A Sprig of Grass

Updated 2020-05-15

The Story of this Beer

I wrote a post explaining the story of this beer.

Recipe and Log

• 1st Version as explained in the post linked below, is actually my take on another beer I collaborated on that I felt was partly to fully flawed depending on the batch. This recipe is my third based on some more thorough research of the historical style, is an original invention, and is the first recipe where I experiment with water chemistry.
• 1st batch was bottled on 2015-06-27. The starting gravity was a little low, 1.067 so the final gravity was likewise a bit lower than the 1.018 target, ending up at 1.011. At bottling, there is still a decent amount of residual sweetness and a high but not overpowering level of bitterness, as expected. The color is great, coppery and fairly clear. Only 1 gallon was lost from the original 5.5, so there are 36 12oz bottles and 6 22oz bottles for gifts and the cellar.
• 2nd version is just some tweaking based on my experienced brewing it last year. Some of this is better adjusting the recipe to my equipment, thanks to Beersmith, and the rest is playing with the hopping.
• 2nd batch was packaged on 2016-06-18. Finish gravity was pretty close to the target, yieding 7% ABV. The batch came up short due to chiller and pump losses. Hopefully third batch will be a charm and I will get a full one. The taste at kegging was wonderful, with a crisp, clean bitterness and rich, floral aroma and flavor. The color was pretty consistent with last year's batch, being a rich copper but do to improvements in my fining practices and force carbonation rather than bottle condition, the beer is remarkably bright.
• The 2nd batch took a blue ribbon on the IPA table (all the current BJCP IPA styles, 8 entries in total) at the 68th Montgomery County Agricultural Fair.
• The 3rd version mostly saw a scaling up of the hop schedule. I made this batch in May of 2017 and am incredibly pleased with how well it came out.
• I brewed a 4th batch of this beer Summer of 2018, pretty much same as the 3rd iteration of the recipe.
• I brewed a 5th batch of this beer Summer of 2019. I experimented with some substitutions. Rather than having to pay a premium for EKG, I used US grown Goldings. I also substituted Challenger for some of the Fuggles because that is what I had on hand. This beer took forever to clarify, I think becuase the Fuggles were some of the oldest hops in my inventory and predated my purchase of a vacuum sealer despite being frozen. The US Golding was nice but for this recipe, I prefer EKG and will return to that in future batches.