Bison Brewing Company Honey Basil Ale Clone

Clone recipe from Jul/Aug 2011 issue of Brew Your Own Magazine

Honey Basil Ale is based on a light amber ale grain bill. Cascade hops are used to offset the residual sweetness, and a dense, white, creamy head tops this beautiful golden, amber ale. The malty nose exhibits hints of basil with honey in the background. Basil is also present in the flavour, but will in balance with the base malt. A thin low temperature mash is recommended to create maximum fermentability for a dry finish.

ALL GRAIN RECIPE:

8.75 lbs 2-row pale malt
0.75 lbs crystal malt (20L)
0.70 lbs Carapils malt
0.5 lbs honey (last 5 min)
0.6 oz. scored basil leaves (last 10 min)
0.6 oz. scored basil leaves (at knockout)
0.8 oz 5.75% AA Cascade pellet hops (60 min)
1/2 tsp irish moss (last 30 min)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (last 15 min)
0.75 cup corn sugar (for priming)


Single step infusion. Mix grain bill with 3.75 gallons of 170 F water to stabilize at 148 F for 60 min. Sparge slowly with 175 F water. Collect approximately 6 gallons of wort to boil for 60 min. Add hops, irish moss, yeast nutrient, basil (scored at least 5 times with knife), and honey as per schedule. Cool to 75 F to pitch yeast. Ferment at 68 F until fermentation is complete, transfer to secondary fermentor and condition for 1 week. Bottle or Keg, carbonate and age for two weeks.

EXTRACT RECIPE:
note that hop addition is increased to account for lower utilization factor of partial boil.

3.3 lbs Briess light, unhopped, liquid malt extract
2 lbs light dried malt extract
1 lbs two row pale malt
0.75 lbs crystal malt (20 L)
0.70 lbs Carapils malt
0.5 lbs honey (last 5 min)
0.6 oz. scored basil leaves (last 10 min)
0.6 oz. scored basil leaves (at knockout)
1 oz 5.75% AA Cascade pellet hops (60 min)
1/2 tsp irish moss (last 30 min)
1/2 tsp yeast nutrient (last 15 min)
0.75 cup corn sugar (for priming)

Steep the grains is 1.75 gal of water at 148 F for 30 min. Remove grains from wort and rinse with 3 qts of hot water. Add liquid and dry malt extracts and begin boil. Additions as detailed above. After boil, add the wort to 2 gal of cold water in the fermentor and top off to 5 gal.

Just brewed a 10 gallon batch of this today! The wort tasted amazing! hoping that the final product does too. I did not do organic, and after "scoring" half of the basil leaves I got impatient and decided to tear them figuring that the outcome would be negligible.

How does Bison score enough basil leaves to produce as much as they do?? a sweatshop? or they just get really high and have at it for a day with knives?.... haha after all they are located in Berkley...

Is there any way that someone could make a partial mash recipe of this. I have a whole lot of basil to use up and thought I would try a basil beer such as this. Fullsteam brewery here in Durham had a Summer Bail Ale which I really liked but couldn't find a good clone for it, but this recipe sounds very good and I'd like to try it as a partial mash batch.

Thanks!

btw, if anyone would like to tackle Fullsteam's Basil Summer Ale here is their description, maybe it will inspire someone.

"SUMMER BASIL farmhouse ale

Liquid Summer. A farmhouse ale brewed with Saison yeast and basil from Elysian Farm (Cedar Grove, N.C.). We add six pounds of whole-leaf basil per batch, yet the beer retains a subtle basil aroma and taste that favors nuance over obvious. The beer pours with a creamy, white head and finishes with notes of lemon, pepper, and (prepare yourself for precious food terminology) Bouquet Garni. A lawnmower beer…if you mowed over your herb garden.

Summer Basil was the very first batch we brewed on our commercial brewing system, and we offer it only when local basil is in-season."

One month in, how is this? thinking of doing this soon

AmicusCervesa said:

One month in, how is this? thinking of doing this soon

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Mmmm it is wonderful! Got sidetracked in life and didn't keg/carb/tap until just recently so it is a little late in the year for a summer brew but that does not stop me from enjoying it!

I think this will be the first summer brew I do for next year. or maybe do it now cause I agree...the best part about home brewing, is being able to make the styles of beer you want, when you want...

I was just fiddling with a kit beer. Made a coopers Mexican with kit yeast, half kilo (pound and a couple of ounces) ldme. When racking I decided to bottle 3 from the primary using honey to bottle condition. Chucked in some basil leaves for a pleasant surprise. Tops flavour.

Making my first 10 gallon batch for the summer this coming Sunday! Ill be using Maris Otter instead of standard 2-row pale. Excited to see how it turns out.

What yeast did you use?

evandena said:

What yeast did you use?

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Used the Wyeast 1056 last summer, this time around I used the WLP 001. Pretty much the same thing from what I have heard.

I just brewed this AG recipe last night. I think I'm going to add lemon zest to the secondary too. Seems like it would be a great summer brew.

I kegged this last night. I did add zest from two lemons in the secondary. This beer is awesome. Doesn't seem to need much for aging. I think it's ready to drink day one. I forced carbonated of course. Can't wait for a nice hot sunny day to enjoy this outside.

uniconfis said:

I kegged this last night. I did add zest from two lemons in the secondary. This beer is awesome. Doesn't seem to need much for aging. I think it's ready to drink day one. I forced carbonated of course. Can't wait for a nice hot sunny day to enjoy this outside.

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Today's not hot enough? Lol

I did a hybrid between this recipe and a Widmer "Hef" clone yesterday.

7# 2-row
7# white wheat
1# Munich
0.3# Crys 30
2oz Hallertauer @ 45
1oz Cascade @ 10
1 oz Willamette @ 10
1.5lb Honey @ 10

Wyeast 1010 American Hef

I think that the lemon aspects of the widmer wheat beer will go nicely with the honey basil.

I really like the sound of a honey basil hef but the hop schedule for endlesswinter's variation concerns me. It's much more hop forward than the amber recipie-- flavor and aroma hops compared to the lone bittering addition of the original. Have you brewed this version yet? Do the hops compete with the basil or is there a happy unison there?

These both look tasty. Can't wait to try them out.

Hopelesst said:

I really like the sound of a honey basil hef but the hop schedule for endlesswinter's variation concerns me. It's much more hop forward than the amber recipie-- flavor and aroma hops compared to the lone bittering addition of the original. Have you brewed this version yet? Do the hops compete with the basil or is there a happy unison there?

These both look tasty. Can't wait to try them out.

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I just tapped this beer, never done it before. It is interesting. The citrus flavors and basil do play nicely together, blending into a nice sunshiny flavor. Definitely more hop forward on the flavor when compared with the bison honey basil, the hops do cover up a bit of the basil, yet the basil does come through. Basil on the aroma is still very present.

To me, the beer tastes a little watered down though, almost like its missing a some desired malty base. This could be partly due to the fact that I don't normally brew/drink beers this light and my palette is biased. In addition, I did not quite hit the desired OG due to poor mash efficiency. [given this] I think the honey to grain ratio might have also been a bit high, creating a dryer fermentation.

I think some revisions could make this beer a winner: better efficiency and/or more wheat&malt and maybe a little less honey (say 1 lb). The basil and hops additions seem good to me, but im not a tasting/brewing expert by any means.

I'm going to brew this soon. We tried this at a brewfest in Portland last summer and it was the beer that stood out the most as being both unique and great (although there were many that were one or the other). Bison's description says that they use Munich (although it's listed after the crystal so I doubt it's much) so I might swap out a 1/2 pound of 2-row for munich.

Is the batch fermenting with the Basil leaves in it? when do you remove the leaves?

Brewed a batch of this (AG) yesterday. Only thing I did different is used .75# of Crys 15L and .25# of Crys 40L (my LHBS didn't have 20L) and used whole leaf Cascades grown by my neighbor. The WLP001 called for is labeled "California Ale Yeast" instead of American Ale. Anyway I pulled the hops, and basil additions in their steeping bags from the kettle when I dropped in the wort chiller; hopefully that wasn't too soon. Was a little bit over on my starting O.G. but barely. Pitched yeast straight from vile, no starter as I did this a day earlier than planned. Ferm activity took about 18 hours to start which is much longer than normal but it'sslowly getting more active.

Planning to cristen my new kegging setup with this brew, will let y'all know how it goes...
H

I think I'm going to brew this beer with the decreased amount of 2 row and the extra pound of munich malt added. I will be brewing it in hopes that it will get to be better weather here in Portland.

I'm new to homebrewing and am interested in doing this. I have a question on the basil addition.

Is the basil left in the primary during fermentation? Also, I'm thinking about adding some lemon zest in addition to the basil. Would I leave the zest in during primary fermentation as well?

nate77 said:

I'm new to homebrewing and am interested in doing this. I have a question on the basil addition.

Is the basil left in the primary during fermentation? Also, I'm thinking about adding some lemon zest in addition to the basil. Would I leave the zest in during primary fermentation as well?

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I don't think it matters but I pulled the basil at end of boil. The basil was just the right amount of presence in the finished beer, any more and it might have caused me to lose a few fans (not everyone likes to drink basily beverages), keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to leave it in primary. Anyway this beer was success, and the keg was empty after 2 gatherings. I think using pellet hops (at least to side-by-side the whole hops) is something I'd do in the future as the hop presence seemed muffled by the honey and basil. Anyway this beer will be brewed again soon.

What was your fermentation schedule for this ale...I did an IPA and did 1wk in primary 2wks in carboy and another 2-3wks bottle conditioning to carb. I'm looking for a pretty quick turnover beer.

Crock_it_out said:

What was your fermentation schedule for this ale...I did an IPA and did 1wk in primary 2wks in carboy and another 2-3wks bottle conditioning to carb. I'm looking for a pretty quick turnover beer.

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1week primary
1week secondary
kegged for 3 days
consumed in 2 days

Hovik said:

1week primary
1week secondary
kegged for 3 days
consumed in 2 days

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Thanks Hovik another question…it says add basil during boil and then at knockout? Is knockout like flameout as in when the heat is turned off? Or did you add it to the carboy when you racked it after a week? Thanks

Crock_it_out said:

Thanks Hovik another question…it says add basil during boil and then at knockout? Is knockout like flameout as in when the heat is turned off? Or did you add it to the carboy when you racked it after a week? Thanks

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Honestly I assumed the same thing (knockout=flameout) so I added at the last second, killed the heat and left the basil in my mesh bag until my wort chiller was finished working it's magic, then I pulled.

I brewed this beer 7 days ago, tasted it today and it tastes great. i used wyeast 1272 and my og was 1.054 and i'm down to 1.005 after a week. i'm thinking of transferring to secondary now for 3 days, then cold conditioning for 3 days (to clear it up) then bottling. since fermentation is complete and there are no more additions, what is the purpose of the secondary? will i be sacrificing anything by only conditioning a few days in the secondary? thanks to the OP for the recipe!

PS i left the basil leaves in loose during primary and don't notice any ill effects. i plan to strain out before transfer to carboy.

Brharo,
That sounds great. For me the secondary is just to end up with less trub to stir up at bottling time - I am usually not careful with my auto-siphon and stir stuff up. If you are cold conditioning you'll probably not need 3 days of secondary as most will drop out with the lower temps. I could be wrong.
Good luck. Hope yours lasts you longer than mine... (2 family gatherings back to back and it was gone).