Noble Pale Ale?

[brackbrew]

For a little while now, I've been tossing the idea around of brewing a pale ale using only noble hops for bittering, flavor and aroma. Was curious if anybody else had considered or tried this? It probably lands outside the style guidelines for American or English Pale Ale, but that doesn't bother me.

I was thinking of using Saaz as the bittering hop with Hallertau and Tettnanger for flavor and aroma. Based on that, anyone have any opinions or suggestions as to some specialy grains to either use OR avoid? I'll try to formulate and post the recipe after I get some feedback!

Thanks!

 

[greencoat]

I'd just say go easy on the specialty grains, let the hops be the star of the batch. 1/2 lb of crystal 40 or 60. I like a clean malt character in my pales, split my base malts at 80% US 2 row and 20% Maris Otter or something like that.

 

[Oldsock]

How about brewing something more in line with a kolsch with more agressive hopping. I did one a couple years back with pils, wheat malt, and Munich, with ~1 oz of Saaz near the end of the boil. I'm doing something similar again in a couple weeks switching the Munich to Vienna and the Saaz to Hallertau. I really like Wyeast 2565, fermented cool if you can.

 

[no_borders]

i would probably just keep it to the lighter side, and use a nice clean yeast that can make the hop flavors pop. i think noble hops have such a great flavor/aroma, as long as there isnt too much caramel flavor i think it should come out fine

 

[permo]

That is a great idea, go very easy on the specialty grains, maybe use none at all.

Go with Marris Otter and Noble Hops..........

 

[jlpred55]

yeah- agreed. That sounds great to me. I've done something similar but just used 100% Pils Malt and Saaz to bitter and Tett for aroma, but I used a Belgian yeast. Came out awesome.

 

[markg388]

i couldn't agree more with the 'go easy on the specialty malts', i had the exact same train of thought as you with the noble pale-ale... but i had 1 1/4# crystal malts, 2# of domestic munich and some aromatic. It was somehow cloying sweet and overly bitter at the same time with harsh aftertaste, just terrible. I ended up dumping it.

I do know that pilsner recipes brewed with 2-row and saf us-05 come out really good , so I'd brew it along those lines and just add a hint of crystal, basically what greencoat said.

 

[brackbrew]

After doing some reading and thinking, I've come up with a PARTIAL MASH recipe. Comments, suggestions, criticism (and help!) are welcome. I've never really come up with my own recipe before...

1/2 lb. Crystal Malt (20L)
3.5 lbs. 2-row

3 lbs. Extra Light DME
7.5 AAU Saaz Hops (1.5 oz @ 5%AA) for 60 minutes
2.25 AAU Hallertau Hops (0.5 oz @ 4.5% AA) for 10 minutes
2.25 AAU Tettnanger Hops (0.5 oz @ 4.5 AA) for 5 minutes

White Labs California Ale Yeast (WLP001)

I don't know if I should switch the Hallertau or Tettnanger hops, increase or decrease the amount and time, etc. WLP001 is supposed to ferment clean and accentuate the hop notes, which is what I'm going for.

I plugged everything into BTP, had it use the Rager method for utilization calculation and came up inside the style guidelines for an APA in every category accept alcohol content (a little low).

I'd probably collect about 2.5 gallons of wort from the partial mash; I have a keggle, would do a full wort boil, but might wait and do 1-2 lbs. of the DME as a late addition.

Thoughts?!?!

 

[niquejim]

A pale ale with only Noble hops

You know they are called Noble hops because they taste like crap...:cross: