Claremont Summer Ale

The brewing season is nearing an end here in southern California, so it's time to stockpile some refreshing beers for the coming warm months. I also had a few packages of grains and hops pellets sitting around that needed to be used up. The result: a recipe for Claremont Summer Ale. I built the recipe in BeerSmith, using the Blonde Ale style as a rough guide.

Claremont Summer Ale

• 6 oz. 20°L crystal malt
• 8 oz. carapils malt
• 8 oz. Munich malt
• 3 pounds light dry malt extract
• 3 pounds pale (extra light) dry malt extract
• 1 oz. Cascade pellet hops
• 1 oz. Mt. Hood pellet hops
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• 1 package East Coast Ale Yeast (White Labs #WLP008)

 Steps

• I heated 3 gallons of water to 158° F, and steeped the grains at this temperature for 1 hour (plus or minus a few degrees).
• Then, I sparged the grains with a gallon of water, bringing the brew kettle up to 4 gallons total. Upon heating the mixture to boiling, I turned off the heat, added the DME, and brought it all back to boiling again. The Cascade hops were added.
• After 45 minutes of boiling, I added the Irish moss.
• After 58 minutes of boiling, I added the Mt. Hood hops.
• After 60 minutes of boiling, I removed all of the hops and chilled the wort.
• I decanted the mixture (except 0.5 gallons of trub) into the primary fermenter, and topped up with water to 4.75 gallons. The temperature was 68° F, and I pitched the yeast directly in.
• BeerSmith estimated my starting gravity to be 1.057 (slightly outside the blonde ale style), with 18.1 IBUs, a color of 6.7 SRM, and estimated ABV at 5.5%. The actual starting specific gravity was 1.052, and I expect the color will be a little lighter than estimated too. The most likely reason for this is that I poured off such a healthy amount of trub. The end result is that I should be within the style for a blonde ale (for whatever that's worth).