With spring and eventually summer on the horizon, i wanted to ask everyone what their go to summer brew is. My plans always include an IPA, I brewed Kolsch last year, and I’m thinking of doing an american wheat.
So again, what’s your plans?
Well, even though I’ve still got at least 1- 1.5 feet of snow on the ground, I’m thinking about summer brews as well. Have 3 in mind:
- My daughter likes Blue Moon and asked if I could clone that. Going to use Wayne’s recipe from the HBT forum.
- Last year I did a cream ale flavored with a tinge of lemon that went over real well. I’ll probably repeat that.
- Just ordered NB’s ‘John Palmer’s Elevenes’ . Looking forward to that. I do need something with some flavor to conteract #1 & 2.
I mainly do American style ales and I’m pretty well stocked for the summer. That said, between now and the end of May I plan to do a Belgian ale, another IPA and probably 10 gallons of APA. I might brew 1 or 2 batches from then until October.
I’m going to be making a strawberry blonde, lots of IPA, and probably a breakfast stout. There’s a possibility of an extra pale ale and a smaller chance of a Belgian strong or a schwarzbier.
IPA is always on my all-seasons go-to list…and for spring/summer, I brewed a honey wheat ale…wife and son in law like it…I also have Irish Red in fermenter now…gotta have variety!
:cheers:
I have to keep a tap of APA all year. But, I burn through even more during summer.
say. san.
I like to keep them somewhat sessionable, max OG of 1.060 or so.
Also going to have a CAP, kolsch (we’ll see how long it lasts…may have to brew another), biere de mars, maybe a helles, and definitely an APA or two.
I plan on perfecting two recipes over the upcoming spring & summer months. An IPA and an APA. I am brewing the APA next (possibly this weekend) and then will follow closely with the IPA. I want to keep the APA really sessionable, somewhere in the 1.045-1.050 range.
Right now I have a pretty good inventory of citrusy hops. I have been meaning to post my inventory list on here and get some feedback for a hop schedule for the planned APA & IPA. maybe tonight…
I also plan on giving a wheat beer a go. There are only 1 or 2 commercial examples of wheat beer that I like so this may be a 2.5 gallon batch. Just to see if I will like a home brew version.
[quote=“GeerBoggles”]I plan on perfecting two recipes over the upcoming spring & summer months. An IPA and an APA. I am brewing the APA next (possibly this weekend) and then will follow closely with the IPA. I want to keep the APA really sessionable, somewhere in the 1.045-1.050 range.
Right now I have a pretty good inventory of citrusy hops. I have been meaning to post my inventory list on here and get some feedback for a hop schedule for the planned APA & IPA. maybe tonight…
I also plan on giving a wheat beer a go. There are only 1 or 2 commercial examples of wheat beer that I like so this may be a 2.5 gallon batch. Just to see if I will like a home brew version.[/quote]
If you have amarillo on hand you can do a Three Floyd’s gumballhead clone. There is a recipe either on HBT or HB Chatter I used a few years back and it turned out awesome. FWIW, I’m not a huge Am Wheat fan either. All amarillo wheaty APA.
When spring rolls around I tend to put away my sack of British ale malts for my sack of German Pilsener malt.
Last year I went for a trditional Maerzen which ended up more like a Munich style Dunkel (I was fine with that). Very bready, though the little chocolate malt I used for color came through a little too much.
This year I am leaning towards a more Northern German style Dunkel. Predominately Pilsen malt - little if any munich, maybe a tich of Wheat for texture. I am definately going for carafa special this time for color to cut down on the roasted flavors.
German and Czech noble hops the whole way through. More bitterness and hop aroma than the Bavarian style.
1, kolsch
2, Cream Ale
3, Raspberry Wheat (wife)
4, Southern English Brown Ale
used to be store bought summer ales…this year I just put a steam beer into the fermenter.
Also plan another attempt at making a Shipyard Summer Ale clone. My first ever brewing batch was an extract clone attempt of that same beer.
The wife really liked that one and only 2 pints left of that now.
I’ll drink anything in the summer, and seems most folks reserve it for winter but my next brew is going to be a small batch of Denny’s Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter. Going to do either a 3 or 4 gallon batch.
Still deciding on one more for the lineup.
Just bottled a Kolsch, chinook IPA on deck, then 3 Floyd’s Zombie Dust clone.
5oz Citra @ 13.5% AA
1oz FF 7 C’s @ 9.9% AA
1oz US Golding @ 5.5% AA
1oz Magnum @ 14.7% AA
1oz Mosaic @ 11.6% AA
1oz Northern Brewer @ 10.6% AA
1oz Simcoe @ 13.7% AA
1oz Sorachi Ace @ 10.5% AA
The hop inventory is not as epic as I remembered it… 
Any suggestions on what to do with all this floral/citrus-y-ness? I posted a recipe I threw together over on the recipe exchange board as well but I think that recipe is already changing!
APA and IPA almost always; but also will keep a Blonde and/or simple pale ale - something with a single hop and lower alcohol during the summer.
This year it’s
Pils
Mild ale
British pale ale
I brew a wit every spring. I’m thinking of re-using the yeast on a white IPA along the lines of Deschutes Chainbreaker.
Dampfbier, Hefeweizen, Pale Ale, perhaps a helles or Munich lager of some variety, and probably IPA. I’m not quite looking forward to summer yet, I’m still waiting for spring to show up. I should try a Kolsch, too.
American Wheat Ale is the beer I will probably brew every year for the summer. This year I’m planning on doing a second one and making it a cherry or something along those lines for the wife.
I don’t really have a spring beer, but I guess I just ordered Extra Pale Ale for the first time so I’ll go with that.
An American Wheat beer with fruit (usually raspberries, but I’ve gone with cherries or blueberries also) is always on the menu for summer. Not sure what I’ll suplement it with this year, though thinking about a Boston Lager clone. Brewing a Duval clone tomorrow, and it should make for a good high gravity summer beer.
