July 1 Pale Ale

Aside from a failed English Bitter in March, I hadn't brewed since December, when I made my troublesome vanilla chocolate coffee stout. The keg with my 11-20-16 IPA had kicked a few weeks before (it stuck around for over six months; a record for me, I think) and I was down to less than half a keg of the stout.  So it was time to brew. I had temporarily lost interest in brewing, especially after the bitter didn't turn out. And I had also cut back on drinking, so I didn't need to brew as often. It was good to get back in the game.

I had a packet of US-05 sitting around for a long time; it expired in May 2017. Against my better judgment, I went ahead and used it. I figured there might be some risk, but I wasn't too far beyond the expiration date and the packet remained refrigerated the entire time. Nonetheless, I was worried, since I've had so many bad beers due to old yeast (usually just slurry sitting around in my fridge). It turns out that trying to save money on yeast a lot of times ends up costing you in time and ingredients.

Anyhow, I went forward with it. Thankfully, the beer turned out great. There are no off flavors. The beer is clearing up nicely and there's a strong fruity hop aroma and flavor. When I really think about it, this beer might suffer from a touch of harsh bitterness, just like the second beer. Occasionally, there's a slight odd flavor detectable in burps (blech), but I'm not sure if that's from the hop combination or a yeast issue. I can't detect the same flavor in the actual beer, though.

This beer is not what I had in mind when I decided to brew it. I had wanted to make something light, drinkable, somewhat malt-forward, maybe something with some crackery, biscuity, slightly toasty malt. An old school pale ale, kind of like Springfield Brewing Company's pale ale. To that end, I added a pound of two-year-old (!) victory malt. In the end, I think all it did was make the beer an orangish color. Maybe the hop flavor is too strong, but I just don't taste any victory malt. But I also veered away from old school by using a bunch of newish hops, including el dorado, galaxy, and equinox. So much for an old school pale ale!

But this is a solid beer and I would brew it again.

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/pale-ale-july-1

Update 11-5-17:

The beer has cleared up nicely. Still hanging around. The keg feels nearly empty, but the beer keeps flowing. Maybe because the difference between a gallon or two in a keg versus five is so great. But yet a gallon or two of beer is still pretty substantial. And I keep buying commercial beer, so the homebrew hangs around longer.

July 11 Pale Ale

This was the second beer brewed from a packet of US-05 that expired in May 2017. No off flavors and the first beer started fermenting quickly. This beer fermented swiftly as well. I kegged the first beer on July 10, put the yeast cake into a jar, and brewed this beer the next day. Once again, the yeast took off right away and the beer was, at least visually, completely fermented within three to four days.

I kegged this beer on July 20. It's remarkably clear; the wort, when I racked it to the fermenter, was pretty cloudy, despite a dose of Irish moss, so I was anticipating a somewhat murky beer. Additionally, the malt is a hodgepodge -- Avangard pale ale, 2-row, Avangard pilsner, and vienna -- so I kind of wondered if that might contribute some cloudiness, but it didn't. Or the higher mash temp. I'm not sure how PH works with beer and mash temps, but I wondered if that caused the haze.

I added about half an ounce each of equinox and galaxy hops to the keg. As a result, the aroma is pretty strong, mostly of equinox hops in my estimation. Equinox seems to be one of those hops that dominates, even though it didn't make up any more of the hop bill than any other hops.

This beer is slightly thin, perhaps owing to the two 16 oz bottles of mineral water I added to the wort post-chill. The beer came in over my anticipated gravity and under volume, so I added the water. I think it has just enough body though to not taste watery. It also makes the beer very "crushable." That said, there is something about the hops that I sort of find unpleasant. Maybe some harsh bitterness. Maybe it needs some sweetness to balance out the hops. Not a bad beer by any means though.

https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/pale-ale-july-11