Who doesn't like hops? A Honey Amber Ale in the making.

Two posts in one month? That’s right! It looks like there will be more of these for my Brewhouse Calculations and Recipe Formulations class.  As we left our intrepid hero...er...I mean fledgling wannabe brewer, he was using his Dunce Cap Dodge (Patent Pending) to avoid the Dunce Cap of Derision from the Malt assignment. Well now our OC Brew Student is into the land of hops as he desperately works out how much hops to put in his Honey Amber Ale.

Before we get too far, let’s review some info:

  

Style: American Amber Ale

I consulted the following sources to get insight into the hop bill:

•  For the Love of Hops: The Practical Guide to Aroma, Bitterness and the Culture of Hops by Stan Hieronymus
• www.beerlegends.com for Hop Varieties
• Various recipes on Beersmith http://beersmithrecipes.com
• Brewing Classic Styles by Jamil Zainasheff and John J. Palmer
• BJCP (that’s Beer Judge Certification Program) 2008 version

The BJCP guidelines answer a ton of "beery" questions for neophyte and beer nerd alike.

     If you remember, I wanted to make a honey ale that did NOT have a lot of citrus notes. I can justify this because BJCP states that American Amber ale has a “high level of late hopping” as “moving hops to later in the boil increases hop flavour and aroma while keeping bitterness restrained”.  That’s what I want! The other thing I was relieved to read was that “a Citrusy hop character is common, but not required.” 

      Now for those of you that know me may be scratching your head wondering where I came up with this sudden aversion to hops. Fear not, good reader! I still like Double IPAs and the like but I wanted this recipe to have more honey tones and the hops to provide a balance and aroma reminiscent of honeysuckle or stone fruit blossoms for subtleties.

Give us some tech specs already!!!

You got it!  If you need to see the malt bill then check out my last blog post.  Here are some tech specs for all you beer nerd / homebrew gurus of awesome / and ....my prof.

Addition #	Hop	Alpha Acid (%)	Boil Time (Minutes)	Utilization based on Boil Time (util %)
1	East Kent Goldings (EKG)	7.2	60	28
2	Willamette	5	15	14
3	East Kent Goldings (EKG)	7.2	0	5*

BL, you know we’re going to ask.  Why these hops?

EKG: After a lot of perusal I ended up going with this hop after the simple advice and counsel of my good pal and fellow OC “Brew-ther” Garret Haynes. I originally had Glacier due to its lower alpha acid content and according to Stan it had a “pleasant, classically mild aroma, including citrus and stone fruit.” I did additional reading and discovered that it was more citrus forward than I preferred.  After having trouble with my calculations, Garret came to my rescue like a boss (not like a mob boss though) and stated he had success with EKG in his honey pale ale.

                From the limited experience I’ve had brewing, I’ve found EKG to be reliable and consistent in its use. This has been confirmed by various brewing colleagues. Since I was dialing back the citrus aspects in my recipe and moving to more English leanings (dare I say this could be a New England Amber Ale?) I thought this would be a good bet.

Willamette: Stan Heironymus states on page 173 of his Hops book that Willamette hops are “an alternative to Fuggle released in 1976, with a mild, spicy profile. Versatile, its flavour works well with many styles.” Sold!  I still wanted to have an American style influence in order to keep the beer remotely to style and therefore BJCP guidelines.

                Additionally, one of the online recipes I kept referring back to had Willamette as a component. I figured it was worth trying. After all, as one of my colleagues says – “Trying different things is the artistic part of brewing.”  This whole thing just keeps this BeerLearner humble.  I’ve heard other brewers say “The more I learn about brewing...the more I don’t know.”

EKG: I know what you're thinking..."Again? Really?" Sure! Mainly because of the recipes that I was referencing, the 1st addition hop was the same as the last addition hop (whether it was at whirlpool or 5 min left in the boil).

This is me handling Sorachi Ace hops at VGF farms in Yakima, Washington last month. Check out those sexy lupulin glands! Rawr!

There you have it! Hops. They do stuff and make beer delicious!

See all of you soon!

BL