This beer was a carefully planned accident. Let me explain…

For my last few beers I have used the Brewers Friend software to draft my recipes, but I was recently given a copy of Ray Daniels’ Designing Great Beers. Having a better understanding of how the ingredients affect the end product, I decided to create a worksheet where I could create my recipes by hand.

For quite a while now I’ve had a vision of creating an easy to drink pale ale. I even had a name picked out — Leeward Pale Ale. With that in mind, I set out to draft a pale ale recipe. I decided on a grain bill consisting of base malt, crystal malt for head retention and body, and honey malt for a touch of sweetness. (I used honey malt in my Munich lager as a substitute for melanoidin malt, and I was a fan.) I was also planning on using a mixture of glacier and willamette hops for a floral, herby, citrusy note. After a few recipe drafts, and some feedback from the fine folks on Reddit, I had a recipe.

One problem. My local homebrew store doesn’t carry glacier hops… Whoops…

With that last-minute realization, I made a quick decision to do a single hop bill with only centennial hops.

After that, the brew day went almost exactly as planned. I hit my total pre-boil efficiency within one gravity unit (GU), and my final gravity within 2 points! I was very happy with this — especially after missing the final gravity on my last batch by over 10 points!

Here’s the recipe:

Windward Amber Ale

Brew date: 3/2/2014
Bottle date: 3/27/14
Boil Time: 75 min
Batch Size: 5 gal
Target OG: 1.050
Target FG: 1.010
Estimated Conversion Efficiency: 65%
Actual OG: 1.048
Actual FG: 1.005
Actual Conversion Efficiency: 64.7% (So close!)
ABV: 5.64%

Fermentables (by % of GUs contributed):

85% American 2-Row (9.081 lb)
7.5% Crystal 10 (0.824 lb)
7.5% Honey Malt (0.780 lb)

Hops:

0.5 oz. – Centennial raw hops, AA: 10.3% (75 min)
0.25 oz. – Centennial raw hops, AA: 10.3% (15 min)
0.25 oz. – Centennial raw hops, AA: 10.3% (flame-out)

Finings:

1/2 tsp. – Irish moss (15 min)

Yeast:

Wyeast 1056 American Ale

Directions

Mash at 154F for 60 minutes. Mash out, lauter, and batch sparge to collect about 6 gallons of wort. Boil for 75 minutes. Cool and pitch yeast and ferment at optimum temperature (60F) for two weeks. Decrease temperature to 40F to cold crash for one additional week. Bottle or keg condition, and enjoy while fresh.

So why was this a “carefully planned accident,” you ask??? The only issue I had with this beer was the hop character didn’t come through like I thought it would have — newbie mistake. It needed more hops, both bittering and aroma, to fit within the pale ale style. It did, however, fit into the amber ale category — thus, the name change from Leeward Pale Ale to Windward Amber Ale.

See! Happy accident.

Taste Notes

Aroma (8 of 12) – Low hop aroma with moderate malt balance.

Appearance (3 of 3) – Gold/copper color with good head retention. Very clear, especially for a bottle conditioned beer.

Flavor (13 of 20) – No off-flavors detected. Might have slight oxidation Strong sweet malt flavor, followed by caramel and honey notes. Light citrus hop character with a medium finish. Very tasty and to style, but not mind-blowing.

Mouthfeel (4 of 5) – Medium body with moderate carbonation. Smooth finish.

Overall Impression (7 of 10) – Malt is overpowering. Should be balanced with more hop aroma and flavor. Overall very pleasant and drinkable, but not amazing.

Total score: 35 of 50

Next time my goal will be to use a different hop bill to bring forth a different and more noticeable aroma and flavor. I would also tone down the honey malt to just a few percentage points of the total bill, and replace crystal 10 with crystal 20.

Competition Entry

Updated: June 16th, 2014

I entered this beer in the 2014 Hogtown Brewoff and received a score of 31. Not too far from my self-assigned score of 35, but I was surprised about the judges comments.

Here are the highlights…

Aroma (8 of 12) – Low hop aroma for style, with medium to medium-high malt aroma. One judge noted apricot esters.

Appearance (3 of 3) – Deep copper / golden brown color. Good head retention; light tan.

Flavor (11 of 20) – The judges had different notes on this one, but ended at the same score.

Mouthfeel (3 of 5) – Medium-thin body. Slight harshness from hops and alcohol.

Overall Impression (6 of 10) – Lacked malt and hop complexity expected from style. Suggested increase of malt and rapid cooling to decrease vegetal hop flavors.

Though it’s not noted in the score sheets, I believe my water profiles also had a bit to do with the malt/hop balance. I’m planning on brewing this again here shortly with a different malt bill, hop bill, and increased attention to the water profiles. Stay tuned, and subscribe below!

Cheers!

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