Sleezy light honey lager

Earlier this year I made a batch of 'leftovers' beer. I had a bit of this, some of that, some yeast that I've recultured 3 times, and other assorted beer detritus. So I put it all together and made what could best be called 'Light honey lager'.

Here's what I had to throw in:

Grains/Extracts

• 20oz 2-Row


• 4oz Munich 10L


• 2lbs Honey


• 2lbs DME


• 5oz Table Sugar

Hops

• 1oz Saaz 4.4%AA


• 1oz Cluster 6.1%AA

Yeast

• White Labs Oktoberfest

Directions

• Soaked grain for an hour


• Added DME, Sugar, Honey Cluster Hops


• Boiled 60 min, added half oz of Fuggle at 30 min, and 45 min


• Lagered for a week at 55f


• Rack and lager for another 2 weeks at 50f


• Ready to drink about 2 weeks after bottling

Gravities

• OG 1.040


• FG 1.009

Nose: Low honey aroma, no malt or hop aroma. The lack of hop aroma is a little odd, maybe the minimal amount is being drowned by the honey. My sense of smell sucks as always.

Pour: Golden, clear, thin long lasting head. The clear golden beer shows off the excellent natural carbonation bubbles.

Taste: Bitter hops in the initial taste with honey sweetness coming through as you swollow. No malt flavor at all, but a surprisingly moderate amount of body. Very crisp.

Conclusion: The bitter start with a sweet finish is an odd dichotomy, not one that I'm sure works. It's highly drinkable and quiet pleasant, but I'm not sure I would go out of my way to try it again. Still for a batch of leftover scraps, it's a solid showing.

Scotch Ale by Gregory J. Noonan

I'm conflicted about this book.  The first 1/3 is the history of brewing in Scotland, which provides lots of background into the evolution of Scottish beer styles.  The last 1/3 is a listing of Scotch breweries and products, it's only slightly interesting and 15 years out of date at this point.

This only leaves 60 pages specifically devoted to malts, hops, water, yeast and brewing techniques.  Noonan does an excellent job of packing a lot of information in, but it's not well organized.  There's brewing technique information in the history section and even a few gems scattered in the brewery listing section.

Basically this book reminded me of eating a lobster - to get everything out of it, you really have to work over the whole book for small morsels.

That said, I do like this book.  It's the best resource on Scotch Ale I've seen and has great recipes for making both modern and historical Scotch Ales.  With the price of hops going through the roof I expect we'll see a resergence of interest in this low hoped style

So get ahead of the wave and start working on your Scotch Ales now.

Buy it here