AG#9 session Golden Ale

[Nicks90]

Time to get me brew on again!
This time i fancy doing a lower alcohol golden ale to make a nice sessionable pint for sitting in my garden over spring and early summer if we ever get any nice weather.
Keeping it fairly simple and hopefully the hop combination will make it interesting.


3kg Irish malt
80gm crystal 110 EBC
100gm rolled oats

18l mash at 65c for an hour followed by a 4l sparge and a good bag squeeze
Leaving 20l wort for a 60 minute boil

Hops
10 g Admiral 60 min
10 g Challenger 60 min
15 g Admiral 0 min
15 g Challenger 0 min
Yeast, US pale ale from CML

This should give about 16l in the FV and i'm shooting for around 4% abv and 40 IBUs and 6 SRM
Its currently mashing, so will provide an update tomorrow once its cooled and see if i hit my numbers.

 

[pvt_ak]

Is the oats for body and head ?

 

[Nicks90]

yes, read about using oats in one of my other AG threads so thought i would give it a go and see what happens

 

[matt76]

Nice one

You know I'm never really sure what's the difference between pale and golden ale - whatever, I just bottled my pale ale which was made with MO, Munich and Caramalt. I'll be interested to know if you get much flavour/sweetness coming through from the crystal.

My first thought was crikey that's a lot of hops but presumably they're quite low %AAU ?

Best of luck with it!

 

[Nicks90]

Hahaha, both are fairly high AAU for bittering
40ibui s fairly bitter, but the other 30gm got added at the end and shouldn't add any bitterness, only aroma. Plus as I no chill, I made sure the wort was at 80c before adding them and left them in for a couple of hours before dropping it in to the fv.
Quite interested to see how tangy/piney this comes out using these two hops for aroma

 

[Nicks90]

Oh and my understanding is pale ale is more hop forward, golden ale uses more traditional English hops a la standard bitter but with less dark crystal
But I suppose it's much the muchness really.

 

[Nicks90]

Its had a stable FG for the past week - but i like to leave them a bit to do its 'thing' - but today was bottling day!
Ended up at 1.008 which is a little lower than i am used to. But i am using a yeast i've never used before - CML pale ale - so its finished bang on 5%
Really nice smelling ale and a good 'golden hen' pale colour. cant wait to try this one!

 

[Nicks90]

Had a stab at this tonight as it's starting to carb up
Not keen.

Don't get me wrong, I'll still drink the bloody lot... But it's definitely an earthy beer which doesn't suit the pale English ale style
One for the history books I think.
I'm sure after a few weeks to condition it'll mellow, bit still....

 

[Zephyr259]

Interesting, I used Admiral for bittering all the time and have used Challenger in the past, I've heard good things about late additions of Challenger. I've been curious to try Admiral late in the boil to see if the herbal orange character comes through more. Why did you do such a long hopstand? I'm used to hearing more like 15 - 30 min, maybe this is partly why you got an earthy flavour?

 

[Nicks90]

I always do a 60 min boil and calculate my bitterness based on that in brewers friend app.
I might be wrong, but doesn't first hop addition only give you bitterness and no real aroma, which is why I add loads at the end.
I don't know, but I normally love challenger and used it loads in regular bitter and it's fab.
But it is very early days, so it might come good. Just doesn't all gel like it should at the moment and isn't something you'd crack open and go "ooooooo, nice!"

 

[Nicks90]

week later and another 'taster' bottle to see how its coming along - massive difference!
tastes nice now and is hopefully developing in to a lovely pint.