Recipe: Beached As – Kiwi Pale Ale

Hi Homebrewers,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything and it’s time to get back on the horse. Today’s recipe is a recipe that’s been adapted from Epic Brewing and Good George Brewing’s New Zealand Pale Ale recipe in Heironymus’s For the Love of Hops. This beer is fantastic style, halfway between an easy-drinking Australian pale ale and a hoppy American pale ale. While hoppy, the bitterness is somewhat restrained and remains easy to drink. The controlling of the fermentation temperature is really important here, as is the neutral ale yeast. The beer shouldn’t be dominated by esters and allow the glorious tropical fruits, citrus and pine of the New Zealand hops to shine through.

I wasn’t able to track down Pacific Jade Hops and instead substituted them for Waimea. If you want to brew the original, sub them back and adjust to match the respective IBUs.

Speaking of hops, this recipe has a pretty hefty dry hopping rate. You’ll see that they’re in two doses. Because dry hopping doesn’t effect the IBUs (although there is some argument as increasing the perceived  bitterness), the hops are an equal blend of the three hops used – Waimea, Wait-ti and Motueka. Add the first as your ferment is approaching terminal gravity. Leave it for no more than 7 days and then rack on to the next dry hop charge in the secondary. Again dry hop this for no more than 7 days.

Beer Profile

Batch volume: 23L
Pre-boil volume: 32 L
Pre-boil gravity: 1.044
OG: 1.055
FG: 1.011
ABV: 5.84%
Bitterness: 40 IBUs
Colour: 7.64 SRM
Efficiency: 70%
Calories (per 355 ml bottle): 761 kJ

Ingredients

Method

Mash the grains at 67-68ºC for 90 minutes. Bring the collected wort to boil and wiat for the hot break to form. Boil for 90 minutes adding hops at 60, 30 and 10 minutes. Add a half a tablet of whirfloc tablet in the last 10 minutes of the boil. Either cool quickly using a chilling device or hot can into a no-chill cube and let it cool naturally. Pitch yeast when temperature reaches 17ºC and bring temperature up to 19ºC and ferment.

As the ferment reaches terminal gravity, add the first lot of dry hops. Leave the beer to dry hop for no more than 7 days – unless you enjoy the herbaceous grassy notes that come with long dry-hopping regimes. When it tastes right, rack the beer onto the second dry hop charge in a secondary fermentor. Again, dry-hop for no more than 7 days.

To clarify your beer, should you want crystal clear beer, you can use gelatin or another commercial clarifying agent. If you are using gelatin, add one teaspoon to 2/3 cups of cool water and let it rehydrate. Bring it to 65ºC by microwaving it in short 20 – 30 second bursts in your microwave. If you are bottling, add this to the fermenter a few days before bottling and cold crash ( or chill as much as possible). If kegging, you can add it into the keg when you package it. The first few pints will be cloudy, then it will be crystal clear beauty.

Carbonation and Storage

Carbonate to 2.3 volumes and store for at least 30 days prior to drinking.

Whakahari (cheers!)