Ambers and Bitterness: Translation Please?

[NoIguanaForZ]

In our last episode, I mentioned basically auctioning two units of using my equipment and skills in making beer out of ingredients owned by the auction winner (donated by myself, up to a certain price point). I think I have a pretty good take on what to do for the first of the two winners, per the link.

I have now heard from the second winner, as follows:

As for beers, I like Sierra Nevada pale ale. I also like amber ales. The amber ale at Hoppys is very good. I don't care for bitterness. I hope this helps.

This seems pretty straightforward (albeit a bit option-overloady), except for first, the mention of Sierra Nevada pale (which I would consider bitter-balanced, albeit not overly so), and far more significantly, the fact that the example amber she references is, unless I'm mistaken this 65 IBU monstrosity, which I haven't had in a while but tastes, as I recall, something like Fat Tire dry-hopped with half its weight in grapefruit peel.

This, juxtaposed with her second to last sentence, has me in a pretty severe stated of Extended Quizzical Head Tilt.

I won't have a chance to sit down and talk with her until next weekend at the earliest, and I'd like to get started with ingredient selection before then. Is there a pattern anyone recognizes that might make sense of this? Or do I pretty much just need to have it explained?

 

[passedpawn]

You should just ask her. But if for some reason you don't want to do that, just make the SNPA. Pretty easy to get that right. Ignore the rest of her comment.

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Had a chance to speak to her earlier; the "amber" she was referencing at Hoppy Brewing is in fact their Stony Face Red, which makes a lot more sense.

Since it seems implicit in the concept that the beer I'd be making wouldn't be something they could just go buy in a store, I figured that doing something interesting with an amber ale seemed like a good approach. I had a tentative recipe worked out, but wound up starting over after talking to her today. I gave her a brief rundown of the brewing process and the lager/ale difference, and we settled on an American Amber, with the following spec's:

-Modest residual sweetness rather than thorough dryness, and a medium body
-Some of both bready, toasty flavors and caramel flavors, but inflected toward the former (I described Victory and Vienna malt for her and she liked the sound of them; I described Amber malt and mentioned that it's somewhat prominent in Fat Tire, which she said was okay but not her favorite, though she didn't elaborate)
-Balanced and restrained bittering, preferably "smooth"
-Well-developed hop flavor and aroma
-"Standard" strength range

I suggested the hop selections from SNPA as a starting point for flavor and aroma hops; I read her the Beersmith descriptions from Cascade and Perle and she indicated the Perle ('spicy, herbal, and floral") was more appealing (vs "spicy, floral, and citrusy/grapefruit"). I haven't used it yet, but it's apparently considered well suited for stouts, so I'm interested to explore it. Since that discussion I checked and noted that Stony Face uses Nugget (which my LHBS sells in 1oz increments, as opposed to Perle which comes 2oz at a time). Nugget has a relatively high bittering value, and is described as "herbal" and "spicy"...and also as "heavy aroma."

My new tentative recipe is as follows:

Grain Bill (mash at 152):
- 8lb Vienna Malt
- 1lb Munich II (8L)
-14oz Victory Malt
- 2oz Amber Malt
-12oz Simpson's DRC (C120)
- 4oz Melanoiden malt

I'm tempted to try to work in a little Special Roast, like 1-2oz, but I'm not A) whether that'll really show up in the flavor and B) if it does, whether the "sourdough notes" will clash. I'm also wondering if the Amber malt should either be increased or skipped (when I asked about it for the Black Common recipe, the LHBS owner said he thought it'd muddle together with the Victory and C120).

Predicted OG for a 5.5 gallon batch is 1.057.

For hops, I'm entertaining two choices:

Either:
-1oz Perle at 45min
-1oz Perle at flameout
For about 28 IBU assuming Beersmith's default AA%

Or:
-0.5oz Nugget at 45min
-1oz Perle at 10 min
-1oz Perle and 0.5oz Nugget at flameout
Which comes to about 33 IBU assuming Beersmith's default AA%

Anyone have experience with Perle and/or Nugget that might be relevant? I suppose I can do a couple 1-gal test batches...

Yeast: Was originally thinking US-05 kinda by default; given my recently losing patience with its mediocre flocculation and this being a relatively pale beer (SRM est around 15, IE "you could in principle see through it..."), I was thinking Nottingham. However, my understanding is an Amber traditionally has at least a hint of fruit esters, and Nottingham tends to cut hops a bit (just bitterness, or flavor too?), so I'm thinking BRY-97 might be a good choice - it seems to have a similar performance envelope to US-05 at normal ale temps, but offers a little more esters and tends to flocculate better? Can anyone confirm that?

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Anyone?

 

[NoIguanaForZ]

Okay, tried making a 1 gallon batch and splitting it between Nottingham and BRY-97. Nottingham is the clear winner, except I think I could push the aroma a little more. The BRY-97 one frankly tastes like a Wild Amber that was dry-hopped with a package of permanent markers.

(I had the same problem with BRY-97 and my Irish Extra Stout multi-yeast experiment. I don't know if I just got a bad batch of BRY-97 or what, but I'm starting to like the strain almost as much as Denny likes S-23...)