So here's how it turned out!
After feeling experimental (and having my kegs kick le' bucket in too short a time), I decided to push this brew to the finish line. Grain to Glass in 10 days! Primary for 7 days (held at 68 for 5 days and ramped up to 72 for 2 days), racked to keg and put straight in fridge, as it chilled I cranked my CO2 to 30 PSI, let it sit for 36 hours. This morning I disconnected my CO2, purged the headspace, then dialed it back to 12 PSI and reconnected. After one foamy half-pour, pic above was the result.
As you probably have already noted, my beer is cloudy as hell even though I used a half tab of whirlfloc. So minus aesthetic points for me.
But the flavor? WOW!
Very crisp, very refreshing, very drinkable beer. This recipe is a winner anyway you look at it.
Two notes that I would consider off flavors,
in this particular batch.
1) As expected, my batch is a little too bitter for my tastes in an amber despite the fact that I skipped the dry hop (I didn't want direct hop aroma/flavor). After a mouthfull, I get a dry puckering feeling in the back of my jaw/cheeks. However, the bitterness is made more pronounced by the fact that my OG, and my subsequent FG, came out a little lower than anticipated. I moved recently (new water) and am still tinkering with my new setup (new brew kettle - I didn't boil off as much as anticipated). Had I hit my OG I suspect this beer would turn out even more fabulously, a little more sweetness to balance out the bitter.
2) I used US-05 and fermented at 68 beer temp (I have a thermowell). In the aroma and in the flavor I get a touch,
just a taaaaaad bit, of sweet bubblegum. Some people might view this as an off flavor, but I friggen' love it! At this level, the residual sweetness and flavor make this beer very very gulp-able and is reminiscent of Le Trois Brassuers' Amber.