Crystal clear, the color of golden straw, a Kölsch is yet another excellent beer for summer drinking. With that in mind, here is a Kölsch profile overview along with some Kölsch brewing tips.
Kölsch is an ale style native to Köln, Germany, known to us Americans as Cologne. Technically, only beers brewed in Cologne may be called Kölsch (but I don’t think anyone will prosecute if you do!).
Kölsches are similar to light lagers in that they’re clean, crisp, and refreshing, however they typically have a more pronounced, moderate hoppiness than light lagers. They are also distinguished by a somewhat fruity yeast character and a distinctively dry finish.
Kölsch beers use very light malts, such as Pilsner or Two-Row, to achieve their pale color. They may contain a small proportion of wheat malt, usually around 10-20% of the total grain bill.
When it comes to hops, Kölsch beers have a few more IBUs than the standard light lager. The BJCP guidelines call for 20-30 IBUs, with most of the hops added early in the boil. To be authentic, a Kölsch should use German noble hops, specifically Spalt, Saaz, Tettnang, or Hallertau.
Though the Kölsches are typically brewed with top-fermenting ale yeasts, they are fermented at a cooler temperature, say 55°F to 65°F, and usually go through a lagering period at even colder temperatures. This blend between an ale and a lager makes a Kölsch recipe an excellent “entry-level” beer for drinkers making the transition from macro lagers into more adventurous craft beer styles.

Kölsch Brewing Tips:

• For the grain bill, starting with enough Pilsner or Two-Row malt to achieve an original gravity of about 1.047. Vienna malt is a suitable alternative. Use up to 1-2 lbs. of wheat malt if desired.

• When brewing a Kölsch extract recipe use a very pale malt extract, such as Stream Freak Light LME or Light DME, and may wish to use some Pilsner and/or wheat malt for a mini-mash to add some malty, grainy flavor.

• Hops should ideally be of the noble hops variety, such as Spalt, Saaz, Tettnang, or Hallertau. Perle, Northern Brewer, and Mt. Hood can work too. Add most, if not all of the hops at the 60 minute addition, aiming for about 25 IBUs.

• When making a Kölsch beer yeast selection is important. The Kölsch yeast strain is ideal, but lager yeasts and other German ale yeasts can be used as well.

• To achieve a dry finish, a highly attenuating yeast should be used. Mashing around 148°-150°F should produce a more fermentable wort, resulting in a lower final gravity and less residual sweetness.

• A key factor in creating an authentic Kölsch is to ferment it at fairly low temperatures. Primary fermentation should be around 55°-65°F, and secondary fermentation around 40°-50°F. These lower fermentation temperatures may mean that fermentation takes longer than it does for a typical ale.

These Kölsch brewing tips should be enough to get you going and maybe even produce your on Kölsch recipe. But, if you want to cut to the chase and start making Kölsch beer, now? The Brewer’s Best Kolsch Recipe Kit includes everything required for a five gallon batch.
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He is a graduate of the Siebel Institute of Technology’s “Start Your Own Brewery” program and the Oskar Blues Brew School in Brevard, NC.

A common issue among beginning extract and partial mash homebrewers is that they undershoot their beer recipe’s anticipated original gravity. The original gravity is too low. This can happen for a number of reasons when beer brewing, but largely because many homebrew kits call for topping off with water to get five gallons of wort, without taking into account how the brew day went. (What if you spilled some wort or didn’t get all the extract out of the can?) This can throw off alcohol content, mouthfeel, IBUs – in short, turning the beer into something it wasn’t supposed to be. That’s not to say that it won’t be completely drinkable – it may well be. But some of us, for better or worse, are perfectionists.
The best time for extract brewers to correct for gravity is right after the boil. Take a hydrometer reading before pitching the beer yeast to get your bearings. Plug your numbers into a dilution calculator to see if topping up to five gallons will get you to your target OG. If you think you’ll end up with the original gravity too low, read the tips below:

1. Double-check your OG (original gravity) reading. Did you take the reading at the calibrated temperature for your hydrometer (usually 60˚F or 68˚F)? If not, did you correct for temperature using a hydrometer temperature correction calculator? Taking a reading out of the temperature range or failing to correct for temperature can throw off your reading by several points.

2. Decide how you want to move forward. You have a few options here. Do you want to just go with what you’ve got? Do you want a full five gallon batch of beer? If you top off the wort to a full five gallons, you’ll have a lower alcohol beer than what you expected. If you only top off with enough water to hit your target original gravity, you’ll end up with less beer, but at least have the correct original gravity and alcohol content. Alternatively, you can mix in more fermentables in order to meet both your original gravity and your target batch volume.

3. To hit your target volume, top off to five gallons. You’ll have a slightly weaker beer than intended, but this might be a worthwhile sacrifice for the sake of more beer. Trust me, I understand.

4. To hit your target original gravity, top off to less than five gallons. Use a dilution calculator to figure out how much water to add so that you can hit your target gravity. You can also do the math by hand pretty easily. For example, if your three gallons of wort is 1.060 and your intended gravity is 1.040, plug in the numbers and solve for the volume of water (A2):

A1*B1 + A2*B2 = (A1+A2)*(target gravity)

(3 gallons at 60 gravity points) + (A2 gallons at 0 gravity points [water]) = (3 + A2) gallons at 40 gravity points

A2 = 1.5 gallons

5. To hit your target volume and your target gravity, you can mix in more fermentables. Some may consider this the ultimate way to go when the original gravity is too low. Using the blending formula above, you can figure out how much additional fermentable ingredients you need. Mix up a small batch (about one-half to one gallon) of concentrated wort using DME (dried malt extract), sugar, honey, or molasses. Your fermentable ingredient will depend on your beer recipe and what you have on hand. DME will be the most beer-like, while excessive sugars may cause your beer to over attenuate. Dark DME or molasses may alter the color of your beer, so choose wisely. If you can, boil enough hops in the mini batch to maintain your level of IBUs.

Let’s work through an example.

My target OG was 1.052. Instead, I ended up with 4.5 gallons at 1.044. This is a much lower than expected original gravity. My measured IBUs (after dilution with water) was 30. First let’s figure out how much additional fermentable I need in a half-gallon mini-batch to hit my target OG:

(4.5 gallons * 44) + (0.5 gallons * X) = 5 gallons * 52

X = 124

To get a gravity of 1.124, my half-gallon batch needs about 1.48 lbs. of DME, 1.35 lbs. of cane sugar, or 1.48 lbs. of honey. (A beer recipe calculator can help you figure this out.)

About .3 ounces of a 5% alpha acid hop boiled for thirty minutes will yield about 30 IBUs in the mini-batch. You don’t necessarily have to add hops to the mini-batch, but it will keep you from diluting the bitterness of your beer.

Sure, it gets a little complicated. Most of the time when your original gravity is too low, you may just want to roll with whatever gravity you get. Here’s some tips for hitting your original gravity. But in the event that you need to make some adjustments, learning how to execute the above procedures is crucial for dealing with a lower than expected original gravity.
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

To the chagrin of some, I like to experiment in the kitchen. Rather than follow set recipes or guidelines, I like to let the whimsy of the moment guide me, allowing sauces, herbs, and spices to point me in the direction of a dish, not necessarily knowing if the destination of my journey will end up good or bad.
It may be an undisciplined way to cook, but it is fun. Occasionally, it also turns out to be the way I want to brew. I like to go off the beaten path and experimenting with homebrew. While it’s important to hone your skills with the basics, what great chef – or brewer – wouldn’t want to venture off the commonly taken path from time to time?
The best part? Experimenting with homebrew is not hard. Here are a few tips for doing your own beer brewing experiments and creating beers that are specific to your unique tastes:

1. Use a Solid Base Recipe
One of the first homebrews I made was a jalapeno blonde ale. I started with an easy extract recipe as a blonde ale base:
7 lbs. Light Malt Extract 
1 oz. Cascade hops at :60
1 oz. Willamette hops at :5
Fermentis Beer Yeast: Safale US-05
By starting with a good beer recipe – one I was familiar with – I knew what to expect from the base beer. From there, I wanted to play with getting the right combination of spice and heat from peppers while also imparting some vegetative pepper flavor. It was all trial and error and an opportunity to play. I sliced and gently roasted the peppers, then “dry-peppered” the beer in secondary.
Because I knew what flavor I would get from the base beer, it gave me flexibility to experiment with peppers to adjust the brew to my taste. You can do the same thing using extra ingredients in the secondary fermentation process and pulling tastes from the carboy or bucket to make sure it’s right for you. Try fruits, vegetables, or even herbs and spices when doing a beer brewing experiment!

2. Split Up Batches
When experimenting with  homebrew many homebrewers may start with standard six and five-gallon carboys for fermentation, but if you go a step smaller, you can increase the options for experimentation you have with each batch you brew.
For example, if you split a batch and use two three-gallon fermenters instead of one five-gallon carboy, you increase your options to try out different dry-hopping ingredients and even different yeast strains. Why is this beneficial? It can help you hone your beer recipe and figure out what kind of tastes and aromas you like best, getting two different beers from one brew day.
For example, if you take the same base-level recipe for the blonde ale above, but use a different yeast option, you’ll get a beer with completely different flavors than with Safale US-05. Use a Belgian Wheat 3942, and you’ll end up with fruity characteristics. Or maybe go a little more out there and try Weihenstephen Weizen 3068 and see if banana and clove flavors shows up in your final product. This is a great way to quickly increase your knowledge of different ingredients by expanding your beer brewing experiments.

3. Tailor to Your Tastes
An important thing to remember when experimenting with homebrew is that you’re simply making beer for you to enjoy. Don’t be afraid to work from tastes or smells you like.
I love watermelon, so a couple years ago I made a watermelon wheat beer by hand-squeezing juice from watermelons sanitized with Star-San and added the juice to the secondary fermentation of an American wheat ale.
My wife loves apples and hard cider, so I’ve also tried combining apples with homebrewing. I started with a pretty simple base beer:
3.3 lbs. Light Malt Extract  
1 lb. honey malt
2 oz. Cluster hops at :60
But, instead of topping off the wort with water, I used apple juice. I fermented with Wyeast 1056 for a clean yeast flavor and with some patience, ended up with a “beer” that smelled like a cider, but had a unique sweet and bitter taste combination thanks to the cider and hops.
When homebrewing, it’s important to remember that it’s OK to play around. Many chefs only become great once they move beyond their comfort zones. By experimenting with homebrew based on what you love and by thinking outside the box, you’ll find more ways to enjoy the hobby of homebrewing – and may even stumble on your next favorite beer!
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Bryan Roth is a beer nerd and homebrewer living in Durham, North Carolina. You can read his thoughts on beer and the beer industry on his blog, This Is Why I’m Drunk, and send him suggestions on how to get his wife to drink craft beer via Twitter at @bryandroth.

Beer color is often the first thing you notice when drinking a brew. It has a huge effect on your expectation of the beer, and beers that don’t fit the drinker’s expectations can be confusing or considered out of style. Imagine going to a bar and ordering stout and the beer comes back pale. Or you ask for a Pilsner and the beer you get is brown. You’d certainly send the beer back and ask for something else!
If you like to compete in homebrew competitions, it’s essential to present a beer within the color parameters for a particular beer style. There are a good number of beer calculators out there which will help you approximate a beer’s color as you’re developing a beer recipe, but after you brew the beer, you may want to measure your beer’s color to see how close you got to your estimate. While it’s possible to conduct a lab test with a light spectrometer and achieve a very specific result, for most of us, we can do the test with the naked eye and get reasonably accurate results.
The Beer Judge Certification Program has developed a method for measuring beer color. It involves taking a sample of beer and placing it in a glass that is five centimeters in diameter. Via BJCP.org:

How To Measure Beer Color

1. Measure a sample of beer in a clear glass or hard plastic cup with a path of 5cm (use the bottom edge of the guide as a measure). If the glass is not 5cm wide, pour a depth of 5cm and look down through the beer.

2. Use a pure white sheet of paper or white tablecloth as a background.

3. Use a natural light source or artificial light approximating sunlight. Do not use a flashlight to provide extra light. The color chart guide and the beer must be viewed using the same light source. Avoid casting shadows with your body or the beer glass.

4. Look through the beer at the white background.

5. Place the BJCP color chart guide next to the beer so that the beer (as viewed with the white background) and the guide can be seen together. Compare the color palettes and find the closest match. An exact match is unlikely, so look for the closest lightness/darkness match rather than attempting to match hue. If the sample is in between two color patches, interpolate.

Using the BJCP color chart guide, you can easily get an approximation of your beer color in SRM (Standard Reference Method) units. To convert your measurement into Lovibond or EBC, try this Brewtoad Color Converter.
And that’s how to measure beer color in your brews. Pretty simple? Be sure to record the color of your homebrew beer in your homebrew notes!
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

If you’ve ever found yourself looking for a light, refreshing blonde ale recipe with a well-rounded American hop profile, this could be the one for you!
Homebrewer Kevin Mattie’s Centennial Blonde Ale recipe is a pale, sessionable beer at just 4.2% ABV. The grain bill includes US two-row pale malt as the base, using Carapils for head retention and a combination of light crystal and Vienna malts for flavor and color.
On the hops side of the equation, a mix of Cascade and Centennial hops provide enough bitterness to set it apart from lifeless macro beers, but not nearly as much as an American pale ale or IPA. The choice of hops provides a touch of that piney, citrusy American hop flavor and aroma we all know and love.
For yeast, Mattie uses Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast, a versatile dry ale yeast that’s clean fermenting, easy to use, and affordable.
Between its balance, sessionability, and simplicity, this sounds like a great brew to have on hand for summer!

Centennial Blonde Ale
(5.5-gallon batch, all-grain)
Specs
OG: 1.040
FG: 1.008
ABV: 4.2%
IBUs: 21.5
SRM: 3.9
Ingredients
7 lbs. Two-row pale malt
.75 lb. Carapils/Dextrine malt
.5 lb. Caramel/Crystal 10L malt
.5 lb. Vienna malt
.25 oz. Centennial hops at :55 (2.4 AAUs)
.25 oz. Centennial hops at :35 (2.4 AAUs)
.25 oz. Cascade hops at :20 (2 AAUs)
.25 oz. Cascade hops at :5 (2 AAUs)
1 packet Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast
All Grain Directions: Mash crushed grains in 11 qts. of clean water at 150˚F. Hold mash for 60 minutes. Sparge with enough water at 175˚F to collect about 6.5 gallons of wort. Boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to schedule. Whirlpool and chill wort to 68˚F. Pitch yeast and ferment at 68˚F for 10 days.
Extract Option: Replace the grain bill with 5 lbs. light DME and 1 lb. Carapils/Dextrine malt. Steep the crushed grains for 1 hr. at 155˚F then strain out. Add DME and enough water to make a 6.5-gallon boil. (For a 5-gallon kettle, a 3.5-gallon boil is fine.) Bring wort to a boil and boil for 60 minutes, adding hops according to schedule. Whirlpool and chill wort to 68˚F. If needed, mix in enough clean, bottled water to make 5.5 gallons. Pitch yeast and ferment at 68˚F for 10 days.
More Beer Recipes:

• Anchor Steam
• Fuller’s London Porter
• Westmalle Tripel
• Sierra Nevada Celebration Ale
• Pliny the Elder Double IPA

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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.

Lagering beer is a process that is necessary to actually produce the characteristic of a lager beer. The word “lager” comes from the German word for stockroom or warehouse, and to lager your beer is to lay it down in storage at cold temperatures. To develop the smooth, clean flavors required of lagers, it’s essential to practice good lagering techniques, whether you are lagering beer at a brewer or lagering beer at home.
The practice of lagering beer was developed by Bavarians who placed their beer in cold caves to improve the beer’s stability – essentially so that it would keep through the warmer seasons. Over time, this practice isolated bottom-fermenting yeast strains that preferred those cooler temperatures. The lager yeasts we use today in homebrewing are derived from those strains.
One of the main characteristics of lager yeasts – and one of the reasons lagers are fermented at lower temperatures – is that they produce fewer esters and other aromatic components than ale yeasts. A good example of this is the difference between the fruity, spicy characteristics of a Belgian ale against a clean German lager. Depending on the style you’re making, you may or may not want those prominent yeast characteristics. With the possible exception of some high gravity lagers (like bocks), most lagers should not have prominent fruity esters.
One thing to look out for when lagering beer at home is diacetyl. Diacetyl is a natural byproduct of fermentation. In high concentrations, it smells and tastes just like movie theater popcorn. In most lagers, diacetyl should not be detectable, though some lager styles permit a small amount of it. Luckily, yeast consumes the precursors of diacetyl. A diacetyl rest – a small increase in temperature between primary and secondary fermentation – is sometimes used when fermenting a lager.
So how does one go about lagering beer at home? Follow the procedures below for a standard lager fermentation:

1. Pitching: Lagers require 2-3 times as much yeast as ales. For an average gravity lager, two liquid yeast packets should be sufficient. For a high gravity lager, you may need three. You can also make a yeast starter to grow your yeast colony to the appropriate size. Check out Mr. Malty’s Yeast Pitch Calculator to figure out exactly how much yeast you should pitch into your lager.

2. Primary fermentation: Ferment your Lager beer within the temperature range specified by the yeast strain you’re using, usually between about 48°-52°F, though it can vary by as much as 5°-10° on either side depending on the particular beer yeast you’re using. Try to keep the temperature consistent. If you have a cool basement, you may be able to try lagering your homebrew beer during the winter (or even year round depending on your location) without a fridge or freezer.

3. Diacetyl rest (optional): For 1-3 days at the end of primary fermentation, allow the fermentation temperature to increase to about 60°-65°F. During this time, the lager yeast will reduce diacetyl in the beer.

4. Lagering/cold storage: Transfer the beer to a secondary fermenter and store for 1-2 months at 32°-40°F. Most homebrew lager recipes call for a 1-2 month lagering period, though the occasional strong lager may be kept in cold storage for three months or longer. During this time the beer will condition and flavor will improve over time.

Have you every tried lagering beer at home? What’s your favorite lager style? Share in the comments below!
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David Ackley is a beer writer, brewer, and self-described “craft beer crusader.” He holds a General Certificate in Brewing from the Institute of Brewing and Distilling and is founder and editor of the Local Beer Blog.