English summer pale

For my family holiday I decided to make a keg of lowish alcohol sessiony beer which would be light and focused on English hops. I made enough to fit comfortably into my 10L mini keg with the rest bottled.

I largely used Phoenix hops, which lent the beer a fruity (with an accent from the Phoenix) and tobacco/leather aroma, nice and soft rather then harsh and piney like an American IPA.

To boost the mouth feel I also added quite a lot of oats, although this did add a haze to the beer, along with the wheat, this didn't really matter too much.

The beer tasted great, it was consumed in 5 days by my family (14 adults!) - and confirmed for me that it is possible to get a really good hop flavour and aroma even at fairly low gravity.


Single infusion, bath sparge - 15L
Abv 3.5%


Mash @67C for 120mins

Grain bill
0.5 kg Carapils
1.05kg Wheat malt
0.96kg Munich Malt
0.50kg Biscuit Malt
0.36 kg Flaked Oats

Hop Bill
30 mins- 20g Dana
5 Mins - 10 g Phoenix
WP 45 mins @ 75C descending - 12g Calypso, 45g Phoenix

Breakfast (Spelt & Dana) IPA

I love trying out new ingredients. I found spelt malt from one of the brew supply stores I use fairly often, and because I love the taste of spelt bread I thought I'd probably love spelt beer. But I've never had a commercial spelt beer (although there is a German one - Dinkelbier) so this was a bit of an experiment, I was not really sure how it would turn out.

I thought I'd make an IPA so the spelt flavour would shine through. I had a ton of Dana hops so I used these for aroma and flavour - they gave the beer a nice marmalade touch (hence the name) and the Galaxy lent a nice spark over the top - without blocking out the malt.

Method wise, this was a straightforward BIAB beer (because spelt is like wheat and can get stuck), single infusion mash and simple fermentation.

Drinkable after 6 weeks, I think this is the best beer I have brewed yet. Clean, yet very flavoursome. The spelt produced a lovely background flavour and a wheat like silkiness to the mouth feel and finish. Someway towards lager whilst still deliciously pale ale. I took a dozen of these to the Glastonbury festival and they didn't last long amongst my friends.

I'm going to recreate this soon, using a bit more spelt and some Kiwi hops.



Batch 11l
Abv 5.3%

OG 1054 (post boil cooled)
FG 1014 (at bottling)

Yeast - Mauribrew dried

Mash @67C for 100mins

Grain Bill
1.68kg Vienna Malt
1.00 kg Spelt Malt
0.36 kg Pilsner Malt (needed using up)

Hop Bill
Mash 28g Dana
20mins 10g Dr Rudi
Whirlpool 20g Dana 20mins @75C
Dry hop 28g Dana & 12g Galaxy for 10 days