This is one of my favorite recipes.  I've brewed it a number of times, with minor tweaks, and different kinds of honey.  So far, I like the orangeblossom honey version the best.  This recipe is from the notes for my "HA7" batch, which I brewed in the fall of 2000.

It is a refreshing, light colored and relatively light bodied beer, which nonetheless has a decent amount of flavor.  Stylistically, I guess it is closest to a Blond Ale, but it doesn't really fit into any established beer style (other than "Specialty/Experimental/Historical", which is basically a catch-all for beers that don't fall into any of the other categories).  A beer brewed from essentially the same recipe was served in the hospitality suite at the 1999 AHA conference in Olathe, Kansas, by the homebrew club I belong to (Urban Knaves of Grain).

The honey is added at the end of the boil to pasteurize it, while preserving more of the honey character (which would be lost if it was added earlier in the boil).   Orangeblossom honey is also used for priming.

Please note the non-standard batch size… a typical brew session for me consists of a pair of small batches (2 different styles of beer). Scale everything up linearly for a 5 gallon batch (in other words, multiply everything by 1.7). 

For those of you who have been contemplating your first grain mash, this recipe would be a good choice -- since some of the fermentables come from honey, the amount of grain being mashed is somewhat lower than what you'd have for a "normal" all-grain batch.  (I guess strictly speaking, it isn't all grain then... but there's no malt extract involved!)

• 4 lbs Pilsner malt
• 1 lb Cara-Pils malt
• 1.25 lbs orangeblossom honey (add at end of boil)
• 0.4 oz Northern Brewer pellets, 6.5% AA (boil 60 minutes)
• 0.5 oz Cascade pellets, 4.5% AA (boil 10 minutes)
• 0.5 oz Cascade pellets, 4.5% AA (steep at end of boil)
• White Labs WLP008 (East Coast Ale)
• 3.5 oz orangeblossom honey (bottle prime)

(Optional) mash-in at 127F for a protein rest, for 25 minutes. Saccharification rest at 158F, until iodine test is negative.  Sparge with approximately 4 gallons of water at 170F.

Total boil time 60 minutes.  Add the 1.25 lbs of honey at the end of the boil.

OG = 1.052, FG = 1.006

To prime, dissolve 3.5 oz (weight, not fluid measure) of honey in 1 cup of hot water; bring to a boil, then allow to cool.  Put the honey solution in your bottling bucket, rack the finished beer into it, and stir gently with a sanitized plastic or metal spoon.

Ferment at 70F.

White Labs WLP051 (California Ale V) or Wyeast 1272 (American Ale II) are also good yeast choices for this beer.  On previous batches, I have used these instead of the WLP008.

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(Posted to Web November 17, 2001; updated December 1, 2001)