March 25, 2007
Sierra Nevada Style Ale
I realize I’ve left my beer-blogging in the lurch for a while. Over the holidays, I was extremely busy (as was my neighbor, who I brew with), and the pipeline started to empty out. We brewed in February, though, and I finally got a beer into the keg. It’s a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone.
Thankfully, it doesn’t even have a hint of the strange off-flavor we’d been running into. The guy at the homebrew store said it might be due to the SafAle US-56 yeast I’ve used several times, but I’m not too sure. Instead, though, we used California Ale (WLP001), and made a starter two days before brewing. It definitely was clean, and didn’t have any of the off taste, so I’m happy about that.
In general it’s a good beer. It seems a bit lighter-bodied than intended, though. I credit that to the fact that we broke a thermometer a while ago, and the new one is less accurate. Thus, my mash temp wasn’t what the thermometer said it was, and that affected the end product. Definitely need a new thermometer.
As for the recipe, I stuck with the same rough grain bill as a Sierra Nevada, but a little higher gravity. As I mentioned, though, the low mash temp cut out a bit of the maltiness. As for hops, I went a little higher-hopped, using an ounce of Magnum for bittering. That gives it a nice bite, but I find that Magnum isn’t too harsh as a bittering hop, so it is pretty good. Keeping with the spirit of Sierra, I’m using 2 ounces of Cascade as flavor/aroma hop, and then dry-hopped for 2 weeks with another 2 ounces of Cascade in secondary. So it’s got a nice citrus floral aroma and taste.
Good stuff. I’m starting to get a little more control and consistency in this process, and that’s working wonders for the consistency of the final product.
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I believe a fair trade for you shooting with me sometime will be a 6 pack of your finest beer.
Nick
Such things can be arranged…
Beautiful picture. Just looking at it makes my mouth water.
I finally brewed again for the first time in over two years. 10 gals of Pale Ale. 20 lbs pale malt, 2 lbs munich and 1 lb of carapils. 8 oz. total of cascade, bittering and aroma. We’ll see how it does. I usually had used perle to bitter with, I’ll have to try the Magnum. og 1.060
Enjoyed perusing your blog.
Wow, sounds pretty tasty. I tend to like throwing in things like Munich and Victory into a pale ale or IPA… So many commercial breweries use the Crystal malts in their IPA’s, I like to mix it up.
Perle usually is called out in a Sierra Nevada clone, I decided to go with the Magnum for this one. It’s pretty high AA, but low cohumulone.
I’ve got another batch (5 gallon) in bottles right now, an IPA using 10 lb Pale, 1 lb Crystal 20L, and 1 lb Vienna… 1 oz Chinook bittering, 2 oz each of Tomahawk (Columbus) for aroma and dry hopping… It technically was my neighbor’s batch, but he’s out of town and he left it my house, so I might have to crack one open tonight