Picture an American light lager, but with ale yeast

That's what I'm trying for. Certain people I share my beer with (including my mother haha) say that I make all "hoppy stuff." After making fun of them for being sissies, I decided I'd make something really light and easy to drink for them. I have .5 lb of light extract and 3 oz. of Centennial and 1 oz. of Amarillo sitting around, so I incorporated those into the recipe.

3.5 lbs light dry extract
2 lbs CaraPils, steeped at 155*

.2 oz. of pellet Centennial boiled for 60 minutes
.5 oz. of leaf Amarillo boiled for 15 minutes

Safale US-05 or WLP001 ale yeast

TastyBrew says: OG- 1.036, FG- 1.009, SRM- 2, 16 IBU, 3.5% ABV

How's that for light and not hoppy?

Try your hand at a Cream Ale.

The Best of Show for this year's NHC was the Cream Ale from Brewing Classic Styles.

Looks pretty good but man, 2lb of carapils? Are you sure??

It looks like a blonde is what your after.....why not .5lb crystal 10 instead of the carapils and maybe look into the late addition extract method?

Maybe drop the carapils to 1# and up the extract. Or do a minimash with 1# of 2-row and 1# of carapils. I'd add about a pound of corn sugar to get up the ABV without upping the FG but that's me. Hops sound good. I love Amarillo hops. If only they made an air freshener...

- Eric

Thats basically what I was going for with this http://homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=70792 Haven't brewed it yet but I will soon.....

Maybe think about using a large portion of wheat? Or maybe wheat dme?

definitely use the cream ale yeast and ferment at 65°F or lower. it will turn out CLEAN

Mix the specialty grains to 1# each of crystal 10 and .5 carapils and up the extract. Add a bit of gypsum to to bring the RA down a bit due to the 1.5 pounds of grain added. This will reduce "harshness" and bring the sugars in balance with one another.

Looks like a tastey brew and a nice session one at that.

- WW

I added 1 lb. of American light wheat extract and lowered the CaraPils to 1 lb. That upped the alcohol a bit and made it slightly heavier, 1.010 FG, 4% ABV. And yea, I suppose this would be called a blonde ale.

I would love to use a cream ale yeast, but unfortunately the coolest my house gets this time of year is 72 degrees, maybe 70 on the concrete floor in our shop/laundry room. I will get around to building a fermentation cooler eventually, but right now insurance and phone bills are a little more important

I do like the look of WLP008, East Coast Ale yeast. White Labs says it's good for blonde ales. Ferments up to 73*, right in my range. Now I just have to find it.

A cheap and easy way to keep the temperatures down is to put your primary fermenter in a cooler with some water in it. Wrap a t-shirt or towel around the fermenter and the evaporative cooling will drop it a few degrees. To drop it a little further, freeze a couple water bottles and keep a frozen water bottle in the cooler with the water (swapping them as needed).

This is what I am doing on my American Amber right now and the fermenter definitely feels cooler than the ambient air in my house, which is about 74 F.