New Glarus Golden Ale

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

steinsato

Senior Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Jan 18, 2010
Messages
1,202
Reaction score
16
Location
Santa Fe, NM
I am attempting to brew a beer that is in the vicinity of New Glarus' Golden Ale. Since this beer is only available from the brewery itself I doubt I'll get much feedback on a recipe for it but I figured I'd fish around and see what I can get. So far, all I've found is that it is fermented with Brett and that they use Maris Otter and Syrian Goldings. I have written New Glarus an email asking for any help, we'll see if they come through for me. If anyone can offer up any ideas on how I might produce a beer that tastes like this one I would really appreciate it.
 
Hello everyone, I'm a newbie in the home brewing hobby and this is my first post in this extremely awesome and helpful forum.

I was at the New Glarus Brewery last Saturday and what an impressive place. I also sampled many of their beers but the Golden Ale was by far my favorite. What an outstanding beer. It had a great taste to it due to the Brett yeast I imagine. It also had a very nice mouth feel (is that a good descriptor?) to it. And just like steinsato, I also would like to learn how to brew this ale.

I was thinking, since I am a newbie, to try an extract recipe and perhaps adding the brett yeast at bottling. I came across a recipe that claims to produce a beer with golden color (see recipe below). But I'm not sure which hops to exclude and substitute with the Maris Otter and Syrian Goldings? Maybe the more experienced brewers can steer me and steinsato in the proper direction. TIA

The following recipe was taken from beerrecipes.com (I hope I didn't break any rules posting other sites. If so, I apologize in advance):

Belgian Strong Ale
beer glass color indicator
Beer Style: Belgian ale, Trappist ale, trippel
Recipe Type extract
Description:
We brewed this a few weeks ago,aiming for a Belgian Trippel, but the resulting brew was a lovely golden ale color. At about 9--1/2 percent alcohol it seemed innapropriate to call it a double. After four days in the bottle, tasted room temperature, it was fantastic. No bananas yet, but we're of course expecting them.

This seemed like overhopping ad nauseum, but it came out wonderfully balanced. The cinnamon, of course, is a drop in the ocean of flavor.
Ingredients:

* 3/4 cup, Belgian special roast malt
* 3/4 cup, English crystal malt (80L)
* 10 pounds, Northwestern gold extract
* 1/4 pound, light brown sugar
* 1/4 teaspoon, cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon, Irish moss
* 1 ounce, Fuggles pellets (boil)
* 3/4 ounce, Cascade pellets (boil)
* 3/4 ounce, Saaz whole hops (1/2 hour)
* 3/4 ounce, Styrian Golding pellets (1/2 hour)
* 2 ounces, fresh Cascade (aroma, 15 minutes)
* 1/4 ounce, Saaz (finish)
* 1/2 ounce, Olympic pellets (finish)
* 1/2 ounce, Cascade pellets (finish)
* Wyeast #1214 Belgian

OG: 1.083 FG: 1.009
Procedure:
Brought to boil the Belgian and English crystal. Removed grains. Boiled 1 hour with extract, Fuggles and Cascade, brown sugar, cinnamon and Irish moss.
Submitted by: Joel Newkirk
 
bmason, the recipe you have there is for a Golden Strong Ale which is a bit different. From what I have found, New Glarus Golden Ale is more of a Belgian Pale Ale than anything else. Your recipe is for a high alcohol beer possibly up to 10%. The New Glarus Golden Ale clocks in at 7% abv which is still high in alcohol but not as high as a Golden Strong. I'm having my parents bring some of these bottles out for me in a few months, I'm hoping they are bottle conditioned and I can harvest the yeast sediment. I'll keep updating this thread as I go.
 
steinsato, i have 2 bottles that i'm saving for special occasion...like when i get thirsty. but please keep us all informed on what you come up with. Thanks.

P.S. may have to make a 2.5 hour trip back to New Glarus, WI. :)
 
NG's Golden Ale is a fantastic beer. It is very Orval-like. There are lots of Orval clone recipe's out there that I think would be close. You might need to adjust the color malts slightly to get the more golden vs light orange color. I would use a semi-neutral Belgian yeast for the primary fermentation. White Labs WLP510 Bastogne Belgian Ale is reputedly the Orval primary strain; I think WLP 515 would work for the primary as well. Then add brett from a bottle of Orval or NG Golden in the secondary, and dry hop with Styrian goldings.

If you are going to harvest the yeast from a bottle of NG Golden, I would not use it for the primary, or you will likely get a different beer with a stronger brett character. I would guess that they bottle condition because I've successfully harvested the yeast.
 
Beerfold: I'll check into Orval clones. I have two bottles of Orval at home right now but have never actually drank Orval before. Is the Brett from one Orval bottle enough? Is it feasable to just drink a bottle at the end of primary fermentation and toss the dregs from the bottle right into secondary, or do I need to make a starter of sorts?
 
The dregs from a single bottle of Orval has been enough in my experience, but I generally do small 3.25 gallon batches. The brett does take time to do its work. When I harvested from the NG golden i grew it up just to make sure that there was indeed viable yeast in the bottle. i think growing the brett in a small starter first is good insurance.
 
The dregs from a single bottle of Orval has been enough in my experience, but I generally do small 3.25 gallon batches. The brett does take time to do its work. When I harvested from the NG golden i grew it up just to make sure that there was indeed viable yeast in the bottle. i think growing the brett in a small starter first is good insurance.

Any yeast from an NG beer should be viable unless of course it was handled improperly after it left the brewery. Most of their beers are bottle conditioned. They centrifuge their beer and then reintroduce fresh yeast at bottling. However, I couldn't tell you for sure if the yeast used for bottling is the same as what is used for fermentation.
 
Subscribed! I've never had the Golden Ale but I'm a fan of Dan and the fantastic work he does. I want to clone the Stone Soup. Good luck and keep us updated.
 
Thanks alot, now I have to go on their tour and try the golden ale. I've been by their new hilltop brewery and it is impressive looking to say the least. I can only imagine how great it is on the inside.
 
Well to continue my "research" of this beer. I called my dad up today and had him drive up to New Glarus and buy me 12 bottles of their Golden Ale along with a few Abt's, Dancing man, Enigma, and Moon Man. He's retired, he doesn't have anything else to do right? I'm afraid the 18 beers he just bought for me are going to be over $100 but it's all in the name of science! Unfortunately I won't see any of these beers til Christmas when they make the trip out here.

Right now my "funky" fermenter is tied up with a Berliner-weisse but in two weeks it will be emptied and ready for this one. Once I get a recipe together I'll post it to see what people think and go from there. I'm sure it will take a few tries. This would be a good brew for "Can you Brew It"
 
I’ll definitely be following this thread. I’m interested to see what you come up with and how it turns out. I have an idea of how I would go about this clone, and I may give it a go when my next funky fermenter gets freed up. I think one cool aspect of home brewing this beer will be the opportunity to taste it at its various stages. I’ve had this beer several times. The first time it seemed like the floral character of the goldings was more pronounced, while the most recent bottle I drank had a stronger brett character with the goldings still there but in the background. It would be nice to have a bottle where the brett character and hop character are in perfect balance.
 
Anybody play around with this recipe clone? I still have two bottles of this beer and am waiting to drink them until I can harvest the yeast and have starting point for a recipe. Thanks everyone.

Sent from my SGH-T959 using Home Brew Talk
 
NG does bottle condition, but they also flash pasteurize all their beers, so it can't be guaranteed what you're getting from the bottle is what they fermented with.
 
Not to bring up an old thread but I just opened a bottle of this tonight. It seems to have lost a lot of it's head retention and the aroma isn't as pleasant as I thought it'd be but the flavors are still delicious. Gotta love that Brett funk!
 
I actually still have about 10 of these left from over 2 years ago. I also just stuck one in the fridge last week, guess I'll crack it open this weekend and see if my findings compare to yours Arrowhead. I recall opening one last year and I thought it kind of gone downhill. The thing about brett is that is goes up and down with age. If you don't like it one year, try it the next it could be a lot better, the year after that it may suck again.

I did however find that the Enigma's get much better with a few years on them. I have one left from what I think was the 2006 brew. I opened one last year in the winter of 2011 and it was fantastic. I bought 16 of the 2012 version and have opened two so far. They were great but I am pretty sure with atleast a year of aging they will be much much better. I'll let you know how this Golden Ale has held up.

Edit: Just cracked it open. The brett funk aroma is still there. Head retention is low but the bottle also gushed a bit upon opening. I think this is aging pretty well. Still has some nice "orange" citrus notes to it and the brett has obviously worked its magic quite well on this beer. There is a slight medicinal taste to it though. I'm sure it's phenols from the belgian yeast, or the brett. But they are quite plasticy/bandaid like.

P.S. as always, NG did not even reply to my email. They are definitely not homebrewer friendly like other breweries. I also, never did get around to attempting a clone of this either. One of these days...maybe.
 
Back
Top