I cobbled this recipe together while picking out some ingredients from the League Of Brewers website in a bit of a rush so that I could pick up the ingredients before they closed on Saturday. I hadn’t brewed in about 3 months and both my kegs had run dry and I even finished my last bottles of pale ale the night previous so I needed to get some beer brewed quick. I was going for a middle of the road American Pale Ale – decently hoppy but not a big beer. I went with about 5kg of malt and mashed high to help keep finishing gravity a bit higher and alcohol a bit lower.
For hops I went with 100g of Zythos American hops blend and 100g of Loral Cryo Hops – Lupulin N2 pellets! Cryo Hops contain concentrated Lupulin and are close to double the potency of regular hops pellets, so they should have a big impact on the beer. As a result of the concentration, these Lorals packed a massive alpha value of 23.2%. I used half of them them at flame-out and in the cube and reserved the other half for dry hopping. Most of the Zythos went into the boil, flame-out and cube with just a tiny amount left for dry-hopping. I had intended to reserve more for dry-hopping but the bloody scales I was using must have been a bit error prone!
Loral Aroma Profile:
The aroma profile of Loral™ has been described as a “super noble hop” with its wonderful floral and herbal notes followed by a backdrop of citrus and earthy character. A touch of sweet fruity aroma rounds out this well-balanced hop. In beer, the floral notes are accentuated yet complemented nicely by fruity and citrus with just a hint of herbal. Don’t expect an in-your-face fruity character with Loral™ as seen with some recent U.S. variety releases – this hop is approachable and balanced. Great for distinctive IPAs and pale ales but perfect for sessionable and lager-style beers.
Zythos hops:
Created by Hopunion LLC, Zythos® is a proprietary hop blend created specifically with IPA’s in mind. It features notes and aromas of tangerine, grapefruit, pine and even pineapple. Its high alpha acid content means it can be useful for bittering but is largely intended to shine as an aroma hop.
Fermentation Notes:
Started off at 18C and allowed to go to around 19C. On day 3 the temp probe which was taped to fermenter came off and was sitting outside the fridge. As a result the fridge kept cranking all day long and beer was was cooled down to zero or below but I caught it before it actually froze and let it slowly warm back up to fermentation temps and fermentation carried on. I’m not expecting any ill effects other than about a 2 day delay in the fermentation process. Dry hopped on day 6.