BeerBorg

So I have been craving more of my bitter Burton Ale because I ran out. But I don't want to brew a ~1.070 brew this time of year, I want post-cycling beverage. And my friend gave me 4oz of home grown dried culinary lavender. So I've made lavender cookies and stuff, but I still have a crap load of that stuff (4oz of dried lavender is *a hella lot* to figure out what to do with). So EKG has a bit of a lavender like floral nature when used as a finishing/dry hop. So I figure why not kick that up a notch. It will hardly make a dent in my pile of lavender but it will help a little bit. I'll probably do a lavender saison, and also use some of it in one of my reconstructionist abbey beers over the summer.

I don't want an ton of caramel in this, but more of a pure candy sweetness to play against the hops and lavender. So I'm keeping my crystal very light colored. My yeast of choice for these kinds of beers will give me some nutty and stone fruit esters. I'm using a lot of crystal to try to keep a similar balance of malty/sweet vs. bitter that my bigger burton ale had. (it's still going to be good and bitter).

And yes believe it or not 1.04 beers were called IPAs back in the day. There were even 1.03 beers with 50+ IBUs. And those actually would have likely had invert sugar instead of crystal malt too (crystal was really rarely used in real British IPAs back in the day and sugar was often used so they would have been bitter as fook). But I want some sweetness here (and body) to play against all the tea and pith and herb and floral that will go on and I've got plenty of IBUs here to balance it. I'll probably carb this very lightly like a real British beer.

Also for those who have never brewed an old school burton type of beer, large additions of lower AAu hops are important (vs. say using Magnum or a high AAu English bittering hop in smaller amounts). The vegetal tannins that get extracted are part of the character that makes them what they are. Will taste a lot less complex if you replace the bittering additions with a lot less of something with a lot higher AAus.

So I will burtonize my water, and then mash this (it will be a thick BIAB mash, this is pushing the limits of my capacity, so I will sparge and squeeze it 2 times most likely to get up to real volume):

For 5 gallons:

@152 I think:
8# Maris Otter
1# 10L Crystal

2oz EKG @60
1oz EKG @45
1.5oz EKG @20
1.5oz EKG @10
0.2oz Dried Lavender @2
2oz EKG dry hop.

With the AAUs of my EKG, that's going to give me something like 95 IBUs at ~1.047 or so. Hurray! (this is not outrageous, if you look at old recipes some have 150-200 of bittering with OGs in the 1.05's and no crystal malt, so especially with my crystal addition... it's easily in the right ballpack).

I got a starter of Wyeast West Yorkshire (1469) that will spin tomorrow.

I might tweak this a tad, but not the malt, just the hops and/or lavender. If anything I will reduce the lavender to 1/4oz or even 0.2oz, not increase it. I do want to boil it for a couple of minutes because that adds some herbal bitterness that will add to the complexity, and then let fermentation scrub some of the floral aroma, that's on purpose. I don't want to use a tincture for this as its really easy for the floral to get overpowering and make "bath soap" beer. (I've used lavender before both in good and bad ways, this should be a good way).

BTW, in case someone doesn't know, full volume for me for the boil in this case will be around 3.75 gallons, I will top up during the boil a couple of times with boiling water from a tea kettle, and I will split between 2 LBCs and then top up each to the 2.5 gallon mark with camden treated water. Yes, you can do that even with AG. Folks who say you can't are weenies who have never tried it. I do it all the time for 5 gallon batches because I can't boil 5 gallons in a happy manner. You just need to tweak your bittering hop additions a tad perhaps, if you are trying to "clone" something. One of the "stupid brewing tricks" I learned a long time ago.

This was brewed today. I actually steeped the crystal in a separate pot from the mash, the 8# of Maris Otter on its own was pushing my sanity level buttons. I just threw the steeped wort in during the boil. After topping up I ended up at around 1.048. My goldings were 6%, so I tweaked the hop schedule a good bit from my original post, but still even with that modification it's going to be > 90 IBUs. But really that's ok for this kind of old school "style" of British IPA and it won't seem crazy when consumed with a bit of age on it, which is always good for British IPAs (they are not like American IPAs). I reduced the lavender to 0.2oz from my original 0.3oz. I don't really want to over do it and make beer that smells like perfume, but just add a bit of extra floral to the Goldings, and I'd rather it be something "mysterious" then scream "flowers!". I updated the OP above with my changes.

So I bottled this today at 1.015. That is all good and proper for this yeast - I chose this yeast because it's not an attenuating monster and makes great stone fruit and nutty flavors, and wanted the residual maltyness to counter the massive amount of hops I used for it's OG.

The hops and the bit of break material that I didn't carefully keep out of the fermenters combined to be so much trub that it totally borked my spigot in both of my LBKs. I had to get out my auto siphon to get the stuff out of them. This yeast is a high floc yeast that packs everything into a gelatinous layer. Which is great, but that layer was higher then my spigots. Auto siphon has saved my butt 4 times now.

What I tasted, tasted great, so I think I will like it. The lavender is not overpowering in any way, might not even know what it is if I didn't tell you. I probably could have used more, but I didn't want to make beer that smelled like flower scented soap.

EDIT: I just hope my Brett didn't get in while I sat there with an auto siphon and the lid off. It's starting to get warmer. My brett will wake up soon. Although a bit of Brett C in an old school British IPA isn't really uncalled for I suppose.

So I just tried my tester bottle, because I figured it was good already even though it's just been a few weeks - and yes it is. Totally delicious and easy to drink. Some of you had the British Pale I sent with Dawg. This is like that but with some nutty/stone fruit esters and a more floral nose. Perceived bitterness is very similar - it has enough bitterness that you do not taste any sweet crystal malt even though there is a pound of it in this. So it is actually better in my own tastes and more like I intended that other beer to be (that other beer fermented too cool for the yeast to really do it's thing). It's super easy to drink and very refreshing.

Would you know I put lavender in it if I didn't tell you? I don't think so. It doesn't scream lavender. I could have used more, but this was enough to give it a bit of extra complexity. Maybe I can taste it if I really look for it, but it is very subtle.

This is in my rotation, but I'll save some if anyone wants to try it.

No signs of brett, but it's still young. If there is any I probably won't notice until it's 2 months old or more, because it will be low level and slow working.

If anyone had the all EKG version of the old Sam Adams deconstructed and thought "boring" - this kind of beer shows you more what EKG can be like when used in large quantities. Not boring.

This unfortunately might lose some of the esters after a 2 or 3 months. It will still be good but not quite as complex.

FWIW, this beer is half gone. It is better then the Burton ale I sent with Steve to the gathering. More flavor/aroma from the yeast and hops, but still super easy to drink. I'd make this again and not change anything. You can tell there is something in it besides hops, but you can't pin it to lavender flowers, it just makes it more interesting (in a good way).