I just came back from the 35th EBC Congress in Porto, where there were some really interesting presentations and posters. I’m currently writing up a post with a summary of the topics that are relevant to homebrewers, and I should hopefully have it ready during next week! Today I also brewed the second batch of beer for my wedding in August (see my previous post for the Wedding Pils): a Belgian Blond based on a recipe I brewed almost three years ago. The beer I brewed then was light, hoppy and featured some nice esters and phenolics from the yeast in the aroma. Should be perfect for a warm summer day, perhaps together with the seafood on the menu.

The recipe is quite simple, featuring a malt bill of mainly Pilsner malt, with just hints of flaked oats and cane sugar, to contribute some more mouthfeel and dry out the beer. I aimed for an original gravity of around 1.050, in order to get a beer with around 5.5% ABV. For the hops, I again used Herkules for bittering, but instead added some Styrian Goldings and Saphir towards the end of the boil. I pitched a 1L starter of WLP530 (Abbey Ale) after I had cooled the wort down to around 20C. My fermentation fridge is still occupied by the Pilsner, so chose to ferment this at room temperature. This should help bring out some yeast tones in the aroma as well. I placed the fermenter in a slightly colder room (~ 18C), but I imagine the wort temperature will rise to about 23C during active fermentation. I checked the fermenter 5 hours after pitching and there was already rapid bubbling in the airlock meaning that the yeast was already chewing through the sugars. Another smooth brewday!

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The Imperial Stout I brewed last week has been fermenting along nicely, and as the airlock activity started slowing down, I raised the fermentation temperature (from the initial 17C) to 20C. Big and complex stouts aren’t the ideal summer beers, so last Sunday I brewed up a batch of a really simple Blonde Ale. The malt bill consisted of Pilsner malt, Flaked Oats, CaraAmber and CaraPils. I slightly overshot the OG, and ended up with 38 liters of 1.055-gravity wort instead of 42 liters of 1.050-gravity wort. The beer is lightly hopped with Herkules and Cascade, with a calculated IBU around 24. This means the beer should appeal to pretty much everyone and be really easy to drink. I decided to ferment the beer with White Lab’s German Ale/Kölsch strain, which should lend some lager-like characteristics as well. The brewday went extremely smoothly for once, and even hit the assumed efficiency of 70%. This will be kegged and ‘lagered’ after a couple of weeks. Hopefully a really nice beer to drink on hot summer days.

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