Homebrew – Vienna Blonde
Brewery: Homebrewed
Where: Hickory, North Carolina
Beer: Vienna Blonde
Style: American Blonde Ale
IBU: 18
ABV: 4.25%
This is a beer that I have been working on for a while. It is version 2 of my ESYFB (Extra Special Yellow Fizzy Beer) that I brewed last summer. This beer has the color profile that I was looking for and since my brewing process is dialed in a little tighter now, everything about this beer came out where I wanted it to. This beer has place and purpose in my home brewery. The Vienna Blonde Ale is built on a grain bill of Pale, Vienna, Crystal, and Carapils malts with a very small addition of flaked oats. The hop bill on this recipe is very light. It starts with some centennial for bittering and then finishes with Cascade for flavor and aroma. This beer is a 'light' beer by homebrewing standards. It has a very nice balance between malts and hops and actually leans towards the side of malty sweetness.
I brew this beer for two reasons. I enjoy drinking it myself, and it's what I consider to be a 'session beer.' A session beer is one that you can consume all afternoon without fears of losing control. It's lower alcohol content makes it less problematic in the area of intoxication. The other reason I brew it is because it's a fantastic beer to have on hand when introducing someone to homebrewed beers. I believe that a lot of beer drinkers get introduced to homebrews in a negative manner. Most homebrewers that I know tend to make two types of beers. One type is the 'let's see how many hops I can stuff in this beer' and the other is 'how high can my alcohol content be' brews. There is also the combination of the two. There are some extremely FANTASTIC beers that come out of these ideas, don't get me wrong, but these beers are harder to use to introduce new people who are used to the BudMillerCoors genre to the idea of drinking homebrewed beer.
The Vienna Blonde is one of the primary beers I hand someone in this situation. I don't think I have had anyone spit one of these out yet. I can't say that much for some of the other beers I have made. Think of it in terms of feeding a baby. We don't feed them chili made with habanero peppers to start with. We let them build up a taste for things by starting them out on mashed cereals that are bland and less flavorful.
I have two more homebrews labeled and ready for the tasting queue. We'll be looking at the Yellowjacket Hefeweizen and the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout in the very near future...
