It was a Thursday afternoon and I was watching the clock gradually run down on the day at work. I was having an afternoon cup of tea and chatting to the MWB lads on messenger. We decided on the spur of the moment to try a 30/30, quick stove top brew on a school night, just to see how quickly and fuss-free a brew day (ok, night) could be.
I’ve been fancying doing a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale style brew, so quickly Googled a recipe to see what the basic make-up of it was. It uses Cascade and Perle hops. I knew I had plenty of Cascade, but I didn’t have any Perle, so Googled substitutions. The first result I saw said Northern Brewer, as I knew I had plenty of that, I went with that. The grist on the recipe I saw was 2R pale ale and Crystal 40. Based on that, I fired up BeerSmith and set about building a recipe.
I have loads of Maris Otter, so went for that as a base malt. I swapped the Crystal 40 for Crystal Rye (150EBC) and some CaraPils, just because I fancied trying the Rye and I always use a bit of CaraPils. I’m not trying to create an exact clone after all. The recipe was pretty much ‘middle-for-diddle’ on the BeerSmith “sliders” for an APA style, so that was good enough for me. For the hopping, I went for Magnum to bitter to almost all the IBUs I was looking for, allowing late additions to make up the rest. The Northern Brewer that was in place of the Perle, going in late, followed by some Cascade a minute before I switch off the gas and a bit more Cascade once its cooled a bit.
Read more »