It’s summer again, the flowers are blooming, it’s time to brew an Elderflower blonde ale. This is not a well recognised style among beer drinkers around the world, but here in Scotland, there are at least two commercial beers that I can instantly think of that use Elderflowers. In fact, if you do a quick search online, there are a surprising number of elderflower beers that pop up.
If you have ever had elderflower cordial, you may be wondering how the taste could possibly marry with beer. The trick is to make the elder taste noticeable, but not over prominent. In fact, with a light touch, the taste works very nicely with a pale or blonde ale.
Picking Elderflowers for Your Ale
This is an important part, and I mean that in terms of taste and also your health. The flowers of the elderflower bush are completely non toxic, however, the stems and leaves are (also the berries later in the season). Don’t get me wrong here, a little bit of stalk is harmless in the quantities we will use.
So, because of this, we need to avoid as much stem material as we can. The other reason to avoid the stem, is that it gives a dry and slightly bitter taste. We want to avoid this in a light beer like this.
In the picture above, I have enough elderflower heads to get 45 grams of flowers. I use scissors to cut the flowers from the stems. Some people use a fork to drag the flowers off, but I find this loses too much pollen from the flowers. The pollen carries a large amount of the flavour.
The above picture is the 45 grams of flowers, stripped from the stalks.
Elderflower Blonde Ale Recipe Ingredients
Fermentables
- 2500g Pale Malt (70.4%)
- 1000g Wheat Malt (28.2%)
- 50g Caramunich III (1.4%)
Hops
- 30g Northern Brewer Mash hops (6.4 IBU) I am mash hopping here to offset any dry/bitter flavour that may come from the elderflower.
- 16g Northern Brewer @ 30 minutes boil (13.2 IBU)
- 10g Motueka @ Whirlpool for 15 mins @ 74°c / 165°f
- 5g Citra @ Whirlpool for 15 mins @ 74°c / 165°f
Yeast
White Labs WLP 028 Edinburgh Ale
Water
Ca: 49 ppm
SO4: 74 ppm
Cl: 60 ppm
% Alc Vol
4.4 % alc / vol
The Mash Schedule
As i am using a Braumeister electric all-in-1 electric mash kettle, I tend to always step mash.
- Mash in at 40°c / 104°f
- Rest at 67°c / 152°f for 60 minutes
- Mash out at 77°c \ 171°f
Fermentation
I want to keep this ale as clean as I can. Therefore I’ll be fermenting this at the lowest end of the yeast temperature range. That means this will be fermented at 18°c / 64.5°f. This should give a beer with clean flavours. I’m not looking for any amount of esters to interfere with the subtle elderflower taste.
Elderflower Blonde Ale – The Result
The look of this beer is lovely. It’s clear, golden (it’s somewhat lighter than the picture makes it look) and very inviting.
As far as Elderflower? You can smell it straight away. It’s noticeable, but not pungent, just a perfect note to go with the malt. When you sip this, the taste is the same. You get elderflower first up, but that’s married well with the malt, and there is a light sweetness that comes from the Caramunich.
The bitterness is subtle, and well balanced, and the beer ends nicely dry. All in all, a great summer refreshing beer.
If you are interested in ales with ingredients you don’t normally associate with beer, you’ll probably like a braggot, which is a honey beer. Follow the link to that article here.