American Amber ideas please

[Underground Joe]

I'm looking at brewing an American amber ale this weekend with amarillo and simcoe. I don't trust my brewing app colour wise so I was after some ideas for the grain bill. I've played about with a few recipe ideas already but I'd really appreciate any ideas.

[calumrobertson]

I brewed one recently which used MO, Munich, Caramalt and a little bit of Carafa Special III. Turned out pretty well, looks something like the colour of 5AM saint

[seymour]

SEYMOUR CALIFORNIA COMMON
A true American original. Brewed by early California settlers, typically with large, low, open fermenters using lager yeast but at warmish ambient temperatures, thus producing somewhat odd, fruitier results. Famously revived by Anchor Steam in San Francisco. Often categorized as a hybrid style, I consider this the origin of American Pale Ale as we know it, long before Sierra Nevada.

MALTS:
83.7% = 9 lbs = 4.08 kg, Pale 2-row malt (or blended with lager malt)
7% = .75 lb = 340 g, Crystal malt
7% = .75 lb = 340 g, Vienna malt
2.3% = .25 lb = 113 g, Oats

MASH at 154°F/68°C for 90 minutes
BOIL 60 MINUTES

HOPS:
1. 5 oz/43 g, Northern Brewer, 60 min
.5 oz/14 g, Northern Brewer, 15 min
1 oz/28 g, Cascade, end of boil, steep until cooled

YEAST:
It's flexible. Ideally, Anchor's own strain sold as Wyeast 2112 "California Lager" or White Labs WLP810 "San Francisco Lager". You could also consider Wyeast 2007 "Pilsen Lager/St. Louis Lager" which is the Budweiser lager strain, or realistically any lager yeast at ale temperatures should do.

FERMENT at 62-68°F/16-20°C

PRIME bottles/cask with ½ cup cane sugar, then store 1 week at fermentation temperature, another month as cool as possible.

STATS assume 75% mash efficiency and 75% yeast attenuation:
OG: 1.050
FG: 1.013
ABV: 4.8%
IBU: 39
Color: 8° SRM = 16° EBC

[NOTE: Northern Brewer is authentic, but one of my favorites in this style is Schlafly Pi Common which uses Polish Marynka for bittering instead.]

[Underground Joe]

Cheers for the ideas.

[Barley Water]

Interesting, if somebody asked me to come up with an American Amber I would probably give them a recipe for and American Pale ale with alot of crystal malt in it but of course that is neither here nor there.

Since we got onto the topic of California Common however, how does your recipe do in competitions Mr. Seymour? Although I think Anchor Steam is a great beer, I never make this style because there is almost no wiggle room in the style guidelines so in contests what you end up with is a cloning contest. Your receipe is a little different however since it contains oats as well as a hop other than Northern Brewer but it does look like it would be good. As it turns out, I have about 20lbs of American lager malt which I am trying to find a good home for so I thought that maybe doing a California Common would be a great way to use it up.

[seymour]

Interesting, if somebody asked me to come up with an American Amber I would probably give them a recipe for and American Pale ale with alot of crystal malt in it but of course that is neither here nor there.

Since we got onto the topic of California Common however, how does your recipe do in competitions Mr. Seymour? Although I think Anchor Steam is a great beer, I never make this style because there is almost no wiggle room in the style guidelines so in contests what you end up with is a cloning contest. Your receipe is a little different however since it contains oats as well as a hop other than Northern Brewer but it does look like it would be good. As it turns out, I have about 20lbs of American lager malt which I am trying to find a good home for so I thought that maybe doing a California Common would be a great way to use it up.

Great question, and I've made the same observations. It's like US brewers are so proud of the invention, we've defined an entire style around one remaining commercial example. Not sure why we haven't done the same for Choctaw Beer, Florida Weiss, etc, but I digress. I've never submitted my California Common in competitions for the very reason you stated. It's not 100% spot-on for Anchor Steam. It's a little creamier, faint butter and vanilla notes when I mix-in some pils, and a little American grapefruitiness in the aroma, all of which work just as well or better in my opinion. It seems to me a style ripe for experimentation.

[Barley Water]

Actually, I think that in this case the style guidelines are messed up. I know there were several breweries during the Gold Rush period that were making beer using essentially the same technology (using a lager yeast at higher ambient temperatures as ice machines and refrigeration were not widely available at that time). What I don't know however is what any of those other beers tasted like since none are around now and I'm guessing that the recipes used are also not available otherwise I suspect we would know about it. I have a really hard time believing that all the "Steam beer" brewers were making beer that tasted the same. Anyway, what we have now is a beer style that is completely defined by one commerical example and the guidelines are so tight that beers being judged "to style" in this category all taste the same (save for various flaws due to less than great brewing practice). I personally like to make styles I can screw around with to suit my tastes and hopefully make something unique which the judges in a contest will enjoy also. To me, brewing is a combination of technique (and theoretically you can teach a monkey to do it) and creativity which I think is the really fun part.

By the way, if you like messing around with historial American beers you might try a Ballentines XXX clone sometime. It is perhaps the grandfather of SNPA and uses quite a bit of adjunct but the beer is fairly bitter and interesting. I have also seen recipes for a Ballentines IPA which was supposedly pretty agressively hopped. I have however not tried that one as of yet. Of course Anchor Steam is an older brew and has German influence while Ballentines for sure had British roots and I have seen it written that the yeast was the precurssor to the currently popular Chico strain.

[seymour]

...By the way, if you like messing around with historial American beers you might try a Ballentines XXX clone sometime. It is perhaps the grandfather of SNPA and uses quite a bit of adjunct but the beer is fairly bitter and interesting. I have also seen recipes for a Ballentines IPA which was supposedly pretty agressively hopped. I have however not tried that one as of yet. Of course Anchor Steam is an older brew and has German influence while Ballentines for sure had British roots and I have seen it written that the yeast was the precurssor to the currently popular Chico strain.

Great idea, I probably will do that at some point. Have you checked out East Coast Yeasts? It's microbiologist/award-winning-homebrewer Al Buck's very small New Jersey company which only sells through his nearest homebrew shop, Princeton Home Brew. I have no idea how, but he claims to possess the true original Ballantine Ale strain, which (as you surely know) was the predecessor of Seibel BRY96 yeast which became the legendary Sierra Nevada/"Chico" yeast now used by well, everyone, everyone, everyone. Theoretically possible, I must admit, since he lives and works within miles of the historic brewery, and much older yeasts have been retrieved. He doesn't have a website, but there is a Facebook page and Google Group. If it's legit, his Ballantine yeasts would be perfect for this experiment! So far as I can tell, none of his strains are repeats of Wyeast, White Labs, etc, which to me is SUPER cool. Check out the word-of-mouth surrounding his "Bug Farm."

[Barley Water]

Yeah, I've brewed it a couple of times and I used the Chico strain. One of the reasons it's fun to mess with is because they used alot of adjunct, in this case corn, so I got to do my ceral mash thing using corn grits. There was an article I found someplace giving the recipe and for the life of me I can't remember where I found it. Anyhow, I think it's fun to step back in time and make some of those beers from yesteryear. I really need to root around and come up with a formulation for the IPA, that stuff sounded pretty good as well. If you are interested in competing I'm not sure how either of these beers would do against contemporary APA's or IPA's since there is so much corn in the grist (and yes, you can tell it's there and some judges mistake it for DMS). I wonder if they could be entered in a specialty category?

[seymour]

It's a lot like BJCP 6A. Cream Ale, but not exactly, huh? That just comes to mind because it's American and typically contains corn.
P.S. My Samuel Adams Longshot envelope finally arrived today, did you compete this year?

[Barley Water]

Damn it, all this talk about IPA's got me fired up and I remembered there was a new book out on that subject so I got on Amazon and puchased a copy.

I have never done the Longshot. That is very smart of Samuel Adams though, we make a great R&D department. Although some people come down on those guys I think they are great. Although I don't care for some of their beers many are very good and some are downright great. If you ever see their Double Bock by all means pick some up and I still enjoy their flagship brew occasionally.

Anyhow, once my book gets delivered I am sure I will be screwing around with IPA's. Over the last two or three years I am becoming a bit of a hop-head, I guess the dark side can not be denied (but I am pretty picky, the bitterness must be smooth).

[barney]

I made a Ballantine clone a couple of months back, a mighty fine beer. During my research into the ale I found that the guy who brewed for Ballantines used Nottingham yeast, so it was used in my version. It let the corn through nicely though muted the hop aroma. I can see how a lot of the modern American beers are descended from that style, I didnt realise how many American beers had corn in until tasted the Ballentine then I realised what I had been tasting all those years ago with Colt 45.

I have another Kilo of Corn ready to go.

[Barley Water]

Yes, us Yanks like to throw corn in beer for three reasons (in no particular order):

1. It is plentiful on this side of the pond
2. Because of #1, it's cheap
3. It's a nitrogen dilulent and 6 row malt (which is used alot over here especially in cheaper brews) is high in nitrogen plus it can easily convervt the corn sugars

Although many homebrewers don't like to mess with the stuff I have no problem using it and rather like the flavor addition it adds. I make a CAP which is 20% corn grits a couple of times a year, I have made the Ballentines clone mentioned above and it sometimes gets into the British stuff I make although to a lesser extent. I am currently dry hopping a British IPA which included a pound of flaked corn. I added the corn because I wanted to lighten up the beer a bit since it had an O.G. of about 1.065, trying for a quaffable British hop bomb.

[seymour]

I'm looking at brewing an American amber ale this weekend with amarillo and simcoe. I don't trust my brewing app colour wise so I was after some ideas for the grain bill. I've played about with a few recipe ideas already but I'd really appreciate any ideas.

So, did you end up brewing?