Brew Day - Melting Pot Pale Ale

Fresh picked hops.

This past week I harvested my hops.  I did not harvest enough to make a full beer with just those hops but I did have enough for a whirlpool addition.  First year I let the vines grow and take hold. Second year all i wanted to do was see if the hop flowers could grow.  The growing conditions in my back yard are not the greatest.  If I am able to make one beer from the hops I grow my self I consider that a success.  Now that I know that the hops can grow I am going to build a proper trellis so I can see if I can grow a few more for next year.  Anyways. On to the beer of the day.

The hops I grow are cascade. I figured that I should brew the beer that introduced cascade to a lot of craft beer drinkers – Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.  I took a base recipe from BYO and tweaked it to make it my own.  The recipe said to use Perle, a German hop, along with Magnum, a highly alpha acid American hop and then finally the star of the show Cascade.  Uses some American 2-row and C40.

I tweaked the recipe to make it more of a true American mutt.  A melting pot of different nations.  I used Belgian 2-row and an English strain yeast.  So in have hops from Germany and America.  Malt from America and Belgium and yeast from England. Four nations to make a simple pale ale.

My hops with some additional for a nice
soak in the hot wort

Brew day was OK.  I had a very cement-like grain bed and it was pretty hard to get all the wort I needed without mixing everything up.  My gravity was a bit low after sparging so I added a bit of extra light malt extract and just a tad bit of sugar.  Ended up getting my gravity right where I needed it by the end of the boil.

Chilled the wort, pitched the yeast and now it's time to wait and see how the true American Melting Pot of ingredients turns out.