8 hours #WetHop Celebration Ale
Dermott Dowling
March is an exciting time of the year in the brewing calendar for many reasons down under in Australia. Not only do homebrewers get another chance to brew on labour day holidays in the State of Victoria but hops are traditionally harvested in March and #Wethop #Freshhop and #Homegrownhop ales are often put down in March. Time to brew up a Celebration Ale!
Like oh so many things our craft brewing brothers and sisters in the US started another revolution in celebration of the #HopHarvest and that celebration has spread rapidly to Hop growing nations around the world including Australia and New Zealand. Locally here in Victoria I personally love to try a few of our local #freshhop harvest ales and enjoy a regular feature #harvestale from Bridge Road Brewers, Beechworth We will be heading up that way to try the 2015 release at the end of the March - details for those in the hood to come along and celebrate the Hop Harvest here: https://bridgeroadbrewers.com.au/events/high-country-hops-festival
Home brewers have the chance to grow their own hops and create their own #Wethop or #Freshhop ales and if you are interested to read and learn more about growing your own hops jump onto YouTube or Google and you will find abundant resources on planting and growing and picking your own home grown hops and here is a recipe we would like to share with homebrewers for a #WetHop Celebration Ale using Wet Fresh Cascade Hops.
I wanted to brew a big malty wet hoppy IPA style beer here and I was mightily impressed by "Pliny the Elder" from Russian River @ANHC4 and how light in colour and delicate the malt backbone was from Vinnie @RussianRiver so I altered the malt bill from another source of inspiration - the Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale to see if I could create something that had malt underneath (rather like the base guitar in a good rock n roll band) underpinning the screaming lead guitars (here come the hops!). As such I built a malt bill that was Ale base cut with Munich for character, Gladiator for foam and body, a smidge of Light Crystal (used in Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale) and 1% acidulated Sour Grapes Malt to lower the PH in the mash.
Vital Stats:
- Batch Size 21.0 L
- Boil Time 90 mins
- Efficiency 70%
- 1.072 OG 1.017 FG
- 66 IBU 7.3% ABV
- 8 SRM
- 0.92 IBU/OG very bitter
Gladfield Malt Bill
- 79% 5.50kg Gladfield Ale Malt
- 12% 0.85kg Gladfield Munich Malt
- 5% 0.35kg Gladfield Gladiator Malt
- 3% 0.20kg Light Crystal Malt
- 1% 0.10kg Gladfield Sour Grapes Malt 7.00 Kg Total Malt Bill
Hops
Here I did want to follow Sierra Nevada lead strongly and having a 2 year old Cascade hop bine (thx Sandy @HopCo) I thought it was only appropriate to use the 3Cs from USA - Chinook for bitter, Cascade (wet hops) and Centennial for flavour and aroma.- Bittering: 20g Chinook 60 mins 13.50% 2013
- Flavour: 50g Cascade Wet 30 mins ?AA 3%? 2015 Home Harvest & 20g Centennial 30 mins 10%A/A ?
- Aroma: 50g Cascade Wet 15 mins ?AA 3%? 2015 Home Harvest & 20g Centennial 15 mins 10% A/A ?
- Flame out / Aroma: 50g Cascade Wet Full Hop Cones 0 mins ?AA 3%? 2015 Home Harvest
- Dry hop in secondary for 5 days at 16 °C / 60 °F using addition rates of 2/1 Cascade to Centennial adding 1/2lb per barrel or approx. 24g wet Cascade hops and 12g Centennial hops into a 19L batch.
Yeast:
You want to use a good clean fermenting high abv tolerant yeast for a #WethopIPA so we recommend any of the following:- GY001 Nor Cal Ale #1 GigaYeast or White Labs WLP090 San Diego Super Yeast or WLP001 California Ale Yeast
- GY029 Nor Cal Ale #5 GigaYeast or Wyeast 1056 or 1272 American Ale Yeast
- Fermentis US-05 Ale Yeast
- Lallemand Danstar BRY-97 American West Coast Ale Yeast (2 x11g sachets)
Brewing aids and water treatment:
- Water treatment prior to mash was 5g of Calcium Chloride and 5g of Calcium Sulphate (Gypsum).
- Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @10 mins remaining in boil
- Irish Moss 1/2 tab @5 mins remaining in boil