Vital Statistics:
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Recipe: 7 lb 2-row pale malt 1 lb flaked barley 8 oz Victory malt 8 oz crystal 40° 1 lb white sugar 6 AAU (31g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 60 4 AAU (21g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 20 4 AAU (21g @ 5.4% AA) Cascade @ 5 1 Irish Moss tablet @ 15 min Wyeast 1056 - American Ale I | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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General Notes: Did not hit target efficiency. Added 1 lb of white sugar to bring OG up a few points into the target range. I decided to re-classify this as a pale ale, but will keep its original name. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Tasting Notes: Tasting notes taken 5/11/2010. Poured from 22oz bomber into a tulip. Bomber was filled a little over two hours ago from the keg. Appearance: medium-light orange color with a touch of haze and no head. Really, not bad, but not an amber at all. (3) Smell: light, sweet, citrusy and cidery. I think the fact that I used sugar in this brew to boost OG in response to poor mash efficiency created these cidery characteristcs. It doesn't smell bad, it just doesn't smell much like amber ale. (3) Taste: bright, sweet, citrusy and cidery. It's both sweet and dry, which is interesting. Dry, I guess, to be expected from its 98% apparent attenuation. It's drinkable, but not really an amber ale. (3) Mouthfeel: very light body with low carbonation. One day, I'll figure out how to force carbonate. Red Nose Amber is, at this point, another victim of the learning curve. (2.5) Drinkability: it's not bad, and I'm sure it would be refreshing in the sun on a hot day. At this point, however, it just doesn't taste sufficiently like beer; apparently, even 1 lb of sugar in a poor-efficiency 9-lb grist mash is too much. (3) Overall score: 2.95 (C). Almost 20% of the total inital gravity was due to the addition of white sugar, which dried this out way too much and added a lot of cidery quality. I think if I had had better efficiency (80% instead of 65%) and not added the sugar, this would be a way better beer. #18 really should be chalked up to the learning curve; the next time I do an amber ale the recipe will probably be quite different; I really need to figure out a way to get a good color. -- Another tasting on 5/24/2010. Two weeks of mellowing has occurred, and this sample was taken straight from the keg. In this case, the mouthfeel is *much* better because of improved carbonation straight from the keg. Lacing was also much better, but the appearance is still dinged heavily for not really being amber. I shouldn't fault this beer because of my poor bottling techniques; better carbonation also bumped the drinkability a little bit. With mouthfeel and drinkability both bumped to 3.5, that gives an overall score of 3.1, which is a C+. I think that's a bit more fair for this flawed, but drinkable, homebrew. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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