The American Pale Ale

My first attempt with the Hefeweizen was successful and this pumped me up with confidence to continue with project number 2; The American Pale Ale. I wanted to brew a beer with a malty and a caramelly character on the one hand but with freshness and distinct hoppiness on the other. At the same time I wanted to experiment with dry hopping and by deciding to brew this ale I got the opportunity to do so. This time around I started my brewing on a Saturday morning and I had ample time to organise my stuff in a better way.

Date of brewing: 10/10/2020 Date of bottling: 17/10/2020

Opening of bottle after conditioning:

Volume of batch: 19 litres

OG:1.052 FG:1.006 ABV: 6% IBU: 46

Ingredients:

• Thomas Fawcett Spring Barley Pale Ale Malt 5,500 gr

• Simpsons Crystal T50 150 gr

• Dingemans CaraVienna 250 gr

• Columbus Whole Hops 16.1% A-acids 14gr (at the beginning of the boil)

• Centennial Whole Hops 7.5% A-acids 19gr (15 min before the end of the boil)

• Cascade Whole Hops 4.88% A-acids 18gr (5 min before the end of the boil)

• Cascade Whole Hops 4.88% A-acids 32gr (at switch off)

• Centennial Whole Hops 7.5% A-acids 56gr (dry hopping for 5 days added at the end of fermentation)

• Centennial Whole Hops 7.5% A-acids 21gr and Cascade Whole Hops 4.88% A-acids 21gr (dry hopping for 3 days added on day 3 after the end of fermentation)

• 1 cup of brewing sugar

• Wyeast 1187 Ringwood

• 2 Protafloc Tablets

Procedure:

Temperature in the HLT: 78 ºC

Temperature in the mash tun: 68 ºC

Mashing: 60 minutes at 68 ºC, batch sparging x2 for 20 minutes, pre-boil gravity 1.036

The boil: boiling for 60 minutes, immersion cooling and transfer into fermenter. OG 1.052

The brewing

Again, I used malts, hops and yeast bought from "The Malt Miller". I have been very happy with their service, therefore I’ll remain loyal to them. I used Wyeast 1187 but this time fermentation ran slow and gave me a lot of stress. In the end the result in terms of final gravity was ok and the beer was really dry, however I had to wait for 36 hours to see the first bubble coming out of the airlock.

After 8 days the beer was ready to be bottled. Final gravity was measured at 1.006 with an ABV at 6%. The beer was primed with 160gr of brewing sugar and transferred into 38 bottles. It needs a 4 week conditioning period.

The tasting

Being known for my impatience, I tasted it as I opened a bottle a week after bottling. Carbonation is good and the beer has a bitter character (we should not forget the it has 46 IBUs) but at the same time is very malty and caramelly with good but not overwhelming hoppy flavour and an amazing aroma created by dry hopping with Centennial and Cascade hops. On the downside, it is a bit hazier than I expected but this may change with some further conditioning.