Island golden ale

I recently had Big Wave Golden Ale, and was very impressed by its honey malt character and tropical fruit hop flavors. It's a candidate for best beer tried this year.

I am not trying to clone it, necessarily, but I would love to have those two components in a golden ale of my own.

Would you mind looking over my recipe and seeing if the percentages are good, particularly of honey malt and biscuit malt, both of which I'm unfamiliar with using? Should I sub victory, my old golden ale standby, for the biscuit malt?

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/65127/island-thunder-golden-ale

Victory and Biscuit are the same thing. I think Victory is a trademarked name. I would add a little more biscuit if you want to actually taste it. Maybe 8 oz. total. Also, if you want some tropical aromas/flavors try adding some Galaxy hops towards the end of the boil. They give you a lot of passionfruit and lychee aroma. And, I would use Citra as an aroma hop, not bittering. Use some Warrior for 60 mins and throw all the Citra in around 10 mins and some Galaxy around 5 mins/aroma steep.

Cheers!

Thanks! I'll see if I can get hold of Galaxy here. Thankfully the LHBS owner likes to stock rare hops when he can get his hands on them (including Citra), so I'm betting he has it.

Is the Warrior just so you don't waste Citra on bittering, or is there a flavor purpose for it? If I cut the Citra down for 0.5 oz with the addition of Galaxy, I'd probably sooner keep Citra for bittering so one ounce would be an even two batches worth. (It's leaf hops, so it won't keep too long after I open them, I think.) If not, I have some Summit - would that work as a replacement for Warrior?

Good info on victory and biscuit being the same, thanks.

I'm kind of wanting a hint of biscuit, but primarily honey. The golden ale had honey in the aroma and taste, so I'm wondering how much honey malt will accomplish that.

Hmm, no dice on the galaxy hops locally. I'll have to save them for version two. Any opinions on the malt profile?

andycr said:

Hmm, no dice on the galaxy hops locally. I'll have to save them for version two. Any opinions on the malt profile?

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You can try www.nikobrew.com

They have heaps of different kinds of hops.

As for the grainbill, I would add a little more biscuit. Maybe a total of 1/2 lb for the batch. Other than that, go for it!

Also, Summit would work as a bittering hop. I've used it many times. You could move all of the citra to the end of the boil for a nice citrusy aroma and flavor

Cheers!

Good to know, thanks! Come to think of it I have some Cascade left over, I think I'll use that.

Would 1/2 pound be for a 5 gallon batch? I'm brewing 2.5 gallons.

1/2 pound would be good for the 2.5 gallon batch. 1 pound for 5 gallons. I've used that much before and it gives you a nice fresh baked bread flavor/aroma.

Cheers!

Don't use the Citra @ 30 mins, use at 20-15 for flavor, 5-0 for aroma. If you use something else for bittering and want to keep your Citra amounts at round numbers for 2 batches...just add the extra to the flameout addition. If Citra is your only flavor/aroma hop, you can also nudge the IBUs into the mid 20's with the flavor additions...it has a really mild-fruity flavor.

I make an APA with only Citra for aroma/flavor at 40 IBUs and it only tastes like 30.

The brewers of Big Wave Golden Ale were kind enough to illuminate some aspects of its production:

"We actually use a combination of Premium 2-row Pale Malt and Caramel Malt, and the caramel malt is the one that gives it the honey-esque flavor. Hopwise you are correct-we use a combination of Citra and Galaxy with slightly more Galaxy. You can definitely taste the Citra hop. We've heard people say it tastes like pineapple, orange, lemon, really any type of citrus, and that is from the Citra hop."

I'm guessing the caramel malt he mentions is actually honey malt. Interesting to know they use Galaxy as well.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the recipe. It turned out well, though not like Big Wave Golden Ale from memory - I've yet to do a side-by-side comparison. Very light, refreshing, and citrusy. Notes of honey and pine. You can see the recipe I ended with here: http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/65127/t19-big-island-golden-ale I missed my SG by 6 points somehow (think the BIAB bag got twisted on itself below the surface where I couldn't see it), so it's weaker than I intended.

I may do a re-brew with Galaxy, especially since your recommendation ended up being spot-on. Just have to get my hands on them. Also, the timing advice on Citra additions was great - got just the flavor I wanted out of them. Any advice for timing of Galaxy additions to get both tropical fruit flavor and aroma out of it? One post mentioned a 5 minute addition, but I'm thinking about dry-hopping with it as well.

I would use the same hop addition times, just half Galaxy and half Citra at 20, flameout and dry hop.

In this press release the brewer offers these specs, which are a little different from what's on their website:

Bitterness: 21 IBU
ABV: 4.4%
OG: 10.3 P
Malts: Pale (Premium 2-row), Caramel 10
Hops: Galaxy and Citra

I was actually working on a recipe inspired by Kona Big Wave this morning:

5 gal batch, 72.6% efficiency
OG: 1.041
IBU: 21.3 (rager)
Color: 4.9
ABV: 4.4%

6.75 lbs pale ale malt (87.1%)
0.75 lbs crystal 10L (9.7%)
0.25 lbs cara-pils (3.2%)
0.25 oz Magnum (14.4%) at 60 min
0.25 oz Citra (14.4%) at 10 min
0.25 oz Citra (14.4%) at 0 min
0.50 oz Citra (14.4%) dry hop
Wyeast 1056

I don't have easy access to Galaxy but I do have 1.0 oz of Citra I would like to use up in this batch. Not really decided about how to divvy it up. Was thinking about swapping the amounts of the 0 min and dry hop additions. All suggestions are welcome.

Any update on this one? Anyone actually brew this one yet? I'm planning on trying out one of the several sort-of clone attempts this weekend if I can get some galaxy from a LHBS.

I haven't yet. Maybe in a couple months. Please post back if you decide to give it a shot.

jwalker1140 said:

I haven't yet. Maybe in a couple months. Please post back if you decide to give it a shot.

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In your recipe, how did you determine the hop amount for the flavor/aroma addition? I assume based upon your experience testing similar recipes? I was thinking maybe do a 1.5:1 galaxy:citra ratio, since everyone says Citra overpowers everything. I don't have a lot of experience building recipes so I don't really know how to determine if the flavor/aroma are enough. Would you think just stacking the galaxy at say, .4oz per addition, would work, or would it be too powerful? If anything, I assume it would just make it taste/smell a whole lot more if I add more flavor/aroma hops, with minor IBU contribution (which I would calculate using beer calculus to make sure I stay near 21 IBU). Your guidance is very much appreciated.