Rye Pale Ale with Cascade Hops - Tasting Notes

This is Pale Ale I made back in late August using Rye Malt and a large amount of home grown Cascade Hops.  I planned this as a low alcohol (less than 4% ABV) and easy drinking beer such that I could have a few a night.  After drinking it for a few weeks I can say mission accomplished.

I hadn't intended this to be a hazy beer but it's turned out to be pretty cloudy.  I suspect the flaked rye as being the cause for this.  I think it looks good but it doesn't impact the flavor of course.

This beer is going quickly so it is time to make some official tasting notes before it's gone.

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Hop aroma most prominent (citrus, grassy, and herbal tea-like).  Some fruity yeast ester.   A bit of sweet malt.
• Appearance:
• Pours with a 2 finger head that slowly fades and leaves lacing on the glass.  Straw yellow in color and cloudy.
• Flavor:
• A bit of sweetness up front along with some fruity ester character.  Get a fair amount of hoppy flavor up front as well - grassy, herbal and citrus.  The finish has medium bitterness and is balanced somewhat by a malt sweetness.  Bitter is in the lead in the finish.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium light bodied and just a little bit sticky.  Easy drinking and smooth
• Overall:
• This is a nice easy drinking and flavorful hoppy beer.  The hop flavor is nice and it pairs well with the English yeast ester.  It definitely has the flavor of an American Beer rather than English with fruity yeast.  It has a nice balance between malt and hops and the bitterness is firm but tasteful.

Historical English Brown Ale

I'll be brewing an English Brown Ale to fill one of my empty kegs. I decided to use another historical recipe from the Shut Up about Barclay Perkins Blog: 1928 Barclay Perkins Doctor Brown.  It has been a while since I made a Brown Ale and this is my first attempt at an English Brown Ale.  These historical recipes always seem to turn out nicely so I'm excited to give it a try.  A brown ale is, of course, a malty beer with some toasty and caramel like flavors rather than the roast flavors you get from a Stout.

This, like most of the Historical English Beers, has some interesting ingredient choices.  It uses a pretty small amount of Pale Malt, good amount of Caramel 60L (1 lb) and then adds in over a pound of Corn.  It then uses Brown sugar and Invert #3 to account for quite a bit of the OG.  Finally, it uses a small amount of Brewers Caramel for Color.  As with previous beers I'm making my own invert and brewers caramel for this batch which is easy and saves quite a bit of money.

Brewers Caramel

I am fermenting the beer with the Whitbread Strain (Wyeast 1099) which the recipe calls for.  I really like the ester from this compared with S04 which is supposed to be the same strain.

Finally, the recipe has this as a fairly lightly hopped beer and called for small amounts of Cluster, Fuggle, and Golding English hops all in the boil.  Rather than purchase these in small amounts I decided to use Willamette and home grown Cascades which have a somewhat English Character (similar to Goldings).

I am going to give this beer  couple weeks in the fermentor and then a couple more weeks in the Keg to carbonate before drinking.

Recipe Details:

• Grain/Adjunct
• 5.5 lb 2 Row
• 1 lb CaraMunich III (Crystal 60 L)
• 1.25 lb Flaked Maze
• 1 lb Brown Sugar
• 0.75 Invert #3
• 2.4 oz Caramel
• 3 oz Acid Malt
• Hops:
• 1 oz Willamette (Leaf, 5.7% AA) at 60 min
• 1 oz Cascade (Leaf Unknown AA) at 30 min
• Yeast:
• Wyeast 1099 - Whitbread Ale Yeast (2nd Pitch)
• Water:
• 15 gal Spring Water
• 2 tsp CaCl (one in mash and one in boil)
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 153 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 80 min (Target 60 min)
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 65 F
• Primary Duration:
• 2 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 2 Week in Keg

Results:

• OG:
• 1.046 (Target 1.046)
• Efficiency:
• 71% (Target 71%)
• FG:
• 1.012 (Target 1.014)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 73% (Target 69%)
• ABV:
• 4.5% (Target 4.2%)

Brewing Notes:

• 9/17/22 - Built a yeast starter using 100 g DME and 1 L of water.  Set this up on a stir plate to propagate.  The starter showed good activity by the evening
• 9/18/22 - Brewday - from 1:30 PM to 6:00 PM- Including setup and cleanup
• Prepared the brewers caramel/dry caramel
• Started cooking the Invert #3 syrup (0.75 lbs of Sugar in the Raw and Light Brown sugar, 1/4 tsp of citric acid and 1 cup of spring water.  Let this simmer on low.
• Heated 7 gal of spring water up to 185 F
• Milled my grain.  Added the CaCl and Gypsum to the milled grain so I wouldn't forget
• Added 5 gal of spring water to the mash tun and cycled through the RIMS to get down to 163 F
• Halted the cycle through the RIMS and added the grain and stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  Let this sit for 10 min for everything to settle.
• Cycled the RIMS for 50 more min at 153 F

• Heated 6 gal of sparge water to 185 F
• Fly sparged until 8.5 gal had been collected.  Started heating the kettle after collected 4 gal.  Had it to a boil shortly after the end of the sparge
• Added the bittering hops when the wort was just about at a boil

• Added the brewers caramel - did this by adding boiling wort to the pan to dissolve it.  Went through many cycles of this to dissolve it all 
• Added the 30 min hops
• The invert is cooked to approximately #3 level so I took it off the heat and added some boiling water to keep it in a liquid and pourable state
• Added Irish moss with 15 min left in the boil
• Added the Invert#3 and Sugar to the kettle with 15 min left

• Added an extra helping of CaCl to the kettle for this beer
• Found that volume wasn't down to target so I extended the boil by 20 min
• Added the wort chiller with 5 min left to sanitize
• Chilled the beer down to about 85  F which was as far as the ground water would take me
• Drained the wort into the fermentor - let it fall a couple feet to aerate

• Collected 6 gal and measured the gravity as 1.046 - right on target.
• Chilled the beer down to 64 F in my chest freezer
• Pitched the yeast once cooled to target
• 9/19/22 - Fermentation was well underway by this afternoon
• 10/1/22 - Kegged the beer today.  Measured the gravity as 1.012.  It hasn't dropped clear yet a couple weeks in the keg should probably do the job

• 11/29/22 - Tasting Notes - This beer provides some bold flavors and is pretty complex.  I like the ester character but would have preferred it to be a little more restrained - I think its balance it a little further towards ester than I think an English Beer ought to.