While browsing various homebrew pages on the Internet for my next recipe to brew, I found that a number of people kept pointing to the “Centennial Blonde” as their go-to or favourite recipe. So I found the recipe and decided to try it out myself!

Recipe Source: Homebrew Talk

Beer Specifications

Beer Name: Centennial Blonde Beer Style: Blonde Ale Recipe Type: All Grain Batch Size: 5.5 gallons / 20.8 litres Estimated SRM: 3.9° Estimated IBU: 21.5 Estimated OG: 1.042 Estimated FG: 1.011 Estimated ABV: 4.2%

Grain Bill/Fermentables

LBS Fermentables 7 2 Row 0.75 Cara-Pils/Dextrine 0.5 Caramel/Crystal Malt – 10L 0.5 Vienna Malt

Hops

Oz Time Hops 0.25 55 min Centennial 0.25 35 min Centennial 0.25 20 min Cascade 0.25 5 min Cascade

Yeast

# Yeast 1 Danstar Nottingham Ale Yeast

Fermentation Schedule

21 days Primary 7-14 days Bottle Conditioning Optimal Fermentation Temperature: 57-70°F / 13.8-21.1°C

Place fermenter in stable temperature, out of the light.

Directions

Mash Temperature: 150°F / 65.6°C Mash Time: 60 min Strike Water Volume: 3.5 gallons / 15.9 litres Sparge Water Volume: 3 gallons / 11.4 litres Boil Duration: 60 min

As you can see from the recipe above this is actually a pretty straight forward recipe. It is also very affordable given its smaller grain bill and use of 1 oz of hops total.

Brew day went without any hitches and even though I scaled down my ingredients from what’s listed above I still managed to pull a starting gravity (SG) of 1.040 for a brewhouse efficiency of 92%! After the boil my original gravity (OG) reading was 1.041 which seems a little low compared to my SG but whatever.

Fast forward to bottling day and my final gravity (FG) measurement came out to 1.006 for an estimated ABV of 4.59%. Unfortunately I’m not able to cold crash at the minute and the yeast hadn’t quite settled to the bottom of the fermenter so that was a bit of a small challenge but RDWHAHB right? I primed with enough sugar for 2.4 volumes of CO2 and let the bottles carbonate for two weeks.

Two weeks later…

This is my first time trying a Centennial Blonde so I wasn’t sure what to expect but I have to say I’m quite pleased with the result. It’s a very light, smooth beer that has very low bitterness up front taste with a very subtle but almost fruity after taste. An easily “crushable” beer that I think most beer drinkers would be happy with. It may not be the best beer ever made but it’s also so inoffensive that you can’t help but be happy with it.

P.S. – we called this brew “Team Effort”