Brew Day (Night): classic pale ale

Looking back over the six years I've been brewing, I can think of few times I brewed a good old classic American pale ale in the vein of Sierra Nevada's. I brewed Northern Brewer's Sierra Madre kit in late 2013 and once made a Maris Otter/Cascade smash beer. Otherwise, I've made farmhouse ales, IPAs (lots of them), some English styles, and lagers. But lately I've had a taste for more modest, yet tasty styles, including the aforementioned lagers. I've had enough of the "juicy" and "hazy" IPA and actually getting bored with those is not hard to do given I've had more than a few mediocre versions. So, for my drinking tastes lately, it's back to basics, like West Coast IPAs and C-hop pale ales.

That's what was on deck for this beer: a straightforward, yet flavorful American Pale Ale. I helped run a homebrew competition on Saturday, reward for which from the homebrew shop owner hosting the event was the option to take a yeast packet from a selection for free. I think I saw some Belgians, US-05, 34/70, etc. I also saw BR-97, a yeast I was until then unfamiliar with. I figured I'd take it if it was still there after everyone had picked through the various items up for grabs. It was still there when I left so I chose it.

I'd been meaning to brew an APA like this for awhile, but many times I'd end up changing the hops and increasing the amounts. Not this time. I went for 10 pounds 2-row and .5 lb Crystal 90, I believe, but the shop did not have that particular malt, so I chose 120 instead. For hops, I chose to use the leaf cascades I got for free at the Anheuser Busch hop giveaway I attended last December. I had vacuum sealed them, so they smelled very fresh.

Brewing was uneventful, aside from losing a piece of my wooden stir spoon in the boil. I also ran out of propane just before the boil, which necessitated a trip to Walmart in the rain for a replacement (I only own one tank). And the hose was not properly connected to the wort chiller, so when I turned on the water, it sprayed out of the connection and I think some got in the kettle.

Other details: I mashed in the 150s. My mash tun - an igloo cooler - has various temperature zones, so it's hard to tell the exact temperature. Chilled to around 85-88 or so, and left the kettle outside in the cold while I sanitized equipment. I'm sure pitching temperature was much lower. I squeezed the hop bag to get as much wort out of the leaf hops as possible. I ended up with about 5.25-5.33 gallons, and still managed to overshoot the estimated OG that Brewer's Friend gave me (1.055). The OG was 1.056-58. Nice golden color, a little lighter than I anticipated given the higher lovibond of the crystal malt.

This brew took almost six hours, though I did manage a tip to the gym and a trip to Walmart, and overall I took my time. I pitched the yeast around 10:15 and started reading about my chosen yeast. I was already aware that the yeast is known for a hefty lag time, but was surprised to read that some brewers had 72 hour+ lags. I was pleasantly surprised to see some minor airlock activity by morning and a creamy layer of krausen by lunch. As of the evening airlock is bubbling regularly.

So far this is shaping up to be a successful brew. Hopefully it is. I'm already planning to reuse this yeast on, maybe, the Resilience IPA and an English Mild recipe I saw on homebrewtalk today.

Update: the yeast took off quickly. Fermentation was well under way by lunch time the following day. I kegged the beer on November 6, eight days later. I was pretty confident that it was going to taste good, since the hydrometer sample was pretty good, but some of the initial pours tasted a little off. I think it was just a large amount of yeast. I have since carbonated the beer and clarified with gelatin. The gelatin is still working, so it's not crystal clear just yet, but getting there.

Taste is citrus, pine, orange, whatever Cascade tastes like. There's just a little alcohol burn in the aftertaste, but not overwhelming or unpleasant. Not overly bitter. It has a generic malt sweetness but no real discernible malt flavors. The beer was also a little heavy at first, and I wondered if that was due to the higher gravity and thus greater ABV (OG: 1.056-58 to FG: 1.010 = ~ 6% ABV). That seems to have gone away as the beer has cleared up.

Aroma: Pretty faint cascade hops.

Appearance: Just what I was going for. Light amber, honey. Good clarity.

Overall: Seems to be a successful beer. Everything seems in balance, including bitterness, hop flavor, and malt sweetness.

Recipe: 5 gallons, 10 pounds 2-row, .5 pound Crystal 120. 1 oz cascade hops at 50, 1 at 10, .4oz at flameout (because that's what I had left).