West of Eden Pale Ale

After doing one more batch of Fool's Wit (which is perfect for the summer!), I decided to go for a run of the mill Pale Ale. They seem to be quite ubiquitous nowadays, but it is really hard to find an excellent one. The secret, at least to me, for an excellent Pale Ale lies in the choice of hops. What I'm trying to get is floral hops aromas paired with light malt flavors that don't get overwhelmed by high gravity. A Pale Ale with 6.5% abv is really an IPA with not enough hops, so that's a no-go for me. In order to get everything out of the hops, you really want to stick to leaf hops. Cascade is a great choice, it has tons of flavor without getting too bitter. So this recipe uses solely Cascade leaf hops. Once my Chinook crops come in I will try in another batch how that compares. Munich malt adds some nice malty flavors, and a bit of wheat will add some fruitiness. For a change I also changed my supplier. Saved me a couple of bucks but I noticed the grain crush wasn't very good with lots of completely intact grains. Therefore I ran the Brewers and Munich malt through my manual mill, to break it down a little more and hopefully extract some more sugars. Let's see how it comes out!

BREW DATE: 08/21/2016

BOTTLING DATE: 09/18/2016

GRAIN BILL: 12lbs total

-6lbs Rahr Brewers Malt

-6lbs Weyermann Munich Malt

-2lbs Rahr White Wheat Malt

MASH-IN: 1 hr at 160F, Fly sparked with 170F water. Starting brix was 25, I stopped extraction at 10 brix since I ran out of containers. In hindsight should have continued for at least another 2l. Oh well.

HOP SCHEDULE:

-60min 1oz Cascade Leaf hops

-30min 1oz Cascade Leaf hops

-10min 1oz Cascade Leaf hops

Dry hopped after 7d 1oz Cascade Leaf hops. Racked to secondary stage after 2 weeks.

OG: 15.0 brix for 13l wort filled up to 20l => alcohol content should come out at 5.2% abv.

YEAST: Wyeast American Ale 1056

TASTE NOTES: Indeed a nice Pale Ale! Nice color, lots of fresh hoppiness from the leaf hops, bready malty undertones. One thing that I have problems getting right is the carbonation, there are always some bottles that are super carbonated even though I try to mix the carbonation sugar thoroughly.

West of Eden Pale Ale!