Amber Ale

[WillieBananas]

Working on a beer for my wife. She is not a huge fan of hoppy beers, so I thought an amber would serve her well. Thoughts on recipe?

 

[Lefou]

If you look at the Style Guide at the bottom of your graphic, note the IBU and bitterness ratio for Amber Ale.
A "balanced" hop-to-malt ratio (BU/GU) is around .5 IBU per gravity unit.
The style calls for 20-40 IBU and you're a bit over that as an IPA will normally start with 40 IBU.

Not knowing your wife's tastes from much more than your description, I'd reduce the bittering hops to get the IBU's down a bit ... say 30 or so, to reach a mid-range. My beers usually run toward a mild bittering with ratios around .4 - .5, but that's me.

 

[Lefou]

My wife doesn't really have a taste for beer or drinking in general, but I like her opinion once in a while....
I typically brew light to golden-colored ales/lagers with mild Continental hops.

Her last opinion was "..Why don't you try brewing another one of the light beers you made last year..?"
Well, that one was a good first experiment with blonde ales and it turned out slightly hoppy (Pils, almost) with a nice golden clarity. So in the spirit of experimentation, I decided to make a lower ABV ale like you see in my sig line.

 

[WillieBananas]

Whoa you are right the bu\gu is way high. Guess I missed that. Thanks! I was just looking at the IBU's.

 

[waldoar15]

I'd dump one of the crystals, probably the 60. It's kind of redundant anyway.

 

[Lefou]

I'd dump one of the crystals, probably the 60. It's kind of redundant anyway.

I might've written the same, but yeah ... I rarely use crystal malt myself. In this batch he has three grains of 30L, 60L, and 80L for coloring and flavor. Dropping the 60 would still keep the color in the right range.

 

[waldoar15]

I might've written the same, but yeah ... I rarely use crystal malt myself. In this batch he has three grains of 30L, 60L, and 80L for coloring and flavor. Dropping the 60 would still keep the color in the right range.

Could swap the Victory for Special Roast too. I use some in my ESB. I like it for color and flavor. Depends on the yeast and mash temps though as it can easily throw too much "dry and roasty" if you go overboard with the amount, mash too low and/or use a well attenuating yeast.

 

[z-bob]

You might consider American pale ale malt instead of pale 2-row if you have to buy malt (inventory column says 0), that will darken it about 1.5 or 2 degrees.

The only thing really wrong with your recipe is it's a little too bitter. That's a lot more specialty grains than I usually use in one recipe, but that's just me. I'd probably use mostly pale malt (whatever I had on-hand) with some crystal 60 and aromatic. In fact, I may brew one like that next just to see how it turns out. Thanks for the idea!