After the very successful Vienna WCIPA ran out faster than expected I needed a super quick keg-filler, so I whipped up this hazy pale, using a pale malt base, lots of flaked wheat and oats, some GNO that I had, and some chit.
Grain bill was:
- 4 kg (66.7%) — Voyager Craft Malt ATLAS
- 800 g (13.3%) — Flaked Wheat
- 600 g (10%) — Rolled Oats
- 300 g (5%) — Chit Barley
- 300 g (5%) — Golden Naked Oats
Hops where whatever I could scrounge up:
- 25 g (12 IBU) — Rakau — Boil — 15 min
- 25 g (16 IBU) — Strata — Boil — 15 min
- 50 g (3 IBU) — Rakau — Aroma — 15 min hopstand @ 75 °C
- 25 g (2 IBU) — Strata — Aroma — 15 min hopstand @ 75 °C
- 25 g — Amarillo — Dry Hop
- 25 g — Rakau — Dry Hop
- 5ml — Abstrax Galaxy Quantum 5mL is ~150g equiv. (CO2 Extract) - at packaging
Used Voss, pitched and fermented at 35c, it was practically finished at 24 hours, but I gave it 3 days at 35, then 4 days at -2c, dry hop went in while it was chilling and just under 20c so it got some time as it passed through the "ideal" 14-16c range.
Final colour is difficult to capture, but it's a very nice pale, good hazy, flavour is great, bright, sharp acidity, feels good in the mouth, dry but has some body, great mix of hops, carbonated slightly higher than I usually do which really fits. here is a picture as it was just coming up to carbonation, it's brighter and paler than the image really shows, and this picture doesn't show the head.
This quick throw together was actually so successful and popular that the next brew is a refined version of this, with a more fully flavoured base malt, slightly more of everything overall a tweaked water profile to be a bit sharper, using London Fog or another juicy yeast, rather than the Voss. a sharper water profile should make up some of the extra character voss gave it.
I quite like Voss for Neipas since the extra sweetness and body can round over and balance out the bitter orange pith flavour it tends to throw around but in a dryer pale it stands out a bit much.