American Amber recipe - feedback please

I had Anderson Valley's Boont Amber the other day and liked it quite a bit. That got me wanting to brew up an amber ale. I found https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/can-you-brew-recipe-anderson-valley-boont-amber-239390/ but wanted to modify it to make use of some things I've had laying around a while instead of buying new ingredients. Any thoughts on how this might taste?

American Amber Ale
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Batch Size: 5.250 gal
Boil Size: 7.262 gal
Boil Time: 90.000 min
Efficiency: 70%%
OG: 1.057
FG: 1.015
ABV: 5.5%%
Bitterness: 27.1 IBUs (Tinseth)
Color: 16 SRM (Morey)

Fermentables
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Name Type Amount Mashed Late Yield Color
American Two-row Pale Grain 10.000 lb Yes No 80%% 1 L
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L Grain 1.000 lb Yes No 74%% 60 L
Caramel/Crystal Malt - 120L Grain 12.000 oz Yes No 72%% 120 L
Total grain: 11.750 lb

Hops
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Name Alpha Amount Use Time Form IBU
7 C's 9.9%% 0.500 oz Boil 20.000 min Pellet 9.8
7 C's 9.9%% 0.500 oz Boil 90.000 min Pellet 17.3
7 C's 9.9%% 2.000 oz Boil 0.000 s Pellet 0.0

Misc
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Name Type Use Amount Time
Campden Tablet Water Agent Boil 0.000 tsp 15.000 min
Gypsum Water Agent Mash 1.000 tsp 60.000 min

Yeast
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Name Type Form Amount Stage
Wyeast - British Ale Ale Liquid 0.528 cup Primary

Mash
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Name Type Amount Temp Target Time
Conversion Infusion 4.406 gal 166.636 F 152.000 F 60.000 min
Final Batch Sparge Infusion 4.734 gal 180.583 F 165.200 F 15.000 min

Looks like a nice, simple recipe. I would consider using a yeast that gave a clean profile, rather than an English variety.

Well I went w/ the English one since that's what they use in the Boont clone, but maybe it doesn't make as much sense given my change to all west coast hops? The biggest thing I wasn't sure about was whether the large amounts of crystal 60/120 would be too much. I'm don't make ambers much and typically don't go past 10% crystal in my grain bills for most beers so looking at that Boont clone with 2+ lbs of crystal looked a little unusual to me.

neomantra said:

Well I went w/ the English one since that's what they use in the Boont clone, but maybe it doesn't make as much sense given my change to all west coast hops? The biggest thing I wasn't sure about was whether the large amounts of crystal 60/120 would be too much. I'm don't make ambers much and typically don't go past 10% crystal in my grain bills for most beers so looking at that Boont clone with 2+ lbs of crystal looked a little unusual to me.

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A nice amber will sometimes have 15% crystal, so that's no problem. I would increase the bittering hops, though. 27 IBUs is really low for a 1.057 beer, especially an amber. I'd bring it closer to 38 IBUs, to balance the crystal, without making it too bitter.

Yooper said:

A nice amber will sometimes have 15% crystal, so that's no problem. I would increase the bittering hops, though. 27 IBUs is really low for a 1.057 beer, especially an amber. I'd bring it closer to 38 IBUs, to balance the crystal, without making it too bitter.

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I think boont has a pretty low bitterness and works really well.

Victory or biscuit malt seems nice in an amber too.

I did this a while back. Was really close to boont in a side by side. http://hopville.com/recipe/1308006

Cool, thanks for the feedback. I'm going to sub out the crystal 120 in favor of 8oz victory malt and move 0.25oz of the 0min hops back to 20 min which will put it to 32 IBU.

neomantra said:

Cool, thanks for the feedback. I'm going to sub out the crystal 120 in favor of 8oz victory malt and move 0.25oz of the 0min hops back to 20 min which will put it to 32 IBU.

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Depends on your taste buds.

I think a large hop addition at 10 mins left on boil will make it very nice on either malt bill.