I brewed almost exactly to the way that it was specified by the brewer on Can You Brew It even though I'd never do a recipe with this amounts of dextrine malts normally. I was afraid it would come out too sweet. I was also afraid to add so few hops at the end of the boil. Generally speaking I like at LEAST 35-40 percent of my IBUs coming in the final 20 minutes of the boil. I used Wyeast 1318 because it's my favorite yeast. I like the biscuit flavor that it leaves behind, and it doesn't usually finish a beer too dry which scared me with all of the unfermentables in this beer. I live in the UK and I can't get this beer nor have I ever tasted it. I just bottled it today, and it did ferment from 1.050 down to 1.012. It's not as malty as I'd hoped, and it was very bitter despite the relatively low IBUs; most likely due to the high amount of bittering hop additions relative to the flavor hop additions. Here was my recipe. I can't get crystal 80 so I blended, and I like Northern Brewer for bittering so here's my recipe:
Ballast Point Calico Amber
4 Gal. batch OG: 1.050 FG: 1.012 SRM: 16 IBU: 38
6.6# Pale malt Two-Row
.6# Crystal 60L
.5# Crystal 100L
.59# Carastan...which is just 30L british crystal malt
.17# CaraPils
1 oz Northern Brewer 6.9% @ 60 min
0.5oz Cascade 6.6% @ 10min0
.75oz Centennial @ Flameout and 0.75oz Cascade @ Flameout
Mash Temp: 150F, Boil Time 90
Yeast : Wyeast 1318 Temp: started @ 65 and finished @ 72F
1.5 quart starter aerated for 2 minutes
Dry hopped with .5 oz Amarillo and .5 oz Centennial. Don't dry hop this beer. It's a pointless waste of good hops. It's like dry hopping a porter or stout.
I'll post again to let the forum know how it comes out, but at bottling time I really wished that I'd have used more flavor hops and a little less bittering hops...maybe .85 oz Northern Brewer @ 60 minutes and an ounce of Cascade @ 10 minutes.