Pallisade/Citra American Pale Ale

Recently made a couple batches of EdWort's Bee Haus Pale Ale and found it to be my ideal starting point for where to start my APAs. I love the classic Cascade APAs but really have a love for the other american hops. I'm looking to make a APA at the high end of the classification using hops that stray away from the known Citrus/Pine flavors.

Citras are quickly rising to a favorite hop of mine. They give a very tropical fruity, peachy, aroma and taste to them, but can give an impression of making a beer overly "sweet" tasting with a solid malt base. Sierra Nevada Torpedo is a great example of a Citra, and for a full on mouth rape of sweet try any single hop IPA with Citra, Hermitage's Citra Single Hop is good for this.

Pallisade I've used a few times in the past as a bittering as well as aroma hop. It's a smooth, grassy, with a fair bit of apricot/peach flavor/aroma. Should go well and provide a nice smooth bitterness underneath it all. Plan is to ferment in the low-mid 60's to keep it clean.

Recipe: Two Wheel Buck Slayer
Style: American Pale Ale
TYPE: All Grain

Recipe Specifications
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Estimated OG: 1.062 SG
Estimated Color: 7.6 SRM
Estimated IBU: 43.2 IBUs
Estimated ABV: 6.2%

Ingredients:
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Amt Name Type
8 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain
2 lbs Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 15L (15.0 SRM) Grain
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain

0.50 oz Palisade [8.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop
0.50 oz Palisade [8.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop
0.50 oz Citra [11.10 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop
0.25 oz Citra [11.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop
0.25 oz Palisade [8.10 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop
0.25 oz Citra [11.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop

1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast

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Mash @ 152 for 60 mins, 60 Minute Boil. Fermenting at 62-67 F. Will rack to secondary @ 7-10 days and bulk age for 3 weeks beforing cold crashing for 1 week.

Recipe is adjusted for 75% efficency. I'm finally starting to get my all-grain procedure and habits down and managed to hit 80% this last brew, fortunately I only used 8lbs. of 2-Row.


Hydrometer is reading a delicious 1.013 and hopefully will hold there. Will check the sample over the next few days to monitor fermentation. Am super excited about this beer after the taste of the sample!

Will be following up in this thread as I work out this recipe before I post it to the recipes section assuming it is as awesome as I'm anticipating.

Quick Video for more brewing porn:

How did this end up working out, I am thinking of getting a pound of palisades!

I'm interested too, as I'm brewing an pale ale with Palisades this weekend as well!

I agree that palisades pairs very well with the west coast fruity hops.

Last fall I did a simple malt bill (base and some caramel) with palisades and ahtanum hops in equal measure at 20 mins and then again as a large, paired dry hop addition. I bittered with columbus. I like palisades hops, they are versatile and pleasant. The beer was good, but ahtanum is kind a 'niche' hop and I'm not sure I would use them same way again. Citra is more domineering and I'm sure the OP's beer with be tasty.

I've been thinking about redoing my earlier palisades beer using amarillo instead of ahtanum.

Sorry about the huge delay between the follow up. I've brewed this a total of three times now from this same recipe, each time trying to replicate it before I move on experimenting more. It's a very tasty beverage, a full on barrage of tropical fruit and floral perfume backed up by a mild malt flavor that finishes smooth and sweet. The finish of taste of the beer is almost sweet, coming from the hops mixed with the malt. There isn't any real 'bite' to the bitterness. If you've used Cascades/Amarillo's for any kind of bittering you know the bite that comes from the citrus characters of the hops.

All three batches have finished at either 1.012 or 1.013 within 7-10 days, I let them set in primary for 21 days, cold crash for three to five days, followed by bottles for three weeks. Cold crashing this beer really clears it out with the US-05. The 6.1% ABV is balanced nicely by the initial bitterness of the hops followed up by the smooth, sweet fruit flavor of hops.

As for the actual pour and tasting. Pours a rich yellow, almost copper with a nice pillowy head that lasts the whole beer leaving behind tons of lace. Smell is a full on perfume and tropical fruit. If you've had Sierra Nevada Torpedo you'll pick up the Citra tropical scent immediately and followed up by crazy floral notes from the Pallisade. Smells almost candy like fruity. Taste is a bitter fruit at first which opens up to peach, mango, flowery perfume. You don't really get any of the citrus notes of the normal west coast style pale ale, but the hop bitterness is still present. Malt is smooth, a bit bready, and finishes slightly sweet. The mouthfeel is 'ok'. It's just kind of there, this is where the beer is lacking in my opinion. I need to experiment with grains or mashing temps to try and bring up the body.

Overall, it's a good beer, but a work in progress. It weighs in at 6.1% ABV but is only in the mid 40's in terms of IBU. It's almost to easily drinkable at 6.1% due to how smooth it goes down. I could cut the grain back a bit and possibly get rid of part of the sweetness to it, or I might kick some Cascades in at the beginning of the boil to kick the IBU up to the IPA range which would also balance the sweetness more. The sweetness isn't a bad thing at all to the beer, I just like a bit more bitterness as I finish my drink.

The other problem in my opinion is, it lacks body. It maintains a nice head but the mouthfeel is just a bit too thin for my liking. I might kick up the crystal a bit or raise the mash temp a few degrees next time. I can duplicate this recipe very well now, so it's time to experiment a bit more. As said very happy with the beer, now it's time to really polish it up. A Milder, more floral Sierra Nevada Torpedo or a more agressive, more tropical/floral Widmer Drifter Pale Ale are both fairly accurate comparisons of this beer.

iammatt said:

Overall, it's a good beer, but a work in progress. It weighs in at 6.1% ABV but is only in the mid 40's in terms of IBU. It's almost to easily drinkable at 6.1% due to how smooth it goes down. I could cut the grain back a bit and possibly get rid of part of the sweetness to it, or I might kick some Cascades in at the beginning of the boil to kick the IBU up to the IPA range which would also balance the sweetness more. The sweetness isn't a bad thing at all to the beer, I just like a bit more bitterness as I finish my drink.

The other problem in my opinion is, it lacks body. It maintains a nice head but the mouthfeel is just a bit too thin for my liking. I might kick up the crystal a bit or raise the mash temp a few degrees next time. I can duplicate this recipe very well now, so it's time to experiment a bit more. As said very happy with the beer, now it's time to really polish it up. A Milder, more floral Sierra Nevada Torpedo or a more agressive, more tropical/floral Widmer Drifter Pale Ale are both fairly accurate comparisons of this beer.

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One thing you could do to cut back the sweetness slightly, which will allow the bitterness to come through more...as well as help with the body would be to maybe cut back both of the crystal malts to 4oz/each and substitute that 8oz with 8oz with carapils. Less sweetness but helps with the body.

dirty_martini said:

One thing you could do to cut back the sweetness slightly, which will allow the bitterness to come through more...as well as help with the body would be to maybe cut back both of the crystal malts to 4oz/each and substitute that 8oz with 8oz with carapils. Less sweetness but helps with the body.

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That's what I've been looking into also. I've never used carapils for body, I've messed with flaked oats in stouts but didn't think that would be appropriate for a Pale Ale.

I just cracked open a pale ale I did with mostly Palisades, a (smidge of) simcoe, and dry hopped with Amarillo, and it is AWESOME! Definitely would use Palisades again to provide the background hop flavor and combine with more fruity hops in the future.

iammatt said:

That's what I've been looking into also. I've never used carapils for body, I've messed with flaked oats in stouts but didn't think that would be appropriate for a Pale Ale.

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+1 on some carapils coupled with higher mash temp.

Updated the recipe with CaraPils and a higher mashing temp. Will give this a whirl next weekend.

Curious to see how this goes...I'm a huge APA fan and love citra, palisades, Amarillo....

I did A SMaSH beer with Pale Malt, Palisades, and WLP028. It was tasty and definitely had that "apricot" thing going on when it was very young.