Tag Archives: barley malt

Working on developing a ‘house’ pale ale

Posted on by
1
beers

Image by uberculture via Flickr

Yesterday, I went to MoreBeer‘s showroom in Concord, CA to pick up supplies plus ingredients for my next beer. I want to give a shout out to the good people there. Every experience I have had there has been positive and completely enjoyable and I must have gone there dozen of times now.

One of the cool things that MoreBeer does is offer feedback on homebrews (all of the homebrew stores I patronize do too). Most of the staff (maybe all the staff for all I know) are avid homebrewers and are passionate about beer.

So, I brought in Brew Disasters the “Oh Well, What the Hell” pale ale for an evaluation. The consensus, of the three fellow brewers who were in the showroom at the time, was that the flaws (if there were any) had been nicely masked by the honey. They would have liked a bigger hop presence, a little less carbonation (good thing I didn’t try for the top of the carbonation range–always a bit of a crap shoot when bottle conditioning and not force-carbonating in a keg), a little less alcohol “heat.” They agreed it needed to age a little longer to mellow it some more. All in all, they felt it was a serviceable pale ale.

My next beer project will be a pale ale, though since it will be brewed with Wyeast 2007, Pilsner Yeast, maybe it should be called a pale lager (let’s not get too hung up on designations, okay?). I bought 11 pounds of 2-row barley malt, 8 ounces of 60L crystal, and 2 oz of Amarillo hops and 2 oz of Cascade hops. I’m hoping to come up with a “house” pale ale with loads of flavor and aroma and not too bitter. I want a “Session” beer. To get that high flavor, low bitterness and keep the IBUs within Beer Judge Certification Program‘s (BJCP) Style Guidelines, the first hop addition will be 1 oz of Amarillo at 20 minutes rather than the standard 60 minutes before the end of the boil. The next hop additions will be 1 oz of Amarillo at 10 minutes, 1 oz of Cascade at 5 minutes, and lastly 1 oz of Cascade at 1 minute before the end of the boil. According to the BeerAlchemy software I use, this hop addition schedule should give the beer about 40 IBUs.

Keep your fingers crossed, this pale ale, erm pale lager, will be brewed this coming Saturday.

Related articles
Advertisement