Norfolk Nips - Norwich and Norfolk CAMRA

NORFOLK NIPS | Birth of a Beer - continued
set-up that mirrors our production plant, so it
was primarily a matter of selecting the mash
components and the hops and giving it a first
go. We did this in mid-December.
The first beer was 94.5% pale malt, 3% crystal
malt, 2% caramalt and half a percent of chocolate
malt. We decided to target about 33
bittering units (fairly bitter for the style and
gravity) and a strong late addition of hops to
bring up the aroma. We planned a hot mash to
leave some unfermentables and a bit of residual
body. After that, you really have to wait and see
what you get.
A Recipe for Homebrewers
As Bad Egg came off our homebrew set-up, we
have agreed to share our recipe at homebrew
scale for anyone who might be interested to try
this one at home.
HUMPTY DUMPTY “BAD
EGG” - Homebrew Recipe
For all-grain homebrewers, we assume a 75%
apparent efficiency and 20% extraction utilisation
of hop flowers. You will need to adjust this
recipe to your own brewhouse values. All
values are for a 23-litre (ca. 5 gallon) batch
Grain Bill
4124g Pale Malt
196g Crystal 150 Malt
164g Caramalt
50g Chocolate Malt
Water treated to Burton-on-Trent equivalent
Mash 68C 1 hour
Boil 60 minutes
33 EBU
Hopping for 23 litres
What we got was, well, not what we wanted.
It was both lighter in colour and more bitter
than we were targeting (though the bitterness
mellowed with time). But it served as a basis for
us to dial in to the final recipe. First, an increase
in colouring malts to deepen the colour. Then
two tweaks of the finishing hops to reach a more
palatable balance - first too low, then right
where we wanted it. We decided to keep the
hopping 100% East Kent Goldings.
It took us four trial brews in all. By mid-
February, we had agreed on the release
candidate. From here, we just have to scale it
up and we’re ready to go. We’ll be brewing this
in early March with a release to market around
March 30th. Keep an eye out for Bad Egg in
your local pub from early April.
90g Goldings Hops (ours are 4.2% alpha acid
at boil – you will need to adjust quantity for
different alpha acid content)
54g Goldings Hops at end of boil (let stand
for 20 minutes before cooling)
Ferment with English Ale Yeast
OG 1044
FG ~1012 (it should finish on the high side
due to non-fermentables)
ABV 4.1%
SPRING 2009 | 57