Over the last couple of years life seems to have been very busy and as a result very little brewing has been taking place. Instead I have been buying beer occasionally, but I have noticed the price seems to be ever increasing. Even for generic mainstream brands the price is approaching $2 a bottle. With the summer months upon us a refreshing beverage after work becomes an expensive hobby. So, time to get back into home brewing. I wasn’t really sure what style of beer to make but since it is summertime some form of pale ale was top of the list. A quick trip to my local brewing shop (LBS) and I was ready to go with a ‘Riwaka Pale Ale’.

Ingredients:

• Black Rock Riwaka Pale Ale kit.
• Black Rock Ultra Light Unhopped Malt Extract.

After filling the barrel to the standard 23L a measurement of the specific gravity showed 1039, a touch lower than I was expecting. Should translate to an alcohol content of around 4-4.5%. The initial wort was probably a touch hot, around 26°C but hopefully it works out okay. The brew has been bubbling away in the garage for a few days and the temperature seems to have stabilized on a much better 20-21°C.

The brew can contains a quantity of Riwaka hop pellets, effectively dry- hopping the beer. These hops cause a nice layer of green krausen to form on the surface of the beer, hopefully it can be keep undisturbed during the bottling process.

Bottling

After about 7 days brewing it seemed ready for bottling, FG is down to about 1013. The bottling process went reasonably smoothly, 45 500mL bottles full and capped.