Brewer's Gold

Wow, it's been quite a delay between my last post and this one. I've moved house, which means that I now have a garage, and hence somewhere to brew indoors so I'm not so vulnerable to the weather and lack of daylight. Also I can have the brewery set up permanently, which saves me an hour or so of assembly and disassembly every brew day. Unfortunately the move led to a long hiatus in my brewing, and I've had no beer on tap for nearly three months now - far too long!!

The Beginnings of a Permanent Installation

I've got a few brews lined up, but this is the first: a clone of Crouch Vale Brewer's Gold. I was actually at 'The Great British Beer Festival" one year when the original won champion beer, and a fine drop it was too.

The plan is to do a no-chill, with a huge dose of brewer's gold hops just before flame out. This should provide a good deal of bitterness and hop aroma/flavour, while a very small charge at the start of the boil will keep things under control and add some IBUs.

This is really a summer brew, but I've had the hops on hand since April and have been planning to have a go at it since long before then. It's a chance to get to know another hop variety, and should be an easy drinking ale on the handpump in a short period of time.

I'd like to be drinking this in three weeks, so I'll be taking a large starter to innoculate with WLP006, and I'll get the fermentation happening within a few days.

Here's the recipe:

 Grain/Extract/Sugar

   %     Amount     Name                          Origin        Potential SRM
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 100.0     3.91 kg.  Lager Malt(2-row)             UK             1.037      1

Potential represented as SG per pound per gallon.


Hops

   Amount     Name                              Form    Alpha  IBU  Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  5.00 g.     Brewer's Gold                     Pellet   7.00   5.1  60 min.
 95.00 g.     Brewer's Gold                     Pellet   7.00  25.9  15 min.


Yeast
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WLP006