Tasting: Sweet Caroline Amber

This is my first attempt at a formal description of one of my finished beers. Not sure I have enough experience to properly use the most accurate descriptors, but I'll do my best. For this beer I was trying to create a relatively straight-forward American Amber Ale that would have a quick turnaround and that would showcase Citra hops.

Tasted on 7/7/11. Hot, slightly humid evening. Poured into a Red Sox tumbler my son gave me for Father's Day.

Appearance - Pours a hazy amber-brown, more brown than amber and darker than the SRM estimate. Nice off-white head that leaves some thin lacing. Not sure why this beer remains so hazy - most of my beers have some chill haze, but this brew seems to have it worse than the others, even after a couple of weeks in the fridge. Also not sure why my beers all seem to turn out darker than the SRM estimate.

Aroma - Caramel and citrus. I get a strong grapefruit aroma when poured, but that quickly dissipates to more sweet fruit than grapefruit. The best descriptors I could come up with for this smell are ripe melon and mango. I assume this is the Citra hops.

Taste - Caramelly sweet, perhaps too much so. Nice bitterness that does not linger. Clean. Some fruity hop notes, which accentuates the overall sweetness of this beer.

Mouthfeel - Smooth, almost thick and creamy. Lower carbonation than I had planned for.

Overall - A very good beer (so good, so good?) - seems to hit all the style points for an American Amber Ale. Perhaps too sweet/caramelly and thick for my tastes though, at least on a hot summer evening. This reinforces my general observation that I tend to enjoy beers that use minimal crystal malts - my favorite brews have been the ones where I haven't exceeded 5% crystal malts. Next time I'll cut out some of the crystal malt and increase the carbonation to help dry and thin out the flavor and mouthfeel.

Sweet Caroline Amber Ale

Can't believe its been a whole month since I've posted anything. Though, really, brewing once a month is about the max I could hope to do. With my two long-aged beers (my experimental sour cranberry ale and this year's "big beer") just hanging out waiting for bottling day, I decided I should get something going that will be ready relatively quickly. I figure I'll only have two more brews before it gets too hot (I haven't yet acquired a taste for those beers typically fermented hot), so I decided to go with an American Amber, a style I haven't tried to brew, at least not to style. I'll probably brew an American Wheat next month, to have something nice and refreshing for the summer.

One of the things I've discovered through creating my own recipes is that I tend not to like a ton of crystal malt. Generally, I keep any crystal malt addition to 5% or less, but since an American Amber is supposed to have a noticeable crystal malt presence, I decided I could/should break that rule this time. But I've still kept it below other recipes I've seen, where it can comprise up to 20% of the grist (!). I didn't want anything overly hoppy either - trying to strike a nice balance between the American hops and the crystal malt.

Nothing unusual to report for the brew day. Unless you count a rare win by the Red Sox (improved to 4-10; still the worse record in the league though).

Sweet Caroline Amber Ale
Brewed on 4/17/11

Recipe Specifications
Batch Size: 3.50 gal
Boil Size: 5.00 gal
Estimated Color: 12.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 39.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 74.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes
OG: 1.054
FG: 1.014
ABV: 5.21%

Grist
5 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt, Maris Otter - 79.25 %
8.0 oz Crystal Malt (~60L) - 7.20 %
8.0 oz Munich Malt - 7.20 %
4.0 oz Carared Malt - 3.60 %
2.1 oz Acidulated Malt - 1.87 %
1.0 oz Chocolate Malt (~450L) - 0.86 %

Hops
0.20 oz Galena [14.10 %] (60 min)
0.50 oz Cascade [6.10 %] (10 min)
0.50 oz Citra [12.30 %] (10 min)
0.50 oz Citra [12.30 %] (1 min)
0.50 oz Cascade [6.10 %] (1 min)

Yeast
California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) →


Mash Schedule
Single Infusion, 153°F, Batch Sparge