Making Summer ale with Lager base

[Lab Cat]

Have just bottled the Lightning Strike, which uses the Canadian blonde and brewed with EKG/Cascade, Kit yeast and some Nottingham. Sample tastes pretty good.

I have a Euro lager, but can't make decent lagers, I have no way of lagering the bottles, which probably makes a real difference. My pils efforts were rather average, even though brewed at right temps with lager yeast.

Using the Euro lager tin, I'm after a floral, crisp summer quaffer but don't want Pale ale style citrus hopping, . Any suggestions please, can't see anything that suits on the recipe page.

[Marty_G]

just thowing this out there how about good old cluster hops.   

Cluster hops offer a smooth, neutral, bitterness complimented by a spicy and floral aroma with fruity notes. A great choice in Lagers, Stouts, and Porters.

[Shamus O'Sean]

On 11/2/2019 at 5:14 PM, Lab Rat said:

Any suggestions please, can't see anything that suits on the recipe page

Maybe Coopers Artisan Reserve, but drop the Light Dry Malt to 0.5kg or 1.0kg to reduce the ABV to something more sessionable.

Lagering does make a difference.  However, one of my first brews was the European Lager without cold lagering.  It was bottled at the end of March.  I stored the bottles in the top of the kitchen cupboard at inside temperatures for three months.   Tasted great on its own.  I have brewed better since, but given my experience level then I was real happy.

[Lab Cat]

Cheers Shamus. I shied away from lager recipes given my Pils efforts were meh. I might revisit, given I already have 2 'summer ales' on the go - one bottled, another fermenting. I used MJ yeast with lagers before, so maybe the Salflager is the way to go, plus as Otto always suggests when brewing down low, the kit yeast as well.

Done some review reading on the Euro kit and the common theme is not enough hops, so I'd go the 1kg malt and 50g Hallertau. My last 2 brews have been short boil and long steep, no dry hop, so I'll see how the first one worked with that

Edited November 4, 2019 by Lab Rat

[Norris!]

I really like what a steep adds. Looking forward to the reviews Labrat

[Lab Cat]

I'm interested in how it turns out too. I've bittered (regularly) and steeped hops before, but probably only small quantities for about 10m? Last ones have steeped around 30-40g for 30m

[Lab Cat]

Perth weather hitting the high 30s recently, so I can safely say my Lightning ale has carbed. Sl has the Carib Siesta, which I only bottled on Monday.

However, carbed and ready to drink aren't the same thing. Tried both the other day and an interesting result. The Lightning uses the Canadian Blonde and the Siesta, Cerveza. Two bases I've not used before. Both taste a little home brewy. I don't think it's twang but there's a common taste to them which makes them noticeably green. Not really anything I've tasted with other bases or winter styles.

They both need more time before drinking, but having drunk both back to back, they aren't massively different from each other. This is odd, given two different bases and different hops, both bittered and steeped for each brew.

 

[Lab Cat]

As expected/hoped the homebrewyness has pretty much gone. Haven't got much from my hops with either of these beers. I'm not wanting pale ale hop forward flavours, the brief was summer quaffers, but I would have though my bittering schedule would have added more than I got.

The Lightning Strike is not bad. I plugged the recipe in the IanH and have 24 IBU. I boiled 15g EKG for 5m, then steeped 15g with 25g Cascade. A 20m boil would have got me to 27 IBU and may have added some flavour and crispness? Seems the steep hasn't really done anything here.

The Caib Siesta still has time to go in the bottle, but is much blander. 22 IBU. This was more aggressively hopped, as I though the Cerveza base would be weak. It doesn't seem to have done much at all. I couldn't get Calypso hops, but the recipe only had a small amount boiled. I did 10g of Lemon drop and 10 of Cascade for 15m. Steeped 15g Cascade. 

Contrast with the SG sample taken from the Artisan reserve I have going. 25g Hallertau for 10 and same for 5, steeped another 25g for 25 IBU overall. Sample is noticeably pleasantly bitter and has flavour.

I understand different hops AA impart different levels of bitterness, but I'm getting the same boil IBU's (about 6) from the Hallaertau, as I did from the Siesta hops. Yet this beer doesn't taste of anything.

Thoughts? All 3 beers are using the milder lagery-type Coopers tins - Canadian, Cerveza an Euro lager.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Lab Rat

[Beerlust]

Hi Lab Rat.

7 hours ago, Lab Rat said:

...Thoughts? All 3 beers are using the milder lagery-type Coopers tins - Canadian, Cerveza an Euro lager.

FWIW, these kits are not the same, yet you are expecting them to create a base the same. On top of that, you have used different hop varieties in different ways with each of them. Of course you're going to create different outcomes on different levels.

On 11/2/2019 at 4:44 PM, Lab Rat said:

Have just bottled the Lightning Strike, which uses the Canadian blonde and brewed with EKG/Cascade, Kit yeast and some Nottingham. Sample tastes pretty good.

My advice would be to return to the base kit you enjoyed the outcome with & experiment with different hops around this.

On 11/2/2019 at 4:44 PM, Lab Rat said:

...I'm after a floral, crisp summer quaffer but don't want Pale ale style citrus hopping, . Any suggestions please, can't see anything that suits on the recipe page.

Perhaps give Hallertau Mittlefruh a go that is more lager orientated, or something like Ahtanum that has similar traits to Amarillo but is a little more floral & has lighter tones.

Best of luck getting the beer into a level you enjoy.

Lusty.

Edited November 22, 2019 by Beerlust

[Lab Cat]

2 hours ago, Beerlust said:

Hi Lab Rat.

FWIW, these kits are not the same, yet you are expecting them to create a base the same. On top of that, you have used different hop varieties in different ways with each of them. Of course you're going to create different outcomes on different levels.

 

I'm not expecting that at all - I'm remarking how similar the two summer ales are are, despite being 2 different bases with different hop additions. So I was expecting a difference and to get more from the bittering than I have.

The Canadian base beer is better and does has some hop present, but the Cerveza siesta is very bland, despite more IBU derived from the hop boil - and the overall IBU of both beers being similar. I guess I will just drink the Siesta extra cold.

My Artisan Reserve lager with the Euro can promises to be better, sampled again today and the Hallertau floral notes are very noticeable. I can see me using Hallertau again with summer ale styles.

[Aussiekraut]

8 hours ago, Lab Rat said:

My Artisan Reserve lager with the Euro can promises to be better, sampled again today and the Hallertau floral notes are very noticeable. I can see me using Hallertau again with summer ale styles.

So you just used the Hallertau hops for a 10 minute boil, no dry hop? Never associated Hallertau with summer ale but worth a try  

[Lab Cat]

1 hour ago, Aussiekraut said:

So you just used the Hallertau hops for a 10 minute boil, no dry hop? Never associated Hallertau with summer ale but worth a try  

The original thread question was about summer ales, but Shamus posted the AR lager recipe so I thought I'd have another go at making one. The AR is being brewed as a Lager with Saf 34/70.

I did 25 Hellertau for 10m, 25 for 5 and steeped 25 for 30m. I think Otto suggested lagers and Pils were better without dry hopping

Edited November 23, 2019 by Lab Rat

[Otto Von Blotto]

Depends on the lager. The traditional Euro styles aren't dry hopped, but the modern new world ones probably are. They don't use noble hops like Hallertau though. 

[Lab Cat]

Cheers. My last pils was bittered with Saaz and not that interesting. The Hallertau is a nice hop, I can see why these 2 are used together regularly, I suspect Pilsner Urquell uses both. Saaz for bitter and Haller for that big floral note.

Just looking at it, the lager has some white spotting in the remainder of the krausen, is this normal? I have the usual beige/brown leftover krausen as well. Currently taken it up to 18 til it's FG, the dropping again.

[Otto Von Blotto]

Urquell is all Saaz. I suspect part of the flavour comes from the FWH addition they use. My pilsner based on it uses four additions, FWH, 80 minutes, 15 minutes and flameout. The two early ones are the biggest, as they provide about 85-90% of the IBUs, with the two later ones being smaller but providing a bit of extra flavour and some aroma. The first 3 additions are basically the same as Urquell with the flameout one being my own idea. 

I've also done German lagers with a couple of different Hallertau varieties (Hersbrucker and Mittelfrüeh) which were also very nice, but different from the Czech pilsners.