Amber Ale: help needed

So I tried a locally brewed amber ale called Raleigh Red and was just blown away by its smoothness and deliciousness. It was sweet up front with a slight hoppiness near the end that was just beautiful. I read up the bjcp guidelines for the style and the description is dead-on to what I tasted.

Flavor: Moderate to high hop flavor from American hop varieties, which often but not always has a citrusy quality. Malt flavors are moderate to strong, and usually show an initial malty sweetness followed by a moderate caramel flavor (and sometimes other character malts in lesser amounts). Malt and hop bitterness are usually balanced and mutually supportive. Fruity esters can be moderate to none. Caramel sweetness and hop flavor/bitterness can linger somewhat into the medium to full finish. No diacetyl.

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Didn't really taste any fruity esters. At a local homebrew get-together I tried someone's amber ale that was also quite good, and he has shared his recipe with me. Look for it at the bottom of this post. The differences are that his ale had a little less "sparkle" to it than the RR, so i'm thinking maybe different hop profile? Finally, I had an amber ale at a local brewpub that I disliked. The hops gave it a soapy off flavour, I couldn't taste any of that sweet, malty, nectar-like goodness that the other two offerings had, and to top it off the color was def more copper than amber.

My question: would you guys suggest any changes to this recipe to get it any closer to that RR that I enjoyed so much? It makes a good beer in its own righ (note that I haven't brewed it myself yet) i'm just looking to give it that extra umph I had from the commercial offering.

3/4 cara munich malt
7 3/4 pale ale malt
1 1/2 munich malt
1 oz columbus

mash @ 150
hop at 60 1/4 oz
at 15 1/2 oz
at 5 1/4 oz

fg 1.045
ending 1.012

yeast nottingham or wyeast am ale 1056 or wl cal ale 001

My yeast choices are wyeast 1098, pacman, and some other wyeast I can't recall. I want to use one of these washed yeast's to save on $$.

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It's really gonna be difficult to exactly tell you how to make the beer you tasted, but I will say that if you want some noticeable hopping then I don't think the recipe you've posted will cut it. I'm a big fan of flameout additions of at least 1oz. In addition a .5-1oz addition at 10 or 15min sounds good.

It sounds like you're trying to avoid some of the hops that have powerful aroma. I really like Centennial as a flavoring hop, especially in Amber ales, because its bubblegum fruitiness seems to really complement the caramel flavors. There's no reason you couldn't use all Centennial in this beer, and it would be a good learning experience.

I definitely think you should brew the recipe you were given, or maybe make some slight changes to it. Having a jump-off point to get to the perfect recipe makes your life a lot easier. If you just make something up in an attempt to clone the Raleigh Red, you'll be disappointed if you miss the mark.

Finally, you might consider getting in touch with the brewery and see if you can get some actual tips on brewing the beer, if not the actual recipe.

Yea, I definitely agree. I always get mad a my wife when she takes a new recipe (for dinner) and right off the bat starts making changes. How are you going to make changes if you don't have a good baseline to go off of, so you know what your changes affect? I'll brew it once, and see how it comes out and then re-post in here. I'll also talk to the guys at the brewery, I've had luck before with local breweries giving me some good tips on cloning their stuff.
ezziey

I know we have discussed this before, but I know they use willamette in that beer. For sure as the dry hop. Ryan will give you more info than Eric will. I have asked multiple times, but usually get too drunk over there to remember what they told me. One day I'm just gonna go over there and brew with them and then I will be able to tell you exactly what's in there!

Yea do that! I won't have any beer budget to blow at their tasting room for a while. And I'd feel bad just rolling up, asking them for tips, and then not buying anything