Ale

The inspiration for this beer came from a night several years ago when I was working as a bartender. Myself and a few others headed to an American-style bar across the road on our break, for some food and beers. I ended up getting a Blue Moon on tap, not knowing what it is and expecting it to be a thin, watered down American lager. I was surprised to receive the opposite, a full-bodied, rich, citrusy and spicy Belgian-style ale with a slice of orange in it. [Read More]

The inspiration for this beer comes from the traditional Indian Lassi drink, a sweet or spiced yogurt-based drink, commonly flavoured with fruit such as Mango. Like my other sours, this beer will have wheat and oat additions to add body and fullness. I’ll also be adding some lactose to counteract the sourness add to the body of the beer. For the fruit addition, I’ll be adding about 4kg of pureed mango as well as 1L of mango pulp (or mango nectar if I cant find the pulp). [Read More]

For my next clone, I’m going to attempt to replicate Ballistic Brewing’s “Hawaiian Haze” DDH Pale Ale. The tasting notes for this beer have been descriped as juicy, pineapple, hoppy and citric. It’s light in colour with a solid haze. The hops used were Citra, Rakau, Pacifica and Mosaic. The malts are pale malt, rolled/flaked oats and rolled/flaked wheat. It has medium bitterness with 30 IBUs and an ABV of 4. [Read More]

Time for another sour! This time it’s going to be Mango, utilising 3kg of mango puree. The process will be the same kettle sour as my previous ones: - Flaked Oats will be added to give the beer body, mouthfeel and slight sweetness. - Fruit addition will be added during primary/secondary to get a fresher flavour and avoid cooked-flavours. - A mesh bag will be used to catch the fruit particles and make kegging easier. [Read More]

The second beer I ever made was my first time going all grain. This recipe (here) was a Stone & Wood clone, designed to loosely resemble the beer. While this was one of the most successful beers I’ve made, I decided to re-do it, this time with a much better, fine-tuned setup. The aim of this is to get an understanding on the impact of changing certain aspects to a brew and how they affect the end result. [Read More]

This beer was designed to clone Balter’s XPA and be close as possible to the original. The head brewers released the hops they used, but not the grains or yeast. The clone grist consisted primarily of American Pale malt with some wheat and carapils for body/head retention and some cara malt for malty flavour. The water profile was higher in calcium and suflate to accentuate the hops, of which were primarily citrus/fruity. [Read More]