Description

This Low ABV West Coast Pale Ale featured in our recent video where Stiffo tries out some new methods for brewing beers that occupy a lower ABV range than usual, with the aid of yeast strains designed for this style of brewing by WHC Lab. The finished beer has a pleasant amount of body remaining, crisp finish and some delicious west coast hop character such as pine, resin and citrus fruits. The perfect beer for those nights where you fancy something with less strength but still deliver on flavour.

We strongly recommend you watch the accompanying video for this beer as there are some technical aspects you may wish to review and incorporate to your brew, such as monitoring your gravity points and back liquoring the wort to the gravity we are aiming to start at, that being said it’s also a great opportunity to experiment with these concepts and learn more about lower strength brewing, whilst not compromising on flavour and aroma.

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Ingredients Included

Weyermann Munich Malt II
Simpsons Malt – Wheat Malt
Simpsons Malt – Low Colour Maris Otter
Mosaic – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (35 grams)
Centennial – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (35 grams)
Simcoe T90 Pellets (35 grams)
Citra® – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellets (35 grams)
Hallertauer Magnum – BarthHaas® Pure Hop Pellet (15 grams)
WHC Dried Yeast – Low Rider Mk2 – 11g Packet (1 pack)
Maltodextrin 500g (1 pack)

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Method

Beer Style (main): American Ales
Beer Style (sub): Session India Pale Ale
Batch Size: 23
Original Gravity: 1.034
Final Gravity: 1.011
ABV %: 3
IBU: 35

THE MASH
Temperature °C (Step 1): 64
Length (mins) (Step 1): 60
Temperature °C (Step 2): 75
Length (mins) (Step 2): 10

THE BOIL
Boil time (mins): 60

Hop / kettle additions and timing:

15g Magnum @ 60min

Whirlpool / hop stand:

15g each of Simcoe, Mosaic, Centennial and Citra at 80c for a 30min whirlpool/hop stand

DRY HOP

Once final gravity has been achieved, add the additional hops to the FV and leave for 24 hours, then if possible try rousing the hops by bubbling CO2 through the bottom of the FV

Leave for a further 24 hours before packaging.

Yeast: WHC Low Rider
Fermentation temperature/steps: 19c for 5-7 days or until fermentation has completed – ideally dump the yeast from the fermenter if you have the ability before moving to dry hopping the beer.

Secondary additions:

Ensure you add 200g of Maltodextrin to the boil for the last 15mins, ideally by drawing off 1L of boiled wort and dissolve the maltodextrin in this before adding back to the boil.

Consider adding finings such as Brausol to the beer before packaging and leaving for 48 hours to clear.

We aimed for a water profile which had a 2:1 ratio of Sulphite to Chloride.