What to do with my excess blonde ale..?

No... I am not sending it to anyone for disposal/consumption of any sorts.

With that out of the way I was wondering if anyone had an idea for an experiment, that I could do with a little bit of excess blonde ale that I have. I had intended to make 12 gallons, however it ended up being 13.5 gallons of 4.7% ABV Blonde Ale. The obvious experiments are dry hopping or fruit, but I don't know what kind of hops would go with a blonde ale?

The beer is made with: 18 lbs Maris Otter, 2 lbs Crystal 20L, 2 oz Centennial Hops and US-05 yeast fermented at 62 degrees.

It is just in the secondary now. I was thinking of trying some fruit combinations or something just totally out there. I'll think about this over the next day or so but if anyone has any ideas I will definitely consider them.

A safe (and likely yummy) thing to do would be to add some vodka soaked orange peel and dry hop with some Citra.

You could add vanilla and blue berry

I'd suggest racking it over some fruit.

You could add 2 lbs of Honey, let it ferment out and have a nice Honey Blonde.

Cheers

strambo said:

A safe (and likely yummy) thing to do would be to add some vodka soaked orange peel and dry hop with some Citra.

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I recently did a 5gal batch of blonde and put the zest and fruit from a single navel orange in secondary.
Could not be happier with the result.
Light and refreshing with a subtle taste and aroma of orange.

Only the outer orange zest though, the thick white pith makes it bitter.

+1 to fruit or honey - have tried both over the past few months and have been happy with the results. Tried raspberry and passionfruit (separately) for the fruit and both were pretty good! Quite keen to try mango but can't get any decent ones locally.
Have fun experimenting and let us know how it goes!

WileECoyote said:

You could add 2 lbs of Honey, let it ferment out and have a nice Honey Blonde.

Cheers

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I'm guessing for a 1.5 gallon batch, I think i might even make it 2 gallons by taking some extra off the other secondaries, would you figure 0.5 lbs of honey for 2 gallons?

I was thinking of adding some fruit, I'm not keen on the orange, I know that peach is a really girly flavor But I think a honey peach might actually be pretty good. Especially since we are getting peaches and blueberries from our crop share today.

Or even a honey vanilla blueberry strawberry.... or is that to many flavors. I may even split it into half gallons by using my growlers, and then mixing and matching on the fruits.

I do like the mango Idea but they are not good around me currently.

Just be aware that addition of fruit and/or honey will add additional sugars for the yeast to ferment out.
Boost in alcohol can make it dry in taste.

Rack it onto some strawberries for a strawberry blonde. I just made one and it is a real crows pleaser!

BonzoAPD said:

Rack it onto some strawberries for a strawberry blonde. I just made one and it is a real crows pleaser!

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I have heard that crows are not that hard to please.

Strawberry blonde is very good though. Mine actually had a pink tint and that made my wife happy.

The wife has ruled raspberry honey blonde, and I did find some good mangoes in the frozen area, so I was debating either straight up mango or a honey mango... Thoughts?

I think either will be tasty. That blonde takes flavors well.
From my experience with the strawberry blonde I made, it takes a good amount of berries to get the effects. I racked 6# of strawberries in my batch and it tasted good and like I said, it was pink.
When I do it again, I will likely go with only 4#.
Compared to a single orange to get a decent effect.
I try and keep costs down as much as possible, so an extra $10 for strawberries, but $1 got me an orange beer.

wfowlks said:

I'm guessing for a 1.5 gallon batch, I think i might even make it 2 gallons by taking some extra off the other secondaries, would you figure 0.5 lbs of honey for 2 gallons?

I was thinking of adding some fruit, I'm not keen on the orange, I know that peach is a really girly flavor But I think a honey peach might actually be pretty good. Especially since we are getting peaches and blueberries from our crop share today.

Or even a honey vanilla blueberry strawberry.... or is that to many flavors. I may even split it into half gallons by using my growlers, and then mixing and matching on the fruits.

I do like the mango Idea but they are not good around me currently.

Click to expand...

Yes, 1/2 lb would be good for a 2 gal batch.

Cheers

brewkinger said:

I think either will be tasty. That blonde takes flavors well.
From my experience with the strawberry blonde I made, it takes a good amount of berries to get the effects. I racked 6# of strawberries in my batch and it tasted good and like I said, it was pink.
When I do it again, I will likely go with only 4#.
Compared to a single orange to get a decent effect.
I try and keep costs down as much as possible, so an extra $10 for strawberries, but $1 got me an orange beer.

Click to expand...

Did you put the orange peel in as well of just the inside of the orange?

4 oz. grated/chopped ginger and the zest of a couple lemons. Maybe 1 tsp. vanilla extract. Age at least a month after bottling. It will be kick butt.

Update in case anyone was curious. I did the mango blonde as well as a honey blonde. The mango one actually came out fantastic. A good balance of bold Maris Otter malt and a slight bit of spice from the Centennial paired well with the honey and mango. It was a bit expensive though, and to be honest just the straight up blonde ale came out rockin' as well! Strawberry blond I agreed with my wife that I wouldn't try it until she could after the baby was born in Nov. So I'll update after then.

Cheers!

Nice one!