Homebrew Session: Pale Ale
The company I work for was shut down for two weeks for the Holidays. The shut down was more of a cost-cutting maneuver than it was a show of generosity. In fact, many of the days were originally supposed to be listed as holiday pay but were changed to unpaid at nearly the last minute. You can bet your bottom dollar that we were upset but in the great scheme of things, the company either sends us home without pay or it fires everyone.
At the start of the break, I wondered what I would do for two weeks. Thanksgiving seemed to drag on for days and days and days and that was only a 4-day weekend. So I set myself up with a “to-do” list. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t get to half of what was on my list. I forgot to factor in Christmas and New Year’s Eve into the equation so two weeks to myself really wasn’t two weeks at all. Thankfully I was able to brew one last batch of beer before the year was over. It’s all about your priorities.
For this batch, I decided to brew an American Pale Ale. If the ingredient list below looks somewhat familiar it’s because I used my Harvest Ale recipe as the starting point. I really enjoyed the malt character of this beer that I decided to brew it again only replacing the fresh hops with others and upping the bittering hops a bit. I suppose you could call this beer another hybrid as the malt bill is decidedly European while the hop list is decidedly American. Whatever you want to call it, I’m hoping good is one of the adjectives used.
One of the other things I wanted to do with this beer was to whittle down some of the surplus brewing ingredients I had acquired over the years. I make a notation in the back of my brewing journal of all the leftover ingredients I have. While this is more of a personal reminder, the practice comes in handy when you’re at the homebrew store and want to keep your cost down. I keep all of my surplus hops and grains doubled bagged and stored in the freezer so they were in decent shape when I brought them back out. As they saying goes, if you don’t use it, you loose it.
Ingredients
- 6 lbs - Coopers Light DME
Specialty Grains:
- 1 lbs - Bamburg Munich 6L
- 1 lbs - Hugh Baird 80L
- .25 lbs - Belgian Aromatic 20L
Hops
- .5 oz - Magnum (13.1) bittering
- .5 oz - Perle (4.6) bittering
- 1.25 oz - Simcoe (12.0) finishing
- 1.25 oz - Mt. Hood (4.0) finishing
Yeast
- English Ale Yeast (WLP002)
Extras
- 1 tablet servomyces
- .5 tsp Irish Moss
Original Gravity: 1.060 (at the uppermost limit for the style)
Final Gravity: TBD
ABV: TBD
Process
- Steep grains @ 160° F for 30 minutes, then remove.
- Boil .5 oz Magnum and .5 oz Perle for 60 minutes.
- Add 6 lbs of DME at the 30 minute mark.
- Add wort chiller at 40 minute mark.
- Add Irish Moss at 50 minute mark.
- Add servomyces at 50 minute mark.
- Add 1.25 oz of Simcoe and 1.25 oz Mt. Hood hops at the end of the boil.
- Cool beer to 70° F and pitch the vial of yeast (no starter this time, forgot to make one).
- Aerate for 5 minutes.
Tasting Notes (wort)
Light caramel in color with off-white bubbles. Wet grain, soggy bread aroma. Has a “wet grass” sort of hop aroma with citrus and floral notes. Very sweet, Honeycomb cereal-like flavor with caramel-ish malt notes. Hop bitterness is medium-high and lasts into the finish.
Tasting Notes (primary)
Here’s shot of my pale ale right out of primary fermentation. As you can see, it’s light caramel in color and fairly clear. There’s a nice hop aroma that is floral in character with citrus undertones. The malt flavor of the beer malty, like toasted bread and sweet. The hop bitterness is medium-high, it hits pretty good at first but has a steep drop-off that lingers softly on the palette.
The one thing I am worried about was this beer finished slightly higher that what is acceptable for the style. As a result, the beer is sweeter than usual. The lack of full attenuation can be due to a number of factors. I used an English Ale yeast which aren’t very attenuative yeasts to begin with. The fermentation temperature varied within my house, which could lead to a less than desirable condition for the yeasts to do their jobs in. Finally I may not have dissolved as much oxygen into the wort as I could have. I’ve noticed a trend of my current beers to be lower in calculated ABV than what I’m shooting for and that could be the problem. Rich at Beer and Winemakers of America suggested that to me and suggested I pick up another diffusion stone and extra tank of oxygen but I think I’ll stick to “shaking the baby” a little bit longer. In an age of “extreme beers” where everyone wants to brew up something big, it’s nice to have something flavorful and sessionable.
Tasting Notes (final)
This beer pours from my kegerator a hazy, deep amber in color, with a moussey off-white head. The aroma is more floral with slight citrus notes combined with a sweet, bready malt aroma. The flavor starts off with a sweetish, bready malt flavor that gives way to a smooth and pleasant hop bitterness that doesn’t linger for too long. This is a medium-bodied beer with medium-high/high carbonation.
I enjoy this beer but I will have to experiment with dry hopping to really up the nose of the beer. I think the flavor is right where I want it but the nose could be improved. Also, this was only the second beer I’ve used the carbonation stone on. I left it in the keg after tapping it for an additional 3 days or so and the result is an American Pale Ale with Belgian lacing. In a competition, I may get points knocked off for that but since it’s for personal consumption, who cares.
