We invited Steve The Apartment Brewer and CH from Homebrew 4 Life over to brew a hoppy lager using Talus hops. We’ve never used these hops before, but we were pleasantly surprised when we tasted the finished beer. Read on to see how it turned out. All the recipe details are below.

This recipe is for a 5 gallon batch of beer and it’s tailored for our 10 gallon 120 volt brewing system. Watch us use it in the full brew day video below.

Benchmarks

• OG: 1.054
• FG: 1.010
• ABV: 5.78%

Ingredients Needed

Grains

• German 2 Row - 7 lbs
• Vienna Malt - 3.5 lbs
• Carapils - .5 lb

Hops

• Talus - 4 oz

Yeast

• Saflager S-189

Water Chemistry

• Campden Tablet
• Gypsum (optional)
• Epsom salt (optional)
• Calcium Chloride (optional)

Brew Day Instructions

Water

Fill your kettle with 7.3 gallons of water. Add .5 of a campden tablet to remove chlorine and chloramine. Set the temperature on your controller to 152 and start heating up the water.

Water Chemistry (Optional)

This is optional, but doing water chemistry will make a better finished beer. We adjusted our water chemistry so that the sulfates are slightly higher than the chlorides. This will make the hops a bit more pronounced in the finished beer. Below are our water chemistry targets in PPM. You can read this article to learn more about water chemistry!

Ca: 80

Mg: 5

Na: 25

Cl: 75

SO4: 120

HCO3: 100

Mash

Finely crush your grain by double crushing or setting the gap size in your mill to be very small. Once your water reaches 152F (66.6C), mash in. Hold the temperature of 152F (66.6C) and recirculate using the spray valve for one hour.

PH

Adjusting pH is optional, but just like water chemistry, doing this will lead to a better finished beer. Check your pH 5 - 10 minutes into your mash. Add lactic acid until the mash reaches a pH of 5.2 - 5.4. Be careful adding lactic acid, a little goes a long way.

Boil & Hops

After mashing for 60 minutes, pull your grain basket and hook it above your kettle. Let it drain for about 10 minutes before removing it. Increase the temperature on your controller or set it to 100% of power in order to start a boil. Once a boil is reached, follow this hop schedule. This recipe calls for a 60-minute boil.

10 Minutes - 1 oz of Talus

With 10 minutes left in the boil, hook up your plate chiller and run boiling wort through it. This will ensure that it is sanitized. At the end of the boil, chill the wort to 175F. Hold 175F for 20 minutes and add the following hops as a whirlpool addition.

Whirlpool at 175F for 20 minutes - 3 oz of Talus

After whirlpooling for 20 minutes, chill the wort. If you are fermenting this lager under pressure, chill the wort to room temperature. If you are traditionally fermenting it, chill the wort to 53 - 64F. We pressure fermented this lager. To learn more about traditionally fermenting lagers, read this article.

Yeast & Fermentation

Once the wort has reached room temperature, transfer it into a keg or another vessel that can be pressurized. We transferred this beer into a keg fermenter that we are in the process of developing right now, you can pre-order and learn more about it here. Before transferring, we installed a floating dip tube in our keg so we don’t have to transfer the beer once it’s done fermenting.

Once the wort is transferred, pitch 1 pack of Saflager S-189 and aerate the wort by shaking. Install a spunding valve to your pressure fermentation vessel and set it to 15 psi. Let it ferment at room temperature for at least 2 weeks. To learn more about pressure fermentation, watch this video below

Tasting

Our first impression upon tasting it was “tastes like the best day ever.” This lager was amazing. The hops did not give a traditional “orange” or “grapefruit” flavor to our beer, but rather a strong berry and strawberry flavor. It was unlike anything we had ever tasted before. You may have noticed that this recipe is a bit untraditional since it has no 60 minute hop addition, but all of us agreed that the beer was still very balanced. We liked the lack of bitterness. The pressure fermentation worked great as well because the beer was super clean tasting. Overall, give this beer a try if you’re looking for something that’s not as hoppy as an IPA, but still hoppy.