Sometimes you just want a Pale Ale....

Greetings from Hawaii,

After spending the last few brews experimenting with Holiday Spices, Coffee, Oak, and uberlarge Trappist Belgians it looks as if i need a little reminder of a tried and true style. Possible one of the simplest yet most enjoyable craft beer styles around, the Pale Ale! Sierra Nevada has set the standard, but I think as homebrewers the massive variety of hops and malt choices just begs for tinkering. Also, making a great pale ale can be a wonderful introduction to the none beer-geeks among us.

Fun Tip: I recently brewed a Rye Pale Ale with Galena, Chinook, and Amarillo that was a welcome change of pace from citrus flowery bombs I've grown to love. It possessed a grapefruit aroma and taste that was remarkably different than most pale ales I've brewed. That being said; the combination of Cascade, Centennial and Amarillo is my absolute favorite combination for hoppy Pale Ales and India Pale Ales.

A technique i love to employ in my hoppy monsters is combining hop varieties for the flavor, aroma and dry hopping portion of the hop schedule. I got the idea from the Dogfish head 60 and 90 minute IPA's where they continuously hop for the duration of the 60 or 90 minute boil. While i usually only "continuously" hop for the last 25-15 minutes, i think it still adds some great hop layers without adding bitterness.

I brewed this recipe with the intent to drink...it didn't last more than 3 weeks.

"Guzzle Bunny" Pale Ale below: while it is filled with tons of great hop flavor, bitterness is moderate at 47 IBUs and there are layers of malt as well. What's honey malt doing in there???...just try it. Happy Brewing!

Grain Bill:
10# Two Row
.75# Crystal 40
.5# Vienna
.33# Carapils
.33# Belgian Aromatic
.33# Honey Malt

Mash at 154F for 60 min. Extract: Replace Two Row with 8 lbs. of Pale Extract.

Hops:
1oz Cascade 5.4% @60
Combination 1oz Cascade 5.4%, 1oz Centennial 8.7%, 1oz Amarillo 8.0% From 20min to 05min
Combination 1oz Centennial 8.7%, 1oz Amarillo 8.0% DryHop (4-6 Days)

I used my hybrid Cali-English Yeast, but whatever your favorite Ale strain will work...I typically go with English 002. Sierra Nevada uses Wyeast American Ale 1056 or White Labs California Ale.

O.G. 1.049
F.G 1.010
5.1% ABV
47IBU

Cheers!
J.B.

Seattle Homebrew Chapter Reporting In

Kate here, I am taking charge of the Seattle portion of this club, at least for the time being. We have a few folks here who are part of local homebrew clubs and have created some really good stuff. I'm a relative neophyte to this whole business so apologies if I don't use the right jargon and whatnot.

So this is my first time actually documenting a beer brewing recipe, JB got me into brewing about a year ago and I'm still learning. He came up with this recipe on the fly after he asked me a few questions about what type of beer I wanted to brew the first time. My boyfriend likes lighter beers, I like darker beers. My boyfriend hasn't yet developed a taste for IPAs, I think they're good. (Stone IPA is my personal favorite.) As a good middle ground, JB proposed an ESB for the first beer. It was a hit. We liked it so much we keep making it. So much for variety! At any rate, I hope you all enjoy it.

Kate's ESB (Good for first-time brewers.. i.e. I managed to not mess it up the three times I've made it so far.)

1 lb. English Crystal 60
1/2 lb. Belgium Aromatic
1/2 lb. Belgium Caramunich
for 30 minutes at approx. 150 degrees then add to boil with 30 minutes to go

Hops: (total measurements)
1 oz Willamette
2 oz Goldings

6 lbs. Dry Amber Malt (60 min. boil)

Add times:
Add 1 oz. Willamette with 60 minutes to go
Add 1 oz. Goldings and 1 tsp of Irish Moss with 15 minutes to go
Add 1 oz. Goldings with 5 minutes to go.

Use Pacman Yeast.

Note: the second time I made it, I used:
1 lb. English Crystal 40
1/2 lb. english Crystal 70
1/2 lb. Belgium Aromatic
and everything else was the same. It turned out different than the first time obviously, but just as good.