Wild Hops Ale

I have been wanting to brew a hopped ale for a while and there was a spare space in the brewing cupboard to get it started.

29th September 2012

The recipe is quite a standard extract based ale recipe. The process being as simple as bringing the malt to boil, adding the hops at various times and then letting it cool to the point where it can be added to the fermentation vessel and yeast pitched.

• 500g Dark Mark Extract (Muntons Spraymalt)
• 10g Fuggles Hops for 30mins
• 42g Wild Hops for 5mins
• Safale S-04

In this case I am boiling with two pots to make up the volumne. Quite a lot of boil off which will have an effect on the hop utilisiation.

I let the pots steep for 20 minutes after boiling to ensure the wild hops had a chance to impart their flavour before cooling and straining the wort.

I pitched the entire packet, which is over pitching it, but I wanted to make sure that fermentation started correctly and got off to a vigourous start.

Original Gravity: 1.036

Tasted malty and very bitter. Undrinkably so, which will calm down a lot as it ages.

30th September 2012

Fermenting, yes you could call it that. More like erupting I would say. The brew is fermenting vigorously and foam is climbing up the airlock.

Not a problem though, just wrapped a few tea towels round the neck and let it get on with it. So much gas is coming out it is unlikely that anything else can get in the airlock past the foam.

It had calmed down by the evening and was the ideal chance to clean the airlock and refit it.

05th October 2012

Racked the beer to secondary and took a sample.

Final Gravity: 1.008

It had a very interesting taste. It tasted like a fruity session beer. A good solid ale with fruit like smells to it. I thought I could smell rasins but was not certain.

Quite pleased with how it turned out. Not overly bitter and very pleasent to drink.

It needs probably a week or two to settle down and let the flavours combine, but otherwise it worked out very nicely.

11th October 2012

Bottled and labelled. Produced about 8 bottles from 500ml to 330ml.