How to Home Brew a Pale Ale

Pale Ale is a major beer group that primarily uses pale malts and ale yeast. The ale itself is not actually pale by today's standards and tends to be an amber or deep copper. However, at the time that Pale Ale began to be brewed in the late eighteenth century, most beer was dark and murky. The following steps explain how to home brew a pale ale.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 9 lbs. U.S. 2 row pale malt
• 1/2 lb. crystal malt (60L)
• 1/4 to 1/2 lb. Cara-pils malt
• 2 1/4 oz. Cascade hops
• 1 oz. Perle (alpha 6.5)
• EasYeast "American Ale" yeast

1. Expect this ale to be fairly dark due to the crystal malt. It will also be sweet with a strong body as a result of the cara-pils and relatively high starch conversion temperature.

2. Put the malt in a grain bag and place it in a large pot. Add 7 1/4 gallons of water and heat it to 153 to 155 F for one hour.

3. Boil the wort and then add in the Perle hops. Add 1/2 oz. Cascade hops after 45 minutes and continue to boil the hops for an additional 15 minutes. Once the boil is complete, add 3/4 oz. Cascade hops and allow the mash to steep for 10 minutes.

4. Cool the mash to room temperature and pour it into the primary fermentation vessel. Add the yeast and the remaining cascade hops. Allow the wort to ferment and bottle.

5. Check the characteristics of the resulting beer. It should yield about 5.5 gallons and have a specific gravity of 1.051.

Resources

• More Info on Pale Ale