Sometimes relatively simple beers can be just as satisfying, and potentially even more thirst-quenching than the more complicated (and expensive) hop forward styles like IPA's. We wanted a simple beer to add to our new outdoor kitchen triple-tap setup, and decided to give the Kissaki Japenese Lager from All Inn Brewing Co a try.
We were also looking for an opportunity to try out the latest hybrid lager yeast, NovaLager, so this fresh wort kit seemed like the perfect candidate.
The fresh wort kit itself is comprised of lager malt and rice syrup, along with Saaz and Sorachi Ace hops. Coming in at only 17 IBU's it's relatively low and restrained in terms of bitterness.
We added 4L of spring water to the 15L FWK, giving us a total of 19L in the fermenter. With a starting gravity of 1.060 in the kit, we calculated an OG of 1.047 after adding the spring water.
After pitching a single packet of the NovaLager dry yeast, we had fermentation underway overnight. The yeast powered through the wort, with terminal gravity reached in just a couple of days after fermenting away at around 20°C.
And the results were very pleasing - with a very neutral flavour profile, making for a crisp and easy drinking lager. It's the sort of beer that you'd roll out or give to people who prefer macro-lager style beers as opposed to the more 'crafty' styles - not that there's anything wrong with that at all - each to their own and all that.
NovaLager yeast is a little different to many other lager yeasts in that it can be turned around in similar time to an ale yeast - typically around 2 weeks in total. What really sets it apart is it doesn't produce any hydrogen sulfide, so there's less cleaning up to be done by the yeast post fermentation, which leads to reduced/no lagering period required, and hence the faster turn around.
It pours with a nice white fluffy head, but unfortunately this dissipates very quickly. We upped the carbonation on this one a little to compensate, but what's left is a nice, crisp, cold lager that for us ticks almost all the boxes.
As you can see from the photo above, it isn't particularly clear, so some finings in the fermenter (or keg) definitely wouldn't go astray here to get it looking a bit better, but this isn't something we were too concerned about for this batch.
Although simple, this is definitely one of our favour FWK's that we've made, and combined with the NovaLager yeast it's a super simple and fast way to get a tasty lager brewed in next to no time!
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