Patriotic Amber Ale (Rogue American Amber) west coast style!

Update: I took this to a local comp and entered it as a American Amber and scored very nicely, 38 points but the only thing bad they had to say was that it was too hoppy for the style, they usually don't expect so much hop aroma from a amber as well as the mouthfeel leaning toward the bitter. This was of course on purpose as I was shooting for a hoppy amber. I was very pleased and asked them if I entered it as a American Pale Ale, how would it have done. They said it would be about 5 points higher and that made me smile

I was able to get some input from Rogue and they responded with the following.

Cascade for bittering
Amarillo for aroma

C150 6%
C40 12%

With filling in the rest of the info from their site, I was able to come up with the following which turned out to be a fantastic beer

82% Pale 2-row
12% C40
6% C150 or special B

I went with the following hop schedule

1.75oz of cascade at the beginning of the boil for about 40 IBUs
1 oz of amarillo at 10 minutes for another 11 IBUs or so
1 oz amarillo dry hopped
1 oz simcoe dry hopped

Here is a recipe based on 83% so please adjust accordingly by the percentages above.

Recipe Specifications
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Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 6.83 gal
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 15.0 SRM
Estimated IBU: 53.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 83.00 %
Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Ingredients:
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Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Great Western American Pale (3.0 SRM) Grain 82.00 %
1.17 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 12.00 %
0.59 lb Special B Malt (150.0 SRM) Grain 6.00 %
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1.75 oz Cascade [7.00 %] (75 min) Hops 42.7 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] (10 min) Hops 10.8 IBU
1 Pkgs Pacman [Starter Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Total Grain Weight: 9.76 lb
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Temperature Mash, 1 Step, Medium Body
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
60 min Saccharification Add 14.00 qt of water at 164.4 F 154.0 F
10 min Mash Out Heat to 168.0 F over 10 min 168.0 F


If you adjust your water, here are the numbers I used:

Ca 80 Mg 21 Na 18 SO4 150 Cl 50 HCO3 150

This keg disappeared quickly Haven't heard back from the judging on it from regionals but should be soon.

I'm considering an amber that uses a lot of crystal malts and yours has a lot, sitting at 18% of the grain bill. Your bitterness level appears to support that high percentage. In your opinion, if you were to reduce your hop rates, when would the crystal malts become too overwhelming?

14thstreet said:

I'm considering an amber that uses a lot of crystal malts and yours has a lot, sitting at 18% of the grain bill. Your bitterness level appears to support that high percentage. In your opinion, if you were to reduce your hop rates, when would the crystal malts become too overwhelming?

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well that is up to interpretation but I would say at a generic APA level 30 -35 IBUs or so but my taste buds are accustomed to hops and like a lot of them so I don't get much bitterness if any out of most APAs.

I took the liberty of putting this recipe on hopville.com (giving credit where it's due, of course.) Had to change the yeast because LHBS didn't have it. Here's the link: http://hopville.com/recipe/285013/american-amber-ale-recipes/rogue-amber-clone

pmeice86 said:

I took the liberty of putting this recipe on hopville.com (giving credit where it's due, of course.) Had to change the yeast because LHBS didn't have it. Here's the link: http://hopville.com/recipe/285013/american-amber-ale-recipes/rogue-amber-clone

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very nice and thank you, I noticed your bitterness was down a bit at 30 but you had plenty of hops. How does it taste?

I'm actually brewing it today. You're right, the bitterness was off because the boil volume was wrong. I changed the boil volume to 10.5 gallons, and we should be all set.

pmeice86 said:

I'm actually brewing it today. You're right, the bitterness was off because the boil volume was wrong. I changed the boil volume to 10.5 gallons, and we should be all set.

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ahh, that looks better, also were you able to get US-05 if you use US-04? That is closer to the pacman yeast, just a clean fermentation.

Yeah I wanted 05 but they were out of that, so I figured I would give the 04 a shot. I'll put a note on the recipe about all that.

pmeice86 said:

Yeah I wanted 05 but they were out of that, so I figured I would give the 04 a shot. I'll put a note on the recipe about all that.

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any news on how it turned out?

Delicious. A little peachy on the nose - just enough to get a girl to drink it but still a clean finish.

pmeice86 said:

Delicious. A little peachy on the nose - just enough to get a girl to drink it but still a clean finish.

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very good

I just finished brewing this. Its only my 3rd all grain batch but I think I did a pretty good job. It gets a little easier every time. Ill let you know how it turns out. Thanks for posting the recipe!

AdamCanFly said:

I just finished brewing this. Its only my 3rd all grain batch but I think I did a pretty good job. It gets a little easier every time. Ill let you know how it turns out. Thanks for posting the recipe!

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no problem, glad to hear it's brewed again

This turned out great! The bad thing is I only made 5 gallons and it's going fast! I'll defiantly be making it again.

AdamCanFly said:

This turned out great! The bad thing is I only made 5 gallons and it's going fast! I'll defiantly be making it again.

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good to hear, congrads

I just brewed this with a few minor tweaks - used Special B 115L, added .5 lb. victory malt and an extra lb. of pale malt, and used 1 oz. Centennial 10.9% in place of the 1.75 oz. Cascade and 2 oz. Cascade 5.7% at 45 mins and 10 mins (1 oz. each time for 2 oz. total). Oh, and used Wyeast 1056 instead of Pacman (they were out). Nothing wrong with your recipe - I just have this itch to tweak every recipe I try out . I'm excited to see how this turns out and will let you know! Thanks for the great idea!

WattyFP said:

I just brewed this with a few minor tweaks - used Special B 115L, added .5 lb. victory malt and an extra lb. of pale malt, and used 1 oz. Centennial 10.9% in place of the 1.75 oz. Cascade and 2 oz. Cascade 5.7% at 45 mins and 10 mins (1 oz. each time for 2 oz. total). Oh, and used Wyeast 1056 instead of Pacman (they were out). Nothing wrong with your recipe - I just have this itch to tweak every recipe I try out . I'm excited to see how this turns out and will let you know! Thanks for the great idea!

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those are quite a few tweaks but really not that much in taste problem for this recipe. Hope it turns out great!

I made this for my first brew. But since I did not have the specialty grains I made them myself.
I did not have Amarillo so I used Centennial instead.
It's being bottle conditioned right now, and i took some samples from the secondary and it tastes awesome! Fruity (like plum and raisins) with citrus/grapefruit. I hope the carbonation and conditioning will make it tastes better.

Looks like a great brew. Question on a little tweak... What do you think about using Marris Otter? I just bought a 50# sack. I love the malty charecteristics of this. My wife is 5 months pregnant and I brewed her a Drop Top clone that she loved... The problem was two days after I tapped the keg we got the news. We live in Oregon and her two favorites are Rogue American Amber and Drop Top. So my plan is to brew both and bottle them. Even now iI hate bottling after kegging. Any input would be awsome.

J-Sull548 said:

Looks like a great brew. Question on a little tweak... What do you think about using Marris Otter? I just bought a 50# sack. I love the malty charecteristics of this. My wife is 5 months pregnant and I brewed her a Drop Top clone that she loved... The problem was two days after I tapped the keg we got the news. We live in Oregon and her two favorites are Rogue American Amber and Drop Top. So my plan is to brew both and bottle them. Even now iI hate bottling after kegging. Any input would be awsome.

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Like you said, MO is going to give you more "malt" character so you can either go with that or add more hops, your choice.