Goose Island Harvest Ale

[americansoldier]

I'm trying to take a crack at this brew and wondering if anyone has come up with an extract recipe for it yet. It is quite simply my favorite beer I think. After checking out the Brewmaster's comments on the GI website, I gather that they started with their Honker's Ale as a base and then beef it up a little with some extra caramel malt, wheat, and cascade hops. I definitely get the Cascade Aroma off this one, and a really malty flavor as well. Based on this I have purchased Austin Homebrew's Honker's Ale kit for my base and am planning to use Briess Sparkling Amber DME and Briess Bavarian Wheat DME as extra malt. I also plan to dry hop in the secondary with Cascades.

The Honker's Kit recipe is:

Batch size: 5 gal

Boil size: 2.5 gal

Ingredients:

Specialty Grains: 1/2 lb Munich Malt, 1/2 lb Crystal 40L Malt, 1/2lb Cara Munich Malt

LME: 7 lb Extra Pale Extract

The usual steep the grains, add the malt, bring to boil....yada yada.

Hops Schedule:

1.0 oz Northern Brewer 8.1% @ 60
0.5 oz Cascade 5.4% @ 15
0.5 oz Williamette 4.5% @ 15
1.0 oz Cascade 5.4% @ 5

My proposed modification to the kit:

Batch size: 5 gal

Boil size: 6.5 gal

Ingredients:

Specialty Grains: 1/2 lb Munich Malt, 1/2 lb Crystal 40L Malt, 1/2lb Cara Munich Malt

LME: 7 lb Extra Pale Extract

DME: 2 lb Briess Sparkling Amber, 1 lb Briess Bavarian Wheat

Hops Schedule:

1.5 oz Cascade 7.1% @ 60
1.0 oz Cascade 5.4% @ 15
1.0 oz Cascade 7.1% @ 5
1.0 oz Cascade 5.4% @ 0

Dry Hopping for ??? days in the secondary ??? oz. Cascade 7.1%.

Please feel free to make suggestions to my proposed recipe or post one of your own (extract please), as I am open to whatever it takes to get as close to this exceptional brew as possible.

Thanks.

 

[americansoldier]

Oh, and forgot to mention the yeast I plan to use is Wyeast 1968 London ESB.

 

[americansoldier]

Anyone........Anyone?

 

[americansoldier]

Anybody out there? Getting ready to do this one after I do my Belgian White. Any thoughts?

 

[zkiger]

I came up with this with a friend who's the brewmaster for the local brewpub:

Specialty grains-
.8 to 1lb caramel 60
.5lb 2-row
.5lb flaked barley

steeped in 2.5 gal. for approx. 30 minutes until water came to 170

brought to a boil then added-
6.2 lb light DME (Briess)

HOPS- All Cascade
1.5 oz 60
1 oz 30
1 oz 15
1 oz 5
.5 oz flame out

topped to 5 gal in fermenter

Yeast-
Safale S-04

Brewed 10/23

OG 62
Secondary at 10/31
Bottled on 11/11
FG 18

This beer came out EXCELLENT. Color was VERY close to that of GI.
Flavor was damn near identical.
ABV was close as well.

The only thing I did not have that GI state they brew theirs with was the red wheat, but i believe this was as close you could get with what I had available.

The wife loved the GI, and she said this was the best beer I have brewed.

GL