Recipe – American Amber Ale

While the whole world is increasingly keen on APA’s and IPA’s we easily forget about the style that has been also developed in the American craft beer revolution as a variation from American Pale Ales.

According to the leading BJCP – Beer Judge Certification Program – it is an amber, moderate-strength American craft beer with a caramel malty, but also hoppy flavour. The balance of this style may vary quite a lot. Some versions are quite malty, while others extremely hoppy. The last category is often referred to as Red IPA.

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Grain bill

Variety	Quantity	Quantity	Ratio
Swaen Ale	3.0 kg	6.6 lb	72%
Swaen Munich Dark	0.6 kg	1.3 lb	14%
Gold Swaen Amber	0.3 kg	0.66 lb	7%
Gold Swaen Brown	0.3 kg	0.66 lb	7%

Your aim is a dark, caramelly beer without any chocolate or roasted flavour. Malty sweetness and a moderate caramel taste is essential in this style. Therefor our grain bill consists mainly of Ale malt, while you get the amber color and deeper tastes by adding Munich Dark and caramel malts. This will definitely result in a profile of caramel, bread and toffee. You need these flavours to balance the hops. As you want to brew a full body beer, feel free to go only for alpha-amylaze rest at 69˚C (156F) and hold for 50-60 minutes.

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Hops

Hoppiness should be moderate to high. You don’t need to increase IBU, but a perceptible hop flavour should be present. Go for typical fruity, new wave hop varieties with profiles like citrus, floral, pine, tropical, and raisin. We had a great experience with Cascade, but you can pick any hop as per your own taste. Dry-hopping is not needed for this style.

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Yeast

You need a clean fermenting American ale yeast strain. As you don’t need strong esters, try to keep fermentation temperature at the advised level of your strain.

Dry examples: Fermentis US05 or Mangrove Jack M36 or M15.

Liquid examples: Whitelabs WLP060 or Wyeast 1056 or 1272.

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