Summer Ale?

[Barley Water]

I'll let you professionals over there guide me to the promised land. In about 3 weeks I need a beer for quaffing at a big beer contest. Although right now I have enough beer to float a battleship, most of the stuff is higher gravity and I would rather take something more "forgiving". I thought I would try a so called British Summer Ale, problem is on this side of the pond I don't know that we really know what that is. I would like to use Ringwood yeast as I'll use this beer both for it's original purpose but also to build up a nice big yeast cake so I can make an American Hop Bomb next (essentially my Dogfish Head 60 clone, great stuff). Any suggestions out there?

[DeGarre]

Golden ale, 30-35 ibus, very traditional English hops, then an exotic hop addition at the end to lift the aroma.

[Manx Guy]

Hi!

Oh now there is a challenge...

There is so much to choose from - where to start... There are your simple 'Bitters', Hoppy Pales ales (OG 1044-1050) Blondes and summer British Wheat Beers (Salopian Lemon Dream / Okells Summer Storm & Mac Lir)

But if the question is what do I ( a 'proper limey') brew for our 2 week 'summer' then I keep coming back to this:

OG 1048 Est FG 1012-1014 ABV ~4.5-4.6%
IBU 35-40

UK Pale Ale (Marris Otter or low colour MO is ideal) 92%
UK wheat malt 4%
UK Crystal (EBC 150) 4%

Goldings fwh to 30 IBU

Aroura to 10 IBU @ 15mins
Styrians/ Bobek 30g at flame out

Works for me...


Who is next with their favourite summer beer?

Cheers!

Guy

[Beer O'Clock]

For Summer, I usually brew 4 batches of my Coopers Pale clone in April when the White labs yeast is available. However, I brewed this a while back and it's rather pleasant on a warm day...

Summer Ale (Standard/Ordinary Bitter)

Original Gravity (OG): 1.039 (°P): 9.8
Final Gravity (FG): 1.010 (°P): 2.6
Alcohol (ABV): 3.83 %
Colour (SRM): 5.3 (EBC): 10.5
Bitterness (IBU): 34.2 (Average)

66.3% Golden Promise Malt*
27.62% Munich*
6.08% Flaked Wheat*

1.3 g/L Pride of Ringwood* (8.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil)
1.3 g/L Fuggles* (5.2% Alpha) @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

0.1 g/L Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) @ 0 Minutes (Mash)
0.1 g/L Protofloc Tablet @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 90 Minutes

Fermented at 20°C with Safale S-04


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

[Archie1978]

Can't remember who brews it but there is an excellent welsh ale called "cwrw hâf" literally "summer ale".

[Barley Water]

Thanks for the input so far lads, keep it coming. Likely what I'll end up doing is taking sort of a combination of all your suggestions since I can't help but screw around with recipes. My idea of light is maybe 1.042-1.044 mostly because I'm used to American stuff and like everything else over here more is better. I really like the idea of late hopping with an ounce of Styrians, I did that with an English IPA and I really, really like what it did to the beer (in that case I dry hopped). I'm also very fond of dropping say 4 ounces or so of bisquet malt into the grist (for a 5 gallon batch) but I don't know if that would be proper for this style and it looks like I need to aim for a pretty light colored (I guess you would say coloured) beer. I also thought a bit of wheat would be good both to lighten it up a little and also help out with the head. Since I want the beer to be extremely English tasting I will of course opt for traditional English hops and with the planned use of yeast strain, I know I'll get good yeast character. What do you guys think of adding adjuncts to lighten it up even more; say some flaked maise or even table sugar?

[Manx Guy]

Hi

BW your idea sounds good, although i dont think that adding maize or sugar would give you the english summer ale you have in mind... Some commercial beers do use sugar but most of the premium summer ales do not AFAIK.

If you dont want too much body or colour, then id be tempted to use a thinner mash (3l/kg) and/or up the wheat to 8-10% if its a paler beer youre after.

Or you could just tweak a clone recipe of Exmoor Gold or Summer Lightning - which probably represent most peoples idea of an English golden/ summer beer...

Youll note that both are pale and use plenty of styrian goldings late- a coincidence ? I think not....


Good luck & keep us posted

[Barley Water]

Well I ended up taking your suggestions I think. Essentially, I'll shoot for a 1.045 beer with roughly 35 IBU's of bitterness (according to the calculator). Besides a base of M.O. I decided to chunk in 4 ounces of Bisquet malt and 8 ounces of Malted Wheat (in a 5 gallon batch). I generally boil for 90 minutes so with 60 minutes to go till shut down I'll add about 1/2 ounce of Challenger then at 15 minutes about 3/4 ounce of Kent Goldings. At shut down I'll dump 1 ounce of Styrians in there while I cool the wort (and I can do that really fast). If I mash about 150F I should get a fairly fermentable wort which should end up pretty dry so the hops should "pop" just a bit (and I have medium hard water). Of course the Ringwood strain should provide a very British flavor to the beer (assuming the stuff doesn't screw me, it's happened). I'm thinking that the beer should be fairly dark yellow/light gold which I gather the style demands. As long as I avoid excessive diacetyl (which this strain can do to you if not handled correctly) I should be good to go. Hopefully this stuff will clear relatively quickly but three weeks should be plenty of time (and I'll crash cool it if I have to).