We don’t let a global pandemic bother us here at Dark Farm! Instead, we work on building new relationships with awesome people. Over the last few months, we’ve been secretly liaising (digitally, obvs) with Sebastian Nielsen from Brookhouse Hops and Lawrence Plant from Pauls Malts - we’re very excited about what we’ve produced.

So what have we been brewing up in lockdown? Well, in honour of British grains and hops we’ve created this cheeky little number: a delicious British Pale Ale, which we’ve called ”Lockdown”.

This will be our first of many new brew kits we’ll be launching over the year. The others are currently being covertly tested by our very own Brew Crew and the results will be published in our next issue.

We chose UK Chinook because they are such a great hop to grow and harvest, and we love the US version in pale ales. We also wanted to do a single hopped beer because it better showcases the hops. The UK version is less punchy compared to the US version, but we think it creates a more balanced profile in any beer.

The bonus of using hops near the end is that they carry more flavour through to the beer. You have to use a bit more to get the desired IBUs, but according to brewers we’ve spoken to this is quite common practice in modern beers. The bitterness is apparently ‘softer’. From a malt perspective, a fairly neutral but slightly sweet extra pale malt helps bring attention to the hops in the beer. Melanoidin malt brings toasty biscuit notes as a result of the maillard reaction in the kiln, which balances nicely against the bitterness from the hops.

The all grain brew kits are available to buy in 5L, 10L, 20L, and 25L sizes and can be mashed up in anything from a saucepan on the hob to an all-in-one brew kettle. Each kit conveniently contains exactly what you need to make up your brew. Just add water! 

Don’t forget, homebrewers, that you can also order brilliant malt from paulsmalt.co.uk and ace hops from brookhousehops.com