Bitter American - A Session Pale Ale

For the hot months I wanted to brew a few low-ABV beers. I have a 4% session saison that turned out awesome (though I overshot my efficiency), and now I'm going for a Pale Ale. It's more in line with a British Ordinary Bitter, but a.) lower alcohol, and b.) uses American hops and base malt. The saison was supposed to be a 2.9% ABV beer, but I forgot to calculate higher efficiency for the smaller grain bill, so for this recipe I calculated my "Small Grain Bill Efficiency," which is generally in the mid 80s.

This beer is inspired by Adnams Sole Star, but I changed the hops to match what I had in my freezer. The Columbus hops are a few years old, but they're vacuum packed and have been in the freezer this whole time, so they should be alright.

Here's the recipe I'm brewing right now:

6 gallon batch, Brew-In-A-Bag/No-Chill
86% efficiency

8 gallons reverse osmosis water
1.5 tsp CaCl
1.5 tsp Gypsum

4 lb US Pale Ale Malt
1 lb Weyermann Light Munich
6 oz Crystal 60
2 oz Acid Malt
1 oz Black Patent Malt

.5 oz Columbus (12.2%, pellets) FWH (calculated as 30 min addition)
.5 oz Columbus (12.2%, pellets) Cube hop (calculated as 20 min addition)
2 oz Columbus (12.2%, pellets) Dry hop (7 days)

US-05 American Ale yeast

1 Whirlfloc tablet (15 min)

Mash: 60 min at 156-158 F
Mash-out: 15 min at 170 F
Boil: 60 min

Target stats (per BrewTarget):
OG: 1.028
FG: 1.007
ABV: 2.7%
IBU: 27.9
SRM: 8.3
BU:GU: 1.0
Calories per 12 oz: 91

Well crap. Guess I need to get out more. Changed the title, but not the thread name. Oh well.

I would smell those Columbus hops before throwing them in and having sub par results. If you get any buttery, cheesey, onion, garlic, ect I would save them for bittering only. Hopefully they will smell amazing though! Good Luck!

jmich24 said:

I would smell those Columbus hops before throwing them in and having sub par results. If you get any buttery, cheesey, onion, garlic, ect I would save them for bittering only. Hopefully they will smell amazing though! Good Luck!

Click to expand...

That was definitely a big concern, but they've been purged, vacuum packed, and in the freezer the whole time, so they smelled great! Once I breached the bag my main concern was if the bitterness will be too low due to natural degradation.

If it turns out that the Columbus failed me, I've got some Bravo in the freezer that are considerably fresher. Then I'll need to come up with a(nother) new name...