What's your favorite summer beer to brew?

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bobeer

Fermentation Specalist
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Hey brewers! With summer almost upon us I figure it's a good time to plan out lawn mower beers, summer bbq beers, and oppressively hot day beers.

What are some of your favorite beers to brew for the summer occasions?

I found a recipe in a copy of Zymurgy last summer that was for a kumquat wheat pale ale. It was fantastic and I don't even dig wheat beers. I'm thinking about brewing it again but I wanted to see if there were any other tried and true recipes out there. I've thought about brewing a hefe to make shandy's too.
 
I make a strawberry blonde every summer, along with my house saison. Both are easy drinking but could probably be a bit lower abv. (Saison is ~8%, SB ends up usually around 6.5%.)

Ive been trying to perfect a 4% session Whea-PA as well but havent nailed that down yet.

Oh, and forgot that me and a friend have a great 4% "saison" that we use our house brett strain on that does a nice funky tart beer in about a month.
 
Session IPA 9.5%. Staple. Also a columbus/maris otter SMaSH 6.5% ABV. Perfect summer beers.
 
Ive been trying to perfect a 4% session Whea-PA as well but havent nailed that down yet.

mine is an American version..pretty simple but has gotten good reviews

45% pale 2 row
45% wheat
10% munich (light)
1 lb rice hulls for sparge "sanity"

1/2 oz centennial at 30 min
1/4 oz amarillo 10 min
3/4 oz amarillo at flameout 140ish degrees (or however you like to flameout)
S-05

Grain to glass in about 2 weeks if you keg
 
mine is an American version..pretty simple but has gotten good reviews

45% pale 2 row
45% wheat
10% munich (light)
1 lb rice hulls for sparge "sanity"

1/2 oz centennial at 30 min
1/4 oz amarillo 10 min
3/4 oz amarillo at flameout 140ish degrees (or however you like to flameout)
S-05

Grain to glass in about 2 weeks if you keg

Yeah, Ive gone through a few different iterations. I think Ive nailed my grain bill, just need to figure out my hop bill. There are things I really think about each iteration but nothing has been complete yet. Also when I say "whea-pa" I just mean wheat ipa. I use american ale yeast.

Plus this is a great way to get to know how certain hops play with each other without having to use a bunch. I really like how palisade/glacier played last year in one.
 
This year it's a MO/Citra SMaSH APA and a 3% table saison (waiting to see how it turns out). Usually I have at least one APA for floating the river.
 
Centennial Ale. Light, crisp, clean. Fast from grain to glass. We're easing our way through keg number 2, and I have the fixing for another ten gallon brew on the shelf.

My wife has given instructions that we need to keep this one on tap.
 
This hefeweizen is an awesome summertime sipper and it pairs brilliantly with brats. (Believe it or not, we grill our fair share of brats in the summer here in Milwaukee.)
https://byo.com/hops/item/2265-german-hefeweizen-style-profile

Beyond that, I like to do a lot of SMASH lawnmower beers. 10 lbs of grain (pick one - Maris Otter, Golden Promise, Pilsner, plain old 2-row, Vienna, etc. I just did one with Briess Pale Ale Malt). I like to either add 20ish IBUs at 60 or do a split of noble hops at 60 and 10. Clean ale yeast and you're golden.

I also like to have Patersbier around in the summer. I'm about to do a wit, so we'll see if that becomes a regular.
 
I brew a delicious citrus blonde with Sorachi Ace, Amarillo and Citra hops with a good amount of lemon and orange zest. Excellent summer drinker.

For late summer I like my Berliner. It's needs to get a little warmer before I brew it (I let half of the batch sit on lacto around 90F) but that one takes a good amount to get you tipsy at only ~3%!
 
I've been making a festbier which is just out of control easy drinking and a crowd pleaser. Fermented with wlp029 @ 56 degrees.

For 11 gallons....
11 lbs Pilsener
9 lbs Vienna
2.5oz Hallertau -90
1.5oz Hallertau -15

Bout as easy as she gets....
 
Biermunchers OctoberFAST ale..that is my year round go-to ale...great beer that one is..
One other is the blonde ale I picked up recipe wise from Kals site..I kick it a bit with some sweet orange to make it an orange blonde..great beer as well
 
Great ideas! I dig all the smash's that seem to be getting brewed for the summer. I might have to try one after the kumquat wheat pale ale.
 
I've got a MO/Amarillo SMaSH on tap right now, my next is going to be a session pale with Simcoe/Cascade. Might just do ten gallons to get me through most of June.

It's already hitting high-70s around here, so I'm saying summer has arrived.
 
Thinking another one to brew might be a session saison (4-4.5%) with oats and a fruity hop (I still have some Mandarina Bavaria on hand). Basically inspired by Transmitter Grissete.
 
Speaking of summer beers, I was watching this weeks Craigtube & he wanted to start a conversation in the comments section about using citrus in beers, since he didn't know much about it. so I mentioned the True Lemon I used in the priming solution of my summer ales. I was then asked for a link to the product. I had to google search it, as I can get the lemon one at Giant Eagle.
This link has the lemon, lime, orange & now grapefruit in crystal form.
https://www.discountcoffee.com/real-lemon-juice.htm
Discount coffee site, so maybe I'll have a look at that too? I have the Mr Coffee burr grinder...
 
Saison. Made a jalapeno Saison last summer and plan in making it again, 4 gallons with something different and 1 gallon jalapeno. I don't have temp control so I only brew saisons in the summer since my house stays at 80 for a few months.
 
My Centennial Blonde went pretty quick, but I think my American wheat is going quicker.

Just gonna throw this out there though....Skeeter Pee. I can't brew it fast enough.
 
I haven't brewed it yet, but I have a feeling it will be Berliner Weisse. I'll let you know when it happens!
 
This has been my biggest hit in the summer...
Summer Citra Cerveza
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast:
US-05
Yeast Starter: None
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: None
Batch Size (Gallons):
5
Original Gravity:
1.046
Final Gravity: 1.008
IBU: 21
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 3 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 60f then 7 days at 68f
Additional Fermentation:
Cold crash 2 days 40f
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
None
Tasting Notes: Refreshing, strong citrus aroma, smooth, lager like cream ale lawnmower beer.

Ingredients:

5 lbs 2 Row
3 lbs Flaked Corn
1 lbs Flaked Barley (fluffy white head)

Mash at 149f for 60 minutes, 70% efficiency

1 tsp Irish Moss 15 min of boil

0.5 oz Cascade pellets 60 min of boil
0.5 oz Centennial pellets 20 min of boil
1.5 oz of Citra pellets at 150f of whirlpool
 
Gotta go with @SD-SLIM LemonLime hefe off here. I try and make 10 gallons every summer. It disappears quickly
 
This has been my biggest hit in the summer...
Summer Citra Cerveza
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast:
US-05
Yeast Starter: None
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: None
Batch Size (Gallons):
5
Original Gravity:
1.046
Final Gravity: 1.008
IBU: 21
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 3 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 60f then 7 days at 68f
Additional Fermentation:
Cold crash 2 days 40f
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
None
Tasting Notes: Refreshing, strong citrus aroma, smooth, lager like cream ale lawnmower beer.

Ingredients:

5 lbs 2 Row
3 lbs Flaked Corn
1 lbs Flaked Barley (fluffy white head)

Mash at 149f for 60 minutes, 70% efficiency

1 tsp Irish Moss 15 min of boil

0.5 oz Cascade pellets 60 min of boil
0.5 oz Centennial pellets 20 min of boil
1.5 oz of Citra pellets at 150f of whirlpool

That does look like a good lawnmower beer! I might have to try this one. Thanks!!!
 
This has been my biggest hit in the summer...
Summer Citra Cerveza
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast:
US-05
Yeast Starter: None
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: None
Batch Size (Gallons):
5
Original Gravity:
1.046
Final Gravity: 1.008
IBU: 21
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 3 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 60f then 7 days at 68f
Additional Fermentation:
Cold crash 2 days 40f
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
None
Tasting Notes: Refreshing, strong citrus aroma, smooth, lager like cream ale lawnmower beer.

Ingredients:

5 lbs 2 Row
3 lbs Flaked Corn
1 lbs Flaked Barley (fluffy white head)

Mash at 149f for 60 minutes, 70% efficiency

1 tsp Irish Moss 15 min of boil

0.5 oz Cascade pellets 60 min of boil
0.5 oz Centennial pellets 20 min of boil
1.5 oz of Citra pellets at 150f of whirlpool

ok, got all the stuff needed to brew this up this weekend. Looking forward to it! :ban:
 
Belgian IPA with Citra hops, a Cascade Cream Ale, and normally a dry American Pale Ale. I love brewing for seasons, I never get sick of any particular beer/style that way.
 
If your looking for something light, refreshing and sour see my quick and dirty berliner. Takes about 1 hour to brew start to finish (not kidding) and gets requested regularly.
 
This has been my biggest hit in the summer...
Summer Citra Cerveza
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast:
US-05
Yeast Starter: None
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: None
Batch Size (Gallons):
5
Original Gravity:
1.046
Final Gravity: 1.008
IBU: 21
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 3 SRM
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 7 days at 60f then 7 days at 68f
Additional Fermentation:
Cold crash 2 days 40f
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp):
None
Tasting Notes: Refreshing, strong citrus aroma, smooth, lager like cream ale lawnmower beer.

Ingredients:

5 lbs 2 Row
3 lbs Flaked Corn
1 lbs Flaked Barley (fluffy white head)

Mash at 149f for 60 minutes, 70% efficiency

1 tsp Irish Moss 15 min of boil

0.5 oz Cascade pellets 60 min of boil
0.5 oz Centennial pellets 20 min of boil
1.5 oz of Citra pellets at 150f of whirlpool

I'm wondering how good this one would be with WL029 kolsch yeast? that lager-like balance & lil crispness on the back might be good?
 
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