Next Brews

My malt and hops order finally arrived (including six kilos of pale wheat malt) so I'm planning a brew day for the weekend! I have enough for two five gallon batches of wheat-based ale - first a Belgian Wit and following on a Westphalian Alt - both made with my pet house yeast strains German Alt and miscellaneous Belgian ale respectively. 

I've been re-tasting a few versions of the Belgian Wit style - Hoegaarden, Blue Moon (stateside version with some oats in there too) and Tesco's finest Belgian Wheatbeer - which comes in a nice Champagne-topped 750 bottle - made for them by Huyghe Brewery, who also make M&S Begian beers (I enjoyed the cherry wit) and Delerium Tremins. The Huyghe version was very good, but I'm afraid I liked Hoegaarden best. The Hoegaarden has quite a light body (and colour) and a mild fruity note, the Huyghe was fuller bodied and flavoured but had just a little too much of the orange peel flavour for me, and the Blue Moon was just a bit too understated. My recipe (out of my Belgian Ale bible) recommends coriander seed and orange peel as the flavourings, plus a light dose of Saaz hops. I'm using wheat malt rather than raw wheat just because it's a little easier (although probably less authentic). I'm wondering about the orange peel though as I don't want it to come through strongly like in the Huyghe version - one thing that crossed my mind was to try a little of a herb like lemon balm - which just happens to grow like a weed in my garden - instead of the orange peel. The prospect of overdoing it though, and brewing something that smells like washing up liquid, is a worry. I may just play safe and stick with a standard recipe for the first shot at the style.

Anyway, that's all for the weekend, but brings me on to the next thing... I just bought a book: Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers: The Secrets of Ancient Fermentation. I became rather excited about brewing gruit ales (see previous post) and wanted to get some more info on ingredients - but this book opens up a LOAD of other possibilities.Looks like one needs to go steady on some of the acred ehrbs though, judging from the book review I'm not sure if its in there, but one thing I'd like to try is brewing a full-strength malt-based version of an American rootbeer or a British Dandelion and Burdock (a similar old-style). I'm guessing that going way back they were once brewed as country ales - but I haven't fully researched that topic yet. Certainly haven't found a recipe yet, but watch this space!