In 2015 I was sort of a last minute fill-in at the Ales for ALS Homebrew Competition in Essex. Jennie and I each hastily put together recipes for Fort Dummer and Shareholder’s Saison, to bring along with some bottles of Curly’s Milk Stout which was the beer I entered into the competition.
I was quite happy with both beers we brewed for the competition. I have already re-brewed a batch of Fort Dummer. That batch was okay, but after packaging I found two packages of hops that were supposed to go in as the second dry hop. We have been cellaring several bottles of Shareholder’s Saison. We opened a bomber at Jamboree and found that while still subtle, the brettanomyces flavor is a bit more pronounced while the hop character has faded.
As pleased as I was with both of those beers, shortly after the event last year I started thinking about what I would want to brew for the 2016 event. While looking for some beer inspiration, I found the experimental HBC – 438 hop online. New, experimental hop varieties are given numbers instead of names until they are ready to be sold on a commercial scale. There are two features about HBC – 438 is that make it perfect to bring to an event like this. Firstly the hop is currently only available to homebrewers. Nobody attending the event in Essex would have likely ever tasted a beer with this hop. More pertinently, all of the proceeds from this hop go to ALS research. It is too perfect not to use.
Northern Brewer sells a Luckiest Man Pale Ale kit featuring HBC – 438 where a portion of the proceeds benefit Ales for ALS, but I felt like I had to develop my own recipe. I thought about Lou Gehrig and the Yankees. Then I remembered the connection the Yankees had with the old Ballantine Brewery from when I brewed a one gallon Ballantine IPA clone.
The other recipe I found at that time was for a pale ale, Ballantine XXX Ale. My idea was to brew a version of the old XXX Ale, but with HBC – 438. It would be too perfect. There is a connection with Lou Gehrig. The hop in the beer directly benefits the same charity as the event itself. I bought the hops months in advance just to make sure I would have them for when it was time to brew.
I kept the grist exactly the same as the clone recipe that I found. I made sure to use all American malts as that felt like what Ballantine would have used. I did find East Coast Yeast’s Old Newark Ale strain in stock. This is almost certainly the old Ballantine strain, and the description on the website says it is NOT the Chico (Sierra Nevada) strain as is widely rumored. However, I couldn’t bring myself to spend $15 to ship an $8 vial of yeast. A fellow club member in the North Shore brewers has a culture of the strain, but I didn’t have time to build up his culture to make sure I had enough cells. I compromised and used one of my favorite strains, Wyeast 1272. The profile seems similar enough to Old Newark Ale.
This was my first brew day at Andy’s in quite awhile. We are going to try to get one last brew day in before winter. I enjoy brewing outside on a nice day so much more than making a mess inside my kitchen. I think it would be fun and interesting to brew with different people and see their process first-hand.
See the full recipe here.
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