Got this recipe from The Mad Fermentationist. Check out his site. Its a treasure trove of information especially if your into sour beers. I’m totally onboard with the latest trend in brewing regular to mild strength, or as the English call them, session beers. For too many years anything with flavor had been in the 6 – 8% range that will frankly get you loaded if you have more than four. Lower gravity beers can be good and flavorful and have less alcohol allowing you to enjoy more. Instead of using a lot of base malt the recipe calls for Vienna which has a bit more flavor and color. A little Cara Munich rounds it out. I also added quarter pound of Oats for a little mouth-feel which he suggests after tasting his own version. There’s a silly amount of hops in this beer. Almost all are late addition and dry hops so this should have an over the top hop aroma which I love more than the bitterness of hops.

As with any recipe I get, I find it almost impossible to get the hops that are exact so I did some substitutions using Cascade for Amarillo, and Summit for Simcoe. Luckily I was able to source a good amount of Columbus. The recipe calls for a no sparge but I decided to sparge and boil down. No sparge will give you a very malty taste because your not extracting as many tannins as when you sparge. I decided to get my moneys worth and boost the ABV a small amount by sparging. Hopefully it will be malty enough.

5 gallons all grain

OG 1.048
FG 1.012
IBU 37
SRM 7.5
ABV 4.8%

Grain
7 lbs 4.0 oz Vienna Malt
2 lbs 4.0 oz Pale Malt
8.0 oz Caramunich Malt
4.0 oz Oats, Flaked

Hops
Cascade 3.5 oz
Summit 4.0 oz
Tomahawk 3.0 oz

Hop Schedule
15 minutes
.5 oz Summit
.25 oz Tomahawk
10 minutes
.75 oz Cascade
5 minutes
.75 oz Summit
Flame out
1.5 oz Cascade
1.5 oz Tomahawk
1.5 oz Summit
Dry Hops
1.25 oz Cascade
1.25 oz Summit
1.25 oz Tomahawk

Mash and Sparge
Mash in add 4.5 gal of water at 162 F and let stabilize to 154.0 F for 60 min
Batch sparge 4 gal of 168.0 F water

Yeast
Washed California ale yeast