Hopping up Midwest's Autumn Amber kit

[northparker]

I have Midwest's Autumn Amber Ale kit in the garage, I'm probably going to brew it in the next week or so. I got it as part of their "buy 3 for $19 each" sale, it wouldn't have been my first pick but I wanted to try something new.

It's a pretty low IBU kit (looks like around 15 IBU) with 1oz Hallertauer for bittering and 1oz Fuggles for aroma. If I wanted more bitterness and aroma, should I just double up on the same hops or should I add in anything else? I don't anything about Hallertauer and have only used Fuggles once so I don't know what else would work well together. Most of my brews so far have been some combination of Cascade, Centennial, and Citra.

Ideally I would bring it up to more like 40 - 50 IBU and I wouldn't mind a bit of pine or citrus on top. Definitely considering a dry hop.

 

[Beer_Farmer]

I tried that kit before and wished that I would have added some more hops. It was decent and a favorite at a party but I would at least split the batch and add some cascade for half of the batch. Or another hop for the other half. This is an opportunity to experiment.

 

[northparker]

Yeah, I bought this kit with the idea that I would experiment with it. I do have some extra Cascade, that could definitely work. I've been thinking I'd like to try some Simcoe or Mosaic but I wasn't sure how they would interact with the Hallertauer and Fuggles.

I did get the Fuggles IPA kit from midwest too, maybe I'll use these hops to boost the other kit and start fresh with this one.

 

[Beer_Farmer]

If you don't want to try the styles of the 2 kits then using one to suit your tastes would be a good idea. I think the Autumn Amber base malt would be the one that you would use to make a recipe with the hops that you have on hand in some combination or single hop. You might need to add a little base malt or change the yeast depending on what you are looking to make. Let us know what you come up with and how it turns out.

 

[McGarnigle]

Yeah, I bought this kit with the idea that I would experiment with it. I do have some extra Cascade, that could definitely work. I've been thinking I'd like to try some Simcoe or Mosaic but I wasn't sure how they would interact with the Hallertauer and Fuggles.

Personally, I'm not crazy about mixing German, English and US hops together, but plenty of other people like that sort of thing. You could pull Midwest's hops off of the Amber and use only your own citrusy/piney ones.

Be careful on the IBUs, though, as it is only in the 1040s gravity. Easy to over-bitter something like that.

I might also suggest brewing it to 4 or 4.5 gallons to up the OG. No need to change ingredients, just use less water.

 

[Beer_Farmer]

Good point. Add more base malt. Who wants less beer?

 

[McGarnigle]

Good point. Add more base malt. Who wants less beer?

But you really should add more base malt and proportionally more specialty grains. So it's a little more involved.

 

[northparker]

Be careful on the IBUs, though, as it is only in the 1040s gravity. Easy to over-bitter something like that.

Good point. Most of my brews so far have been more in the 1.050 - 1.060 range, I don't really know much about how OG affects perceived bitterness.

I'm going to plug the recipe into Beersmith and play around with adding a little DME and a Simcoe/Mosaic hop schedule. Maybe target 40 IBU to start. I've also been thinking about adding a bit of rye to the specialty grain bill to give some extra body and complexity.

I'm going to use the left over Fuggles and Hallertauer in the the Fuggles IPA kit I got during the same sale, since reviews on that one say it's a little weak on hop flavor as well.