The Axe Wife- Blonde Ale

Ingredients

Grain:
21 lbs of briess two row pale malt
Mash at 152 degrees for 60 minutes. Then batch sparge to volume. I like to sparge with 185 degree water to a pre-boil volume of 12.5 gallons. I use a keggle as my boil kettle. Also, I use a water ratio of 1.25 qts per gallon.

Hops:
1 oz German Perle at 60 min 7.8 AA
1/2 oz German Perle at 30 min 7.8 AA
1/2 oz Saaz 10 min 3.2 AA
1 oz Saaz 5 min 3.2 AA

I modeled this after Keweenau Brewing Company's Pick Axe Blonde. Now, I've seen no information on replicating this and many folks bash this beer. But I love taking this beer down the river in my kayak. A nice light beer that tastes a heck of a lot better than anything BMC! I emailed the brewery for the hops and did some research to come up with the rest. This has slightly more hops than the actual, which I think significantly improves this beer (for me at least). Also, the real thing is only 4.7% ABV, and this is slightly over 5%, which I like in session brew. It took me about 5 attempts and I finally arrived. I split this into two fermenters and used US-05 and US-04 as an experiment. I'm drinking the 04 right now only 1 week in the keg. Its' pretty amazing, but I know it will be best in 1 more week. Its already starting to clear up fast. So, pick axe blonde fans eat your hearts out. This recipe is finally on the net.

Just an update on this one. The US-05 batch was much cleaner tasting than the US-04 batch, but that was to be expected. Like Pick Axe Blonde, there is not a lot going on in terms of hops. I just threw some cascade in the keg to beef it up a little bit. It's a light drinker, but if you like hops, you may want to add more. The next time I brew this, I will beef up the bittering hops slightly and then add more saaz at the end. Maybe even try dry hopping with the saaz for that nice aroma. I'm also going to add some crystal 10L to the grain bill. I'll add the sequel sometime this spring.