Description

Without Headband it’s possible that there would be no Verdant! it was Headband pale ale that secured their first customer – and the beer has undoubtedly proved inspirational to each and every one of their beers ever since.

Ever since tasting those first releases I’ve been in love what they brew, the mouthfeel, the hop balance, just everything. Still to this day though I think Headband is my favourite beer of theirs. Its just such a great drink, that lovely orange colour from the Munich malt is the real joyous point of difference and its one of the lower ABV beers from them which almost makes it a session beer.

So with this in mind I set about trying to create a recipe that I could have on tap at home, a homage, as I knew to ask for the exact recipe from James there would be rather cheeky considering how important it is to their core range. I did however share the recipe online in its development and he did give me a guide of something to I needed to change on it to get it to this latest version.

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Ingredients Included

Simpsons Best Pale Ale Malt
SIMPSONS MALTS EXTRA PALE MALT
TMM Jumbo Oat Flakes 26
Simpsons Munich Malt
Weyermann® Carapils®
Crisp Crystal Malt
Magnum Pellets (6 grams)
Citra Pellets (100 grams)
Mosaic Pellets (60 grams)
Chinook Pellets (40 grams)
Columbus Pellets (180 grams)
LALBREW® VERDANT IPA Dried Yeast 11g (1 packs)

total grain bill 6130g

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Method

Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): Juicy or Hazy Pale Ale
Batch Size: 23
Original Gravity: 1.055
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV %: 5.5
IBU: 15

THE MASH
Temperature °C: 67
Length (mins): 60
Out temp °C: N/A
Out time (mins): N/A

THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60

Additions and timing:

60 min Magnum 6g

Whirlpool at 80c for 20 minutes
Citra 20g
Mosaic 20g
Chinook 10g
Columbus 10g

Secondary additions and timing:

dry hop Citra 80g
dry hop Mosaic 40g
dry hop Columbus 170g
dry hop Chinook 30g

Yeast: Verdant Yeast
Fermentation temperature/steps: Ferment at 18, then diacetyl rest at 22c

Comments:

Once fermentation is complete and D rest, drop temp to 14c for the dry hop. Hop contact time should be no more than 72hrs. Cold crash and package.

 

This is the current example of this beer that I feel is good enough to share at this point, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop tweaking the recipe though.

When brewing this please take note of the blog post about Sharks for notes on getting your water treatment right which will be important on this beer as it is on any hoppy hazy beer, just like avoiding oxidisation.