Carlyon Amber Ale

Another attempt at an IPA. I keep following advice that I do not want. This will end up as a nice Amber Ale. 

Different malt combination. Different hop combination. It will be a much different beer. 

Into the fermenter on 04/04/2011 and fermented furiously for three days. The OG reading came in at 1.072 and I took a reading on 08/04/2011 at 1.020. So it's coming along pretty quickly. I took a sneaky taste on the first reading and it certainly has a more interesting flavour than the previous attempt. 

The hop character still has not struck as much as I would have hoped. Here's how it was built. 

Ingredients.

1.8 kg Muntons IPA bitter malt extract

1.5kg Black Rock amber malt extract

500g light brew malt brew improver

500g crystal malt medium grain

25g Chinook hop pellets

25g Amarillo hop pellets

25g Willamette hop pellets

Safale yeast U.S 05

18.5 L water. 

The Chinooks were used as the main bittering hop. I only boiled it for 30 minutes. I really will get more bold with the next one. I'll try and double the length of time for the boil and stack some more bittering hops in there. 

I am looking forward to seeing how this turns out, but this has just heightened my interest in doing another brew straight away. 

On a side note, if anybody would like to purchase me some swing top bottles, then that would be ideal. 

Carlyon Strong Ale

A new brew?

Not at all. I have just come to discover that the attempt at the IPA that was attempted has failed and the result was a strong ale.

The Fuggles hops that were dry hopped has given me a slight floral aroma, if anything and very little hop character in the flavour.

We're about 5 weeks since these suckers were bottled and we do have a big, bold ale from an alcohol standpoint but it's not what was envisioned originally.

I've since discovered that this beer is not unlike the 3 Ravens Uber Blond, and the Prickly Moses Extra Strong Ale. This might sound like bragging, but if you've tasted all three beers you'll probably understand what I mean.

For those following at home (and this is probably just me) the name has changed to Carlyon Strong Ale because I have changed premises to the Carlyon Manor and this is now the site of all beers produced.