed to finish

Bottled: 15 May 2012
FG: 1.010
ABV: 4.4%
1 gallon in cubitainer as “cask ale”; bottled remaining 4 gallons
Bottled cubitainer with .2 oz table sugar; rest with 4.1 oz table sugar

Tasting notes: Mineral notes are interesting, but may be an even better beer with a more fruit-oriented English yeast.