Brew No.13 – American Pale Ale

RATING: 4/5 Stars

I have been drinking quite a bit of American Pale Ale styles of late, characterised by the use of plenty of fruity hops. This time I went and visited the Country Brewer (www.countrybrewer.com.au) out west and came home with one of their American Pale Ale wetpaks, which essentially contains all of the extract, grains, hops & yeast to make the brew. Looked something like this…..

• 3kg extract (quite dark I thought)
• hops in the extract for bittering (not sure of type)
• Aroma hops
• about 200g grains (looked like crystal & another light grain)
• Safale yeast

14 October 2008 – boiled up the extract and bittering hops in only 5L of water for 60 minutes. Meanwhile the grain was soaked in hot water. After 60 minutes the water from the grain was added with the aroma hops, then cooled down in a water bath. Then added to fermenter topped up with water to 20L and simply sprinkled yeast on top, mixed in thoroughly and left to ferment….

25 October 2008 - Bulk primed and bottled to PET. Nice and clear, but a little darker than I’m used to for a Pale. About what I would expect for an amber ale.

5 November 2008 - Oh my God! Not even two weeks in the bottle and this is by far the best beer I have ever brewed. Very impressive. Awesome hop aroma and flavour that I would guess is cascade hops. This won’t last long.

Brew No.12 – Aussie Pale Ale

RATING: 2.5/5 Stars

27 September 2008 – Stocks are still pretty low, so thought I’d brew a nice basic pale ale for everyday drinking. Went with the following recipe…

• Coopers Pale Ale Can
• 500g LDME
• 500g raw sugar
• 15g POR Hops
• Safale yeast

I boiled up the LDME in 2 litres of water from cold, then dissolved the sugar and hops before flameout. Added to the can contents in the fermentor, then the yeast that had been re-hydrated for 30 min (see previous post) Yes, I know not very exciting…

11 October 2008 – Transferred to another fermenter and bulk primed with 160g of dextrose (19L Brew). Bottled to PET.

5 November 2008 - Oh oh….something has gone wrong here…the hop flavour is overpowering, which is not good with POR hops. To be honest I guessed the weight when I put this together and I think put too much in. Going to leave it for a while and hopefully will balance out.

29 November 2008 - Starting to balance out a bit now, but still very strong POR bitters and aroma….

19 December 2008 - Some of the funky flavours of this beer are still hanging around. I think it’s a mix of the POR hops and fermented a little too warm. Drinkable but will be happier once it’s gone