America Pale Ale lack Bitterness/Hoppy flavor

So I just tasted my first brew. It was an American Pale Ale kit from my LHBS(Keystone, those guys are awesome!). It spent 2 weeks in the fermenter and has been in the keg for about 4 days (30 psi for 48 hours, then down to serving pressure). Just drew a pint of the beer and while it tastes good it doesn't have the hoppy/bitterness of a beer like SNPA.

The guy at keystone said it was a good beer to drink relatively green so I'm wondering if I screwed something up? Also from my understanding aging tends to mellow hoppy bitterness which isn't noticeable in the first place.

Recipe:
6 lb. Munton & Fison Extra Light Dried Malt Extract
½ lb. Briess Crystal Malt 20° L
½ lb. Munton & Fison Carapils Malt 20° L
2 oz. Perle Hop Pellets (Bittering)
1 oz. Cascade Hop Plugs (Flavoring)
1 oz. Cascade Hop Plugs (Finishing)
Wyeast # 1056 XL American Ale Yeast

Link: https://www.keystonehomebrew.com/2010/12/american-pale-ale/

I did a 3.5 gallon boil. Steeped grains at 155 F first for 30 minutes then added the Perle hops at the beginning of the boil then the first oz of Cascade with 10 minutes left and the final ounce with 2 minutes left as per the recipe. Total boil time of 60 minutes

Any advice would be more than welcome, I know time heals all beer, but naturally I'm impatient with my first batch

The recipe looks pretty good to me! I think it should have a pretty decent hop flavor and aroma, with a firm bitterness.

What were the fermentation temperatures? Maybe it got over 72 degrees or so, causing more fruity flavors, covering up some of the hops flavor?

Did maybe the wort get a little carmelized or something during the boil, so that you "lose" some of the bitterness? You could try adding at least half of the extract at the end of the boil next time, to keep the wort from having some maillard reactions. I think a pound of crystal malt is a bit much, and would recommend cutting that to .5 pound. But otherwise, I think the recipe looks pretty good so I'm puzzled.

I have made APA's with three times the amount of hops you have in your recipe and still haven't gotten the same hop flavour intensity of SNPA. It's an experiment in training.

Forgot to mention, that I feremented it in an old chest freezer I had laying around hooked up to a Johnson Controller I also had laying around (from an old kegerator project for commercial beers) the beer stayed a constant 65 F (recomendation of LHBS) for all of the fermentation with the exception of when Irene knocked out power for a few hours when it maybe crept up a few degrees. Maybe my pallet isn't quite developed enough to distinguish between the flavors of hop and just bitterness?

By that recipe it should have plenty of bitterness and very little hoppyness. Most beginners easily confuse hops and bitterness because yes hops do aid to bitterness but you get no hop flavour or aroma from 2oz of hops boiled for 60min like you have.

Looks like a good recipe for a pale ale, and seems like it would have all the bitterness it needs. Maybe the hops were old, or you didn't boil long enough to compensate for your high boil gravity (hop utilization), or both factors combined (?). Maybe they were lost in a boilover, or the boil wasn't vigorous enough. All sorts of stuff could have happened.

I'm sure it'll be a good beer though - don't worry about it. You'll be brewing tons of batches and you can just give this one another shot. Maybe add some more bittering hops next time, just in case - or maybe get the hops from somewhere else.

No bitterness, hoppy aroma/flavor APA sounds like a WIDMERE DRIFTER PALE ALE. One of my favorites!

isurf said:

No bitterness, hoppy aroma/flavor APA sounds like a WIDMERE DRIFTER PALE ALE. One of my favorites!

Click to expand...

lol - there you go.. you brewed a classic!

Seriously, sometimes I'll brew a beer that seemingly went wrong for whatever reason, and I get all bummed out - but then I just look at the beer for what it is, and realize it's actually pretty damn good - just not exactly what I was going for. Plenty of great beers have been brewed in this manner.

I agree with the other posters. There's nothing wrong with the recipe or in your process based on what you've posted. I also agree that the cascade hops are the right choice for flavor in a SNPA clone. Taste is a very subjective thing. Make sure you calculate the IBUs of the recipes you make and from there you can begin to develop a gauge of what IBUs actually mean to YOUR palette in practice. And remember that IBUs say nothing about hop flavor/aroma, only bitterness. If you want more bitterness then add more hops at the start. More aroma then add toward the 30minute mark and again in the last 10. Don't be afraid to write your own recipes or modify others' kits.

As a sidebar, I'm personally not a fan of adding hops at flame out, you just leave most of them behind in the kettle and then whatever aroma you've got is scrubbed off during the vigorous primary fermentation.

If you really want a strong aroma on the nose then consider dry hopping instead. Do this in the secondary or in the keg. I personally love cascade but amarillo is also popular and I've been meaning to try citra - may do that in the next batch (an IPA for dad). I believe citra is what SN is using in their IPA (torpedo).

water chemistry can have an affect on hop character as well...

i've brewed maybe 20-25 batches of beer and the only home run i've hit was a SNPA clone, we were very sorry to see that last bottle go. i would add MOAR HOPS. if the baby wasn't sleeping i would go in her room and check my beersmith computer for the recipe i used but i recall it was 6-7 oz of hops including the dry hops. my worry was that it would be too bitter or somehow unbalanced but it was right on the money.

Thanks for all the responses, like a true beginner I may have hit the panic button because it wasn't exactly what I was expecting. In the future I'll take into consideration dry hopping or increasing hops in the boil. I'm sure that my LHBS will also be able to guide me in the right direction.

Needless to say had a few buddies over and they thought it was a very sessionable APA, so even though it wasn't exactly what I expected seems to be a crowd favorite.