Pinochle Pale Ale

Malts
4# Pilsner LME
3# Light LME
10 oz Carapils
8 oz Caramunich

Hops
1.5 oz Cascade (60 min)
1.25 oz Cascade (10 min)
1.25 oz Cascade (1 min)

Other
3 pods Green Cardamom (seeds only) (60 min)
4 pods Green Cardamom (seeds only) (secondary)

This was my monumental 5th batch. I still don't know what I'm doing, but the beer keeps coming out just fine. I missed the hydrometer reading at racking and bottling on this one, but based on previous and succeeding brews with this yeast, I would assume the FG to be around 1.016-1.018.

I call it Pinochle Pale because of the Cardamom (Get it? CARDamom... Pinochle is a card game... moving on). The cardamom on it's own is a spice that has a very citrusy nose with a pepper flavor and a bit of that citrus coming through. I used it as a complement to the Cascade hops, however with the amount of aroma and flavor hop additions I used the cardamom can be difficult to detect if you don't know it's in there, but there is definitely a hint of the spice in there (yes, I know a bit contradictory).

In future attempts at this recipe (there will definitely be more, I love this beer and have loads of cardamom left) I will probably drop the aroma and flavor hop additions to 0.75 oz each to let the cardamom come through a bit more.

The Safale yeast provided a very clean, crisp finish. Before this brew I would just pitch and seal. After reading the Fermentis website about their yeasts, I now follow their advice and aerate the wort thirty minutes after pitching. This has provided a vigorous fermentation usually within 6 hours after pitching. If you are not doing this with dried yeast, you should, unless of course you are making a starter.