Summer Ale 2016

We are passionate about our beer! Almost as much as about our code. Well, actually we are proud geeks and when we focus on something, that’s pretty much all we can think about for a moment.
This time we wanted to make a malty, yet refreshing summer ale for chilling out on the beachfront or at the cottage. Away from the office.
A couple of iterations on an IPA and and APA were pretty good. But not perfect. So it was back to the brewhouse.

A/B testing

Even during the final brewing day, we decided to make an A/B-testing and split the wort in two. For the two separate fermentations we used two different yeast strains. Version A was an American strain (US-05) that produced a crisp and easy drinking beer. Version B was an English style strain (Lallemand Windsor) that produced a sweeter, denser and fruitier result with slightly less alcohol.
Now off to sample the brews in the environment they were designed for. Take me to the beach!

Cheers!

Commet after 2 months

Version B got contaminated in the process. Version A was more popular already in the beginning but after 2 months of storage there was an off-taste in version B. And soon after the beer started gushing out of the bottle after opening.
Clear winner: Version A.

Recipe

Mash

Water 53 l
Mash temperature & time 66 C, 60 min.
Malts
10,000 kg Pale Ale
1,450 kg Carapale
1,000 kg Munich
Sparge: 15 l

Boil

Total boil time 60 min
60 min Magnum 14 g
60 min Citra 86 g
15 min Centennial 80 g
1 min Cascade 110 g

Fermentation

Yeast (fermentation A): Safale US-05
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.010
ABV: 6,1 %
Yeast (fermentation B): Lallemand Windsor
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.016
ABV: 5,3 %