Brew 22 - Plym Pale (Garden Grown Hop Pale Ale)

Brew 22 - Plym Pale (Garden Grown Hop Pale Ale)

Brew Day: 23/09/2021

Bottle Day: 07/10/2021

Last spring (2020), I planted out some hop seeds that were a Christmas present, just to see what became of them. That summer gave no flowers and no harvest and the plant died back. The following spring, hop bines started to sprout again so I put the pot against a trellis and left it to grown.

The bines grew fairly slowly but by the end of summer I had managed to train the bines to wrap around the fence and small flower like buds had begun to form. Interestingly, my Dad had taken a cutting the previous year and his hop plant had grown much stronger. Initially we thought his plant had flowered but it turned out that his flowers were in fact the male variant which wouldn't be useful in brewing. Not long after this, the flowers in my garden became cone like and before I knew it (around Late August/Early September) I had flowers that were ready to Harvest. 


I have little experience with hop growing but I knew the hops needed to be dried out before use (although you can also use them 'green'). I picked small batch to see if they dried out well and began planning a beer to experiment with them. 

I'm fairly certain that the hop variety must be a UK one so I decided to design a simple English style Pale Ale based around Maris Otter and a small amount of Light Crystal to add colour. Challenger hops will provide bitterness with East Kent Goldings providing flavour and aroma at the end of the boil. The main question is to determine when the unknown, garden grown hops enter the frame... they smell similar to the Challenger hops so adding towards the start of the boil should give a decent bittering and then EKG will provide flavour and aroma.

More of a Brew Evening than a Brew Day. Alice helped me set up the boiler and stir in the water adjustment chemicals as follows: 

  • 20 Litres strike water @ 65 deg C
  • 1/2 Campden Tab
  • 2 tsp of Burton crystals
  • 60min mash
Nicely to plan and a quick mash rest at about 75 deg C before I removed the grain. Alice wanted to help at this point but she had to go to bed (maybe next time). I decided on a 60min boil as follows: 

  • 35g Challenger @60mins 
  • 22g og Garden Grown hops @30mins
  • Protofloc @15mins
  • 25g EKG @0mins 
I decided to cool the wort to 80 deg C by recirculating it via the tap and into a bowl before pouring it back into the kettle. This helped cool the wort (20degC drop in 15mins) but also aerated it. Once at 80 deg C I threw in the final addition and then stirred the wort into a whirlpool.

Once the wort was at 70 deg C, I emptied the kettle into the fermenting bin and left over night to cool (no rapid cool this time). Added the yeast the next day. 


This brew was a real result. A very good bitterness along with decent floral aroma and taste - just like the traditional English Pale Ale I was aiming for. Clarity was good and I was happy with my priming - not too much carbonation, but enough to bring out the hop flavours. I'm not too sure how much the garden grown hops contributed to the overall brew but all in all a very sessionable, easy drinking ale that went down a treat. Will be aiming to replicate again with next years batch (fingers crossed). Overall score = 4.5/5

Notes

Malts: Crisp Extra Pale Malt, Crisp Light Crystal
Hops: Challenger, East Kent Goldings, Home Grown Unknown Hops
Yeast: Lallemand English Style Ale Yeast (Dried yeast)
Original gravity = 1.041
Final Gravity = 1.010
ABV = 4.0%
Batch size = 13.3 Litres (8 x 330ml, 1 x 660ml, 20 x 500ml)
Based on Page 122 - Home Brew Beer by Greg Hughes 








 

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