A gift that has kept on giving

As some of you may have been made aware from my Tweets/Instagram/ previous blog posts I was given Camra's Essential Home Brewing Book for a christmas present from my lovely wife.

Although I haven't read it from cover to cover yet. I have used it quite extensively for a recipe book. Which my wife & I both agreed it would be a nice thing for me to help try some different beers, or not brewing my own designed recipes all the time.

The book has 30 recipes from UK craft breweries including Verdant, Left Handed Giant and Elusive Brewing.


Back in January I did two brews close together, so I could have a choice of beer to drink but also because I was pretty excited to deep dive into the recipes. Only paying one postage was a plus too, but I did have to work out on a calendar when I could do the 2nd brew & had to store the grains/hops for a few weeks.

What is so good, is the author Andy Parker (who also actually owns Elusive Brewing) also has put some really useful tips/points with most of the recipes.

As an example I wanted to give myself 1 more chance in brewing a Black IPA. Something in the past has either been a bit hit and miss. Mostly too roasty, sometimes too imbalanced towards the hops.
There is a recipe from Eight Arch Brewing, their Corbel IPA, the tip that Andy gives is that you could add 500g of carafe 3 (given that your brewing a full 21L batch) but add it towards the end of the mash so you don't impart too much roastiness.

I gladly followed Andy's point and set about my way punching the recipe into MaltMiller recipe generator  & BrewersFriend (other Home Brewing stores & recipe generators are available)

As I ordered the carafe 3 as part of the recipe generator it all came mixed into the main part of the malt bill, I will next time add a special note to have the carafe 3 separate, as it has imparted a fair bit of roast in the beer. The beer is still really balanced and the hop aroma is absolutely there, however the hop flavour is still developing, it might be because its only been 2 weeks in the keg, but its probably more due to the roast. You get an upfront Mosaic Punch then gets a bit lost as the roast comes through.

It still is the best black IPA that I've brewed, next time I'll brew it, maybe in a few months time while I can freshly remember how it turned out this time, I will add the carafe 3 in later into the mash and perhaps slightly boost the flameout/dry hops but not by much.

Like I mentioned earlier, the beer could still be developing and the roast may subside within another weeks time.

The other beer I have done from the book is a straight clone of Anspach and Hobday's The Cream Ale, which is really drinkable & full of flavour for a Cream Ale.  As in the book, the recipe lends itself to the possibility of switching the hops. Its the 1st time of using enough of Sorachi Ace hops to get the full flavour of them. They do have a unique profile, early tastes were heavy on the dill, but now I get lemon and coconut. Its very pleasant.



The pocket sized book would offer alot for a newer Home Brewer, with all the additional information about home brewing processes, but even for the recipes themselves this book should tantalise any Home Brewer to get it.  There's enough in there to probably make this year 'The year of the clones'  if I wanted to.

Both beers brewed so far I have to watch it with, as both came out exactly the ABV from the book (figures in the region of 5.2-5.5%) You have a few and know about it the next day....which will bring me onto my next post of constructing a 'low ABV' session beer.

Until Next Time....Happy Brewing