Recipe Formulation Day

Next week we're brewing Festiv'Ale, a pale, fruity little 3.8er for those on a session at this year's Hop Farm Festival up in Paddock Wood. We've brewed it before; we find an excuse to slip it in most years but we don't necessarily use the same recipe every year. Proper beer drinkers think it sacrilegious alter a beer's formulation but the truth is it happens a great deal more than they suspect, to a great many more beers. I can't speak for others but there are a few reasons we change and alter things: a change of raw materials available necessitating a tweak, a change in drinker preference (or a change in drinker), to improve the flavour of a beer or simply to try something a little different. No one has drunk Festiv'Ale since sitting in a field last year and I doubt even those that took notes can recall the exact nuances involved so I feel free, to a certain extent, to revisit the brewsheets, check the malt store, check the hop store and work out a recipe. I call it 'freshening up'.



So, the malt was simply pale Marris Otter and some Caragold (body and mouthfeel) at 11%, the hops were Canterbury grown Cascades for a middling bitterness and juicy flavour with a twist of fruity Nelson Sauvin hops at the end. All fermented with a soft ale yeast to a sweeter-than-usual finish, (which will have balanced that gentle bitterness).

I don't think much needs changing there then. Up the hops, as always, but nothing else.

Well, that was an easier day than I thought it would be - as the Coyote says "some days you eat the bear, some days the bear eats you" (these Canadians are an odd lot).