How To Make Your Own Farmhouse Ale {Recipe Inside}

People have been brewing beer for many centuries. Indeed, the early Romans considered beer to be a necessary foodstuff. In the United States, home brewing is a relatively modern idea. In fact, it has only been legal to brew beer at home in the US since 1978. In this article, we provide good reasons why you should brew your own beer in your farmhouse kitchen. We also provide a tasty farmhouse ale recipe to get you started. Read on to learn more.

9 Great Reasons To Take Up Farmhouse Ale Brewing

reasons to take up farmhouse ale brewing

Why brew beer at home?

1. It’s a fun hobby

Brewing beer is a fairly simple pursuit, and it’s easy to get set up and started. It’s a good activity to take up on your own, and it doesn’t take a lot of time. You can start up of batch of a ale in afternoon on your own. It’s also fun hobby to share with your significant other or friend.

2. Brewing your own ale helps you understand exactly what makes a great beer

When you take up home brewing, you’ll know exactly what goes into making the best quality of ale or beer. This knowledge will help you judge commercially made beers, and will give you a good point of conversation when you pop into a pub for a pint.

3. You’ll never run out of high quality ale or beer

When you make your own, you’ll have a limitless supply of your favorite beverage. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to make superior beer and ale to enjoy at home.

4. You’ll broaden your social circle

Whenever you take up a new interest, you open up the opportunity to make more friends. There are lots of fascinating people who are avidly engaged in brewing their own beer and ale. Consulting with them will help you to make the best product possible while making friends in the process.

5. You’ll enjoy better beer for less money

Although there is a bit of an initial outlay, once you have all of the equipment and ingredients you need, it’s really cheap to brew your own beer. In fact, you can make very high quality beer for under a dollar a glass.

6. Brewing farmhouse ale is a creative outlet

After you’ve mastered the basics of brewing a good beer, you’ll find yourself learning more and more and wanting to experiment with new ingredients and different processes. Eventually, you’re sure to create your own, proprietary recipe.

7. You can create your own beer cellar

As your skills grow, you can put away a few bottles of this and a few bottles of that to always have a nice selection of interesting, handmade beers and ales to serve your friends and enjoy yourself.

8. You can feel proud of your accomplishment

Even though brewing beer and ale is a fairly easy task, not many people do it. Once you’ve mastered it, you’ll have also mastered the bragging rights. You can rightly feel proud of your expertise.

9. You’ll have many opportunities for celebration

Whenever you brew up a new batch, create a new recipe or have more beer and ale than you can reasonably drink, you can invite your friends over to enjoy it with you.

How Do You Get Started Brewing Farmhouse Ale?

There are lots of great videos online, and many articles with a wide variety of advice and information to sift through. You can start out on your own by simply researching these and perhaps buying a book such as Home Brewing for Dummies.

Alternately, there are complete kits that you can buy that include everything you need to get started and brew your first batch. This can be a nice, simple and affordable way to begin.

Basic Farmhouse Ale Recipe

In the olden days, farmers typically brewed ale during the winter months after all the crops were gathered and the planting season was over.

In those times, ale was not just intended for recreational purposes. Making ale was a good way to preserve some kinds of grain. It also provided important nutritional value.

There are a couple of different ways to create farmhouse ale. Both are based in different methods of keeping the ingredients stable while in storage.

One method involves using more hops, and the other involves adding more alcohol. These two methods of a production create two very different styles of ale. The first is very refreshing with a strong flavor of hops, and the other is very nourishing and full-bodied.

Recipes tended to vary from one farm to another, and each farmer eventually developed his own distinct version.

Try this basic recipe for 5 gallons of simple farmhouse ale.

You’ll need:

  • 6 pounds two-row malt
  • 4 pound Vienna malt
  • 1 pound wheat malt
  • 1 pound flaked oats
  • .75 pounds corn sugar (added to kettle)
  • 1 ounce Hallertauer hops, 4.7% a.a. (60 min)
  • 5 ounce Hallertauer hops, 4.7% a.a. (30 min)
  • .5 ounce Hallertauer hops, 4.7% a.a. (10 min)
  • .5 ounce dried bitter orange peel (10 min)
  • White labs Saison Yeast

These specifications are your goal:

  • Original Gravity: 1.068
  • Final Gravity: 1.012
  • ABV: 7.35%
  • IBU: 25
  • SRM: 4

Follow These Directions

  1. Mash grains at 153° F (67° C) for one hour.
  2. Mash out at 168° F (76° C).
  3. Sparge with 168° F (76° C) water to collect 7 gallons.
  4. Boil for 90 minutes.
  5. Cool to 70° F (21° C) and pitch yeast.
  6. Ferment at 72° F (22° C) for two weeks.
  7. Rack to secondary for another two weeks.

A little advice – it’s not a good idea to drink too much ale if you are hungry. I love to eat my wife’s macaroni salad first. 😉

Norwegian Farmhouse Ale

2 thoughts on “How To Make Your Own Farmhouse Ale {Recipe Inside}”

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Farm & Animals

6043 S Drexel Ave
Chicago, IL 60637

Amazon Disclaimer

Farm & Animals is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Disclaimer

Farm & Animals do not intend to provide veterinary advice. We try to help farmers better understand their animals; however, the content on this blog is not a substitute for veterinary guidance. For more information, please read our PRIVACY POLICY.