Pale Ale-Mirror Pond

I think I have settled on this as my next batch....An American Pale Ale.

I'm going for a slight citrus character, but am trying to avoid the over the top grapefruit notes. I also want a matlier beer kind of like Mirror Pond's pale ale. Although I am not looking for a clone of this one.

So what do you think? Here's my PM recipe:

Grain

4.00# Belgian Two-row Pale
3.00# Light Dry Malt Extract
0.50# Canadian Honey Malt
0.25# Victory Malt
0.25# CaraPils


Hops

.50 Sterling (60 min)
.50 Cascade (60 min)
0.25 Cascade Pellet (20 min)
0.25 Sterling Pellet (20 min)
0.50 Cascade Pellet (2 min)
0.50 Sterling Pellet (2 min)

IBU's should be around 39.

I think that is a lot of honey malt but without any crystal it may work out great. The hops look great to me. It could be a good recipe. It's worth brewing.

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Conroe said:

I think that is a lot of honey malt but without any crystal it may work out great. The hops look great to me. It could be a good recipe. It's worth brewing.

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I have altered the recipe a little. I dropped the magnum, and upped the 60 min additions using both cascade and sterling. What do you think now? Why could this be too much honey malt?

Conroe said:

I think that is a lot of honey malt but without any crystal it may work out great. The hops look great to me. It could be a good recipe. It's worth brewing.

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I use a full lb of honey malt in my pale ale, along with a half lb of 80L and it finished second in the HBT BJCP comp. I say go for it!

Looks like a good recipe, but it will be nothing like Mirror Pond if thats what you are going for

I like Magnum better to bitter APAs. It makes for a smooth bitterness and goes well with any other hop.

I use 2% lb Honey malt and 5% Crystal 60L in my APA. After tasting it I decided that was as far as I would go with honey malt in a APA.
http://hopville.com/recipe/96780/american-pale-ale-recipes/jacobs-well-pale-ale

Here's BYO's Mirror Pond extract recipe, if you want to try to translate it to PM:

2.5 lb Lt DME
3.3 lb Lt LME
1.0 lb Munich
14 oz 2 Row
4.0 oz Crystal 60

19 gm 12%AA Centennial 60 min
21 gm 5%AA Cascade 15 min
21gm 5%AA Cascade 5 min
39 IBU

I have not brewed the extract version, only the AG. It is outstanding. One of my favorites.

Jimmeh said:

Looks like a good recipe, but it will be nothing like Mirror Pond if thats what you are going for

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I'm not going for a Mirror Pond clone, however, I do want it to be a maltier APA 'like' miorror pond. As far as hops, I'm looking for a slight citrus/herbal aroma and flavor, but not too grapefruity.

So with that in mind, should I go forward with this recipe and order it?

i reckon go for it. It will be interesting to see what that Belgian 2-row is like

Jimmeh said:

i reckon go for it. It will be interesting to see what that Belgian 2-row is like

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Thanks for the quick reply...Would you change the hops or schedule at all?Sorry, I'm annal about this one, becuase it is my first real recipe to formulate.