Homebrew Review - Galaxy

It's been a while since I reviewed one of my brews and the recipe for this one didn't get posted on the blog. It was brewed at the time I was having Internet problems, hence the omission.

Bottle Conditioned 

I set out to make a low-gravity, hoppy pale ale. The grist consisted of 90% Marris Otter, plus about 5% each of Carahell and Carared, for no other reason than to use up some leftover malt from previous brews.

As for the hops, a friend of mine in Australia was kind enough to send me some Galaxy hops. He also sent me a recipe for a single-hop beer, which will be my next brew. For this one, I used the Galaxy in combination with Nelson Sauvin, with equal additions at 60mins, 20mins, 7mins and at switch-off.

Gravity was 1.042 with Beersmith predicting IBU's at 30. As is my usual M.O. I bottled half the batch and the other went into keg. The keg is long gone.

It pours nice and clear, with a bright white head which soon disipates to a small ring, but does continue to lace the glass. Aroma is what you might expect. Galaxy is known for a 'fruit salad' aroma and that's exactly what's here; pineapple, mango and the like.

Initial taste is similar to the aroma, but the beer soon dries the palate, leaving quite a harsh bitterness. It was always a bitter beer, even from the keg, but as the beer was brewed towards the end of May, this bottle is now past it's best, the beer having dried out significantly (something I've found previously when using US05 yeast).

But overall, it's a promising beer. Very clean, and if overlooking the current dryness, it's a lovely summer quencher. Enough promsie to brew again, although I'd change the yeast and probably rein back the hops a little, to prevent the bitterness from totally dominating this small beer.