2016 Home Grown Hops Harvest Ale

The 2016 Hop Harvest has come and gone. Hopefully it was a good one for you and you have dried and stored your hops away for coming brews. This video we feature John’s 2016 Home Grown Hops Harvest Ale.

A simple ale (recipe below) this year it drinks super clean and refreshing. The color was slightly darker than gold, almost trying to be light amber. Hop aroma was mild but spicey giving way mainly to the malt and ferment character beneath it. The fermentation character is interesting to note because this beer was fermented with the White Labs Hansen Ale Blend. This was one of the yeasts recently made available through the White Labs Vault program. If you haven’t checked that out yet you should give it a go.

Even and rounded bitterness with a touch of malt sweetness is perceived on the palate. A good hop flavor from the hops as well. This beer is an amazing easy drinker. The hops really shine through despite our prolonged drought conditions here this year. Last years hops didn’t seem to have much character to them and it was a good growing year. Maybe the hops need to struggle a bit, or maybe John just managed to take good care of them because of the tough season we had.

Let us know how your hop growing efforts went and what you plan to brew with your hops.

CHEERS!

STATS
Boil Size: 7 gallons
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.010
ABV: 4.9%

Ingredients:
10 pounds Pearl English Pale Malt
1 pound Carapils Malt
1 pound of Carastan Malt

1.5 ounces homegrown Magnum hops – whole cones – 60 minutes
2 ounces of homegrown Mt. Hood hops – whole cones – 30 minutes
7/8 ounce of Chinook hops – whole cones -10 minutes

1 Whirlfloc tablet – 15 minutes

Yeast:
White Labe WLP075 – Hansen Ale Yeast Blend

Notes:
Mashed for 60 minutes at 150°F
Boiled for 60 minutes
Used distilled water and added 12 grams of gypsum to various stages of the process:
4 gm added to the mash water
5 gm added to the sparge water
3 gm added to the full boil

Fermented at 67°F for 2 weeks. Primed with 115 gm of corn sugar boiled in 2 cups of water for 15 mins.