Courtesy of Bell’s Brewery in Michigan, here is a homebrew-scale recipe for Bell’s Light Hearted Ale—a lighter, session-strength beer from the same family as the ever-popular Two Hearted Ale. For more on the tinkering and process behind this beer, listen to our podcast with Andy Farrell, Bell’s brewing innovation manager—and watch for Craft Beer & Brewing Magazine® Issue 40 (August-September 2020) or subscribe.
Most of the key ingredients are widely available, but there is another option: The brewery sells homebrew kits that include the ingredients for its top recipes—both all-grain and extract—out of its Kalamazoo-based webshop, and it ships them to all 50 states. Exclusive to the Bell’s store are packets of the brewery’s house yeast strain, Imperial A62, but Farrell says that US-05 or other American ale yeasts will get similar results.
ALL-GRAIN
Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.034
FG: 1.006
IBUs: 36
ABV: 3.7%