Nectaron Pale Ale - Recipe

I am always keen to experiment with new hops and expand my knowledge of what they can bring to my beers. Nectaron hops have been around for a while now, but I managed to get my hands on some recently and was eager to experiment with them.

According to the NZHops website, Nectaron is a sister hop to Waimea and has both North American and European (Saaz) ancestry. It lists the flavour and aroma profile as the following:

I've always found that when you brew with a hop it doesn't always line up exactly with what a website tells you - it's best to experiment for yourself!

The Recipe

Let's get brewing! The recipe below is suited for my Grainfather G30, but it can be scaled to suit your needs depending on your setup.

Batch Size: 5 gal
ABV: 5.6%
Boil Time: 60 mins
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.007
IBUs: 36

Malt Bill

Hops

Dry Hop

Yeast

Let's get brewing

The night before I was due to brew, I measured out my water and filtered it to remove any chlorine, chloramine and other impurities. I also dosed the water with a sprinkle of Sodium Metabisulphate as an extra precaution. If you'd like to learn more about how I prepare my water for brewing, I recommend reading this article below that I've previously written.

How I prepare my water for Homebrewing

In this article, I wanted to share with you some of the ways that I prepare my local water for homebrewing. I live in Surrey in the U.K. Our water isn’t too bad, but much like London water it is quite hard and more suited to styles like Porters and Stouts.

HUMEBREWDean Hume

As always, my chores before a brew day also involve cleaning and sanitising as much as I'm going to need.

The following afternoon I fired up the Grainfather and aimed for a strike temperature of 65 C and added the grains. I also added a touch of Wheat Malt to the grains to help with head (foam) retention.

Once the mash was complete, I added the bittering charge of Magnum hops and started the boil. After the 60 minutes of boil time was complete, I added the hops to the whirlpool at around 80-90 degrees for around 20 mins before cooling the wort with my chiller.

Once the wort was at pitching temperature, I pitched the yeast starter. Before racking to my fermenter, I took a reading of the original gravity (OG) which came in at just over 1.050.

The waiting game

With the airlock bubbling away, I patiently waited for my brew to be ready.

I have been using my Tilt Hydrometer to track the progress of my brews lately. The chart below gives you an idea of the fermentation chart for this beer. In the image below, the red line represents the gravity and the blue line is the temperature.

The beer was almost complete after 6-7 days, but as I was away from home for work, I let it go a little longer in the fermenter.

Once fermentation was complete, I soft crashed the beer and then transferred to a keg and pressurised before waiting another few days before tasting.

Summary

Appearance - A lovely golden straw coloured beer with a slight haze to it. Just what I was aiming for. A fluffy head that lingers as expected.

Aroma -  Mango and Tropical fruit. The aroma of this beer isn't punchy and in your face as I was expecting, however the aroma carries through very nicely and you definitely know that there are fruity hops in this beer.

Taste - Orange, Satsumas, and Passionfruit. When I taste this beer, it instantly reminds me of oranges and satsumas. Its fresh and crisp with an easy drinking layer of bitterness. An absolute crusher!

This is a great beer and the Nectaron hops are totally capable of standing out on their own. Nectaron brings a very light tropical bitterness that balances out nicely and I could see these hops being used in many other styles of beer including Wheat Ales, Hazies and Saisons. I am happy with this beer and would definitely brew it again!

If you use Brewfather as your brewing software of choice, I've also made the recipe publicly available for you to try yourself.