Blonde Ale Recipe please

[perryni]

I want to do a blonde ale maybe like bradfield farmers blonde or maybe more like Arran blonde with a slight hint of cascade.

Can anyone help?

Cheers
Nick

[Barley Water]

Sadly, I have never tried the beers you cite however making a blonde ale is really easy. Just figure out what O.G. you want and use the appropriate amount of base malt. I personally like to add a little character malt (bisquet, victory, amber malt or maybe a bit of light crystal 20L or so). I also chuck in just a little wheat malt for head stability and to lighten it up a bit more. If you adjust your bitterness so that the ratio of IBU/O.G. is roughly .60-.80 you won't go far wrong. If you want a smidge of Cascade in the flavor just dump in a bit at say 10 minutes before shut down, you'll get both flavor and aroma (and remember, most people taste with their noses first). You can also influence taste by messing with the yeast strain used, you can go British, American, German, Belgian, the possibilities are endless. I would urge you to try and formulate your own recipe to suit your own preferences, that's where the big fun is in this hobby.

[seymour]

Sadly, I have never tried the beers you cite however making a blonde ale is really easy. Just figure out what O.G. you want and use the appropriate amount of base malt. I personally like to add a little character malt (bisquet, victory, amber malt or maybe a bit of light crystal 20L or so). I also chuck in just a little wheat malt for head stability and to lighten it up a bit more. If you adjust your bitterness so that the ratio of IBU/O.G. is roughly .60-.80 you won't go far wrong. If you want a smidge of Cascade in the flavor just dump in a bit at say 10 minutes before shut down, you'll get both flavor and aroma (and remember, most people taste with their noses first). You can also influence taste by messing with the yeast strain used, you can go British, American, German, Belgian, the possibilities are endless. I would urge you to try and formulate your own recipe to suit your own preferences, that's where the big fun is in this hobby.

+1 to everything Barley Water said. Great tips all around!

[perryni]

Thanks for the tips chaps here is my attempt.
What do you think?
I know the bitterness is a it lower than you advised but the beers I mentioned are quite low in bitterness.

19l batch
O.G. 1.047
IBU 25.6

4kg Marris Otter
300g Wheat Malt
200g Munich Malt

@60min EKG 14.5 IBU
@10min EKG 5.3 IBU
@10min Cascade 5.8 IBU

WLP023 Burton Ale yeast

[Barley Water]

I personally think you should ship both myself and Mr. Seymour a case each; go for it.

[seymour]

So that's 88.9% Pale, 6.7% Wheat Malt, 4.4% Munich Malt. Sounds great to me too, especially the Burton yeast. Well played.

If you're looking for some specifics regarding the commercial beers in your original post, here you go:

Bradfield Farmers Blonde is a more traditional "English Golden/Blond Ale", probably comprised of 100% high-quality pale malt like Golden Promise or Maris Otter plus Fuggles and Goldings hops. 4% ABV and around 20-25 IBU.

Arran Blonde is actually a wheat ale, except fermented with a conventional English ale yeast (as opposed to an authentic German weizen strain.) The grainbill is probably something like 50% Pale Malt and 50% Wheat Malt, Challenger bittering hops plus Styrian Goldings and Cascade in later additions. 5% ABV and around 20-25 IBU.

[zgoda]

My recipe for blonde ale is 85% pilsner, 10% pale munich and 5% caramalt, mash normal. Then some clean bittering hops to first wort and 2 charges of aroma hops, 40% at 10 mins and 60% at flameout. OG 1.040-1.044, 25-35 ibu, you know the game.

[serum]

My favourite blond recipe was 5kg pilsner, 500g wheat malt and a jar of honey at the end of the boil. I used Northern Brewer as a first wort hop to get to 30 IBU and added about 30g of EKG right at the end. You could substitute those for Cascade and I imagine it'd come out good.

You could omit the honey if you don't want to use it and it would lower the ABV to around 5%ish. You could also swap pils for pale and it would taste more British.

I personally wouldn't use Munich in a blond but that's just my taste. I've found it tastes fairly strong and malty but if you like that go ahead.

For yeast I used Wyeast 3522 which is a fruity Belgian yeast but you could use any you like. Something more neutral would allow the hops to shine more.

[seymour]

Bump.

So, perryni, did you end up brewing a Blonde Ale? If so, how is it going?

[perryni]

Hi Seymour
I have manged to book a brew day in next week for the Blonde

[kearnage]

I'm also interested in how this went?

How much EKG and Cascade did you add at each stage?

[Charles1968]

My recipe for blonde ale is 85% pilsner, 10% pale munich and 5% caramalt, mash normal. Then some clean bittering hops to first wort and 2 charges of aroma hops, 40% at 10 mins and 60% at flameout. OG 1.040-1.044, 25-35 ibu, you know the game.

ditto

[perryni]

Hi Kearnage
I added the following
@60min EKG 25g
@10min EKG 25g
@10min Cascade 25g

Nick

[kearnage]

Thanks

May give this a go for my next brew.