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… Continue reading →