Homebrew Review - Homegrown Hop 2013

I brewed this beer in mid-September with my new harvest of Bramling Cross hops.

Last year's incarnation was good, but unfortunately, the 2013 brew hasn't turned out quite so well, even allowing for the fact that I'm particularly hard on my beers.

Homegrown Hop 2013 

I was out of carahell malt when I came to brew, so substituted that with caragold this time around. It produced a paler beer, probably the colour I was looking for initially, but at the expense of some body. I definitely preferred the rounder flavour the German malt provided last year.

I also increased my estimate of the alpha. This was a good move as last year's beer was possibly a shade too bitter and this year's is nicely balanced. The disappointment comes with the flavour and aroma.

Hop aroma is earthy, spicy, but definitely muted. Not the assertive, fruitiness, I was expecting.

The flavour is not too bad and was better received by my local homebrew group than it was by me. To be fair, it is nicely balanced, has more fruit to it than you get on the nose, but overall the beer is a shade thin. I think reverting to last year's recipe with the carahell malt would help in this respect.

It's nicely clear and has a bright white head which dissipates about half way through. But although it looks the part, because of the lack of body and aroma, the beer is ultimately underwhelming.

Only I know what I was setting out to achieve, which is why I'm probably a harsher critic than most and I think the problem lies with my hop picking. Worried about them 'going over' I harvested a couple of weeks earlier this year and while the hops looked great, they probably lacked some of that 'paperiness' that you need to ensure the Lupulin is at its peak.

Having said all of that, the beer is perfectly palatable and I'll have no qualms about sharing this among friends. I've bottled the whole batch, rather than splitting half into a keg, as I get more requests for handouts of this brew, than any other.

I'll keep trying, though. I'll revert to the carahell malt and pick the hops a shade later and hopefully this time next year I'll be singing its praises.

Edit: If you're a hop geek, there's an article and some great pictures from this year's British hop harvest HERE

Brewday - HGH Pale Ale 12/09/2013

It's time for the annual ritual that is brewing a beer with my homegrown hops. Last year's beer turned out especially good, so I'm planning to do something very similar this time around.

The recipe is essentially the same, although as I'm all out of Carahell malt, I'm going to replace this with Caragold in the same quantity. The Caragold is a lighter malt, but that's probably no bad thing as when I reviewed last year's beer, I did remark that the Carahell had made the beer a shade darker than I had originally anticipated.

I've also altered the hopping slightly. Beersmith predicted IBU's of 42 on last year's schedule and the beer came across significantly more bitter than that estimate. Of course, I had to guess the acid content of the hops and used a conservative 4.5% for the alpha content.

This year I'm assuming 5% alpha and have reduced the hop additions very slightly at various stages, so the recipe now looks like this;

HGH Pale Ale 2013

English IPA

Type: All Grain	Date: 12/09/2013
Batch Size (fermenter): 50.00 l	Brewer: Mark
Boil Size: 61.39 l	Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 75 min	Equipment: Elite Brewery
End of Boil Volume 55.12 l	Brewhouse Efficiency: 73.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 50.00 l	Est Mash Efficiency 77.4 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage	Taste Rating(out of 50):
Taste Notes:
Ingredients
Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 11000.00 g Pale Malt, Maris Otter (Thomas Fawcett) (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 90.2 % 1200.00 g Caragold (9.0 EBC) Grain 2 9.8 % 80.00 g Homegrown Bramling X [5.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 3 19.4 IBUs 80.00 g Homegrown Bramling X [5.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 4 11.7 IBUs 1.00 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 mins) Fining 5 - 80.00 g Homegrown Bramling X [5.00 %] - Boil 7.0 min Hop 6 5.2 IBUs 80.00 g Homegrown Bramling X [5.00 %] - Boil 1.0 min Hop 7 0.8 IBUs 4.0 pkg US West Coast Yeast (Mangrove Jack's #M44) Yeast 8 - 150.00 g Homegrown Bramling X [5.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.056 SG	Measured Original Gravity:
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG	Measured Final Gravity:
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.6 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol:
Bitterness: 37.2 IBUs
Est Color: 10.1 EBC

That's nearly 500g of hops in a ten gallon batch and as the yield from my hop plants was 900g (dried), there'll be plenty left for another brew.

Brewday for this one is penciled in for Thursday.

Hop Harvest - 2013

I spent the last couple of evenings harvesting my Bramling Cross hops

The yield wasn't as good as last year, but I think I've got a better grade of hop, as I've picked them about a week earlier this time. Last year I left loads on the vine as they had opened too far and had a bit too much brown about them for my liking. This year's lot are about right - the cones are just about opening, with a hint of 'paperiness' about them, but still nicely green.

We got these two bags on Wednesday and I went up again on Thursday to get what was left, which was about half as much again.

The hops are now spread upon net curtains which adorn various parts my loft, 'hammock' style. It's so hot and stuffy up there, the cones dried in about two days last year.

Once done, I'll vacuum pack them and stick them in the freezer - then on to brew.