Beer Forum

I'm brewing a kolsch soon and I'd like to add a touch of honey malt (maybe 2-3%) to my grain bill to add a little sweet aroma/flavor. If I do this will I be killing the chances of placing if I'm entering under Kolsch in competiions?

If it's a damn good beer will it stand up or will it get dinged for having the honey character?

I use a lot of honey malt up to 9 % in an IPA. It would be a substitution for melanoidin malt. Don't use both! Honey malt isn't honey enriched. It goes through a complex malting process. The intense sweetness is a honey "like" sweetness. I would keep the hopping on the high end of the range to balance it out.

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No need to tell the judges you used honey malt.

gwk453 wrote:No need to tell the judges you used honey malt.

That I understand. I'm not super experienced with honey malt. I've only used it in a few pale ales that were hop forward so I didn't really get the character. Does honey malt add honey flavor/percieved sweetness or just honey aroma?

Kolsch is a soft malted beer so too much sweetness would be a ding. You might want to split the 3% light munich or vienna 50/50 with the honey malt. There is no place to hide in a Kolsch. Assuming 97% pilsner malt.

My palate just detects the intense sweetness without honey flavor.

When i think of honey malt, I percieve the taste like aromatic malt, but with a bit more sweetness. Hard to say if it is actually honey per say. I would think a small amount of honey malt would be good in a kolsch but do be wary that judges will be clearly looking for a clean fermentation and even crisper malt mouthfeel and flavor with little sweetness. In a 5 gallon batch I would probably not use over 6 oz of honey malt, providing the rest is mostly base malt with no other specialty malt additions. 4 oz might be even wiser to keep it just to a very slight nuance.

Thanks! I'm doing a ten gallon batch so I'll go with 8oz and see how it goes.