She was a pale blonde

She was a pale blonde

by Brew4me

Thought I would share a recent brew - I combined a Pale Ale and a Blonde Ale to get this brew. I call it "She Was A Pale Blonde" - you remember her, right?

Anyway - all went well, easy drinking beer, went fast and heard no complaints.
B4M

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Post #2 made 9 years ago

by Brew4me

I forgot to add a pic - of the beer not the pale blonde you're thinking of...

B4M

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Post #3 made 9 years ago

by Pilch

Sounds good. What volume was the original recipe for?

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Post #4 made 9 years ago

by Brew4me

Good question -basically I looked at a couple of different recipes (high and low) to get an idea of what I wanted. For example the brewing classics style book had two recipes for pale and blonde (VAW 21.8L) and off the internet (I know dangerous) recipes and volumes were all over the map.
So, after looking at various, it seemed if I were to combine the two styles – the most common use for malt was American 2 Row and Munich and for hops Horizon and Willamette. I knew based on styles I wanted an OG around low-mid “50s” and went with 1.052 and I also wanted to do about 3 gallon (11.5L) VIP.
For Bitterness to Gravity Ratio I was going for a low easy drinking taste so pushed things down to an American Lager, Cream Ale level of ~.385. Some might say that it is too low for a pale or blonde but hey the ultimate goal was to brew for a friend (yes, blonde but not pale) who requested light yet tasty but not watery with rice or corn flavor like some of the macro-breweries .
The California Yeast seemed like a safe bet.
From there, I just played with the BIABacus (which I think is a great tool!) until I was satisfied. Not sure if that helps but basically looked at good and bad recipes and then made up my own. I am open to any comments from others that might improve what I did. But since it tasted the way I wanted and others drank it up fast I thought I would share. Of course now I will get back to some darker brews…
B4M

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Post #5 made 9 years ago

by PistolPatch

Nice job B4Me!

Saw your other posts in the other threads. Good stuff but no time up my sleeve to comment. Only have time for two comments...

1. Very important to trust in your own (and others who actually taste the beer) judgement of that beer. I could write essays and essays on this. The only real point, which we so often lose sight of, is, did you or your mate really taste the beer and then enjoy it? I reckon 90% of the time the answer would be no as the brewer is concentrating on what other think and the taster has probably been given a wrong expectation. (Not quite right but I don't have time to think on this more now.)

2. Only other comment I have is on the colour. Colour is the least important thing in any beer. It is also the least reliable formula estimate we have in brewing software including the BIABacus. On my screen (and every screen varies) the beer looks orange and is not what I was expecting given the predicted BIABacus SRM's. I would have thought it would be a lot paler. This is a comment and is more for others to register rather than comment on. I am wondering though a bit if the Crystal you were supplied was not Crystal 10.

Well done Brew4Me

,
PP

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Post #6 made 9 years ago

by Brew4me

Thanks PP!
The beer definitely came out tasting as I planned - easy drink (I would have added a bit more hops - but I wasn't the requester jsut the brewer on this one

).
I think I know what you are getting at and I agree on the comment about "really tasting" the beer. I usually take the first one or two on my own to critique. Its pretty cool working with the all grain - I definitely can taste the different malts and hops when I drink beer now then I ever noticed before. I started tasting the malt prior to brewing to see if I can identify flavors and freshness -

training the palette I guess.
With regards to the color, I thought the color was a bit darker but gave it little thought (kind of parallel to your first comment - am I taking the time to really review my work and answering any open questions = best I open a beer and get critiquing

) - but your comment on the crystal is likely the reason.

Brew4me

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