Bookworm to Brew: Designing An American Amber

Its been a difficult time for everyone but by all accounts the home brewing culture and hobby is thriving.  It is a welcome sight, however has limited my own home brew desires to brewing only a two since last October and only one since UK lockdown.  Kudos to The Malt Miller keeping up with demands.

I received an email the other week with an anonymous comment on an old post, stating they had a good read. Thanks!
Recently I've just been posting via Instagram but it made me think that it was time to don the Blog Cap again - see how long it lasts!

I went on a bit of a brewing hiatus too due to the sudden passing of my Dad at the very beginning of the year, he was an advocate of my brewing and something we both enjoyed drinking the results of together. When I was looking into what type of beer or recipe to clone this time I stumbled on one that I earmarked to use as a basis with dad in mind.
I tended to do a beer around Father's Day or his birthday that was more suited to his tastes than mine, either a stout or a balanced beer like an American Pale or Amber.

With the amber/pales I never have got the recipe quite right either not enough malt backbone, slightly too hoppy, hop schedule not quite right so more bitter than aroma/flavour or lacking some mouthfeel.
I haven't tried brewing one like this for awhile though, not since I have started using Kveik yeast or treating the water.

I did enter the Portsmouth Home Brewing Competition with an APA version a couple years ago and would of been 5th (if they judged it that far) in the Light Beer category but the basis of the recipe has been tweak and altered so much since I wouldn't be able to re-brew the original (it itself wasn't without flaws).
Even if Dad enjoyed them and expressed his satisfaction, I always picked holes in it. Some variations he picked up elderflower within the beer, I was like "Elderflower Dad?, I don't know where your getting that from"

I owe it to Dad to get it right! 

So my goal, as it has been, is to come up with an American Amber, using hops that share the same initials as my Dad's. G,E,B.
I have 57G of Mandarina Bavaria BBC (M.B.) in the freezer left from my American Wheat last month which loosely takes care of the B.

There is only 1 G hops I can think of for this beer and its Galaxy! I have always kept using Galaxy as the G hops for this beer, another reason why I haven't brewed it as its been in high demand.



So it leaves me with the E.....

Enigma? El Dorado? both are on the tropical fruit scale with slightly different character profiles to blend well with Galaxy, I've used them in variations of the beer in the past but probably not considered the AA enough which loops back to the beers 'not being quite right'.

I've also used Ekuanot in the past, hence how Dad could of picked up floral notes, something that might work as a rounded beer rather than making it too tropical tasting. Ekuanot is very overwhelming however especially if you pair it with Galaxy.

Or I could just keep it with the G & B and use something that could blend the M.B. & Galaxy together, something like good old Cascade.

The amount of M.B. I have will only really add to the aroma, it'll be in the background and very subtle, but uses what I have already got.

As for the Malt bill, recipes I've looked into have 1 base malt about 90% of the bill and small amounts of others to add the extra layers of flavour - malts like Chocolate, Munich, and Crystal (60).

With all this in mind..... the recipe idea of the American Amber.
Name TBC but thinking either Life Finds a way (a call back to a childhood memory) or The Magician. Even something like George's Amber or what I originally called this beer for the Home Brew Comp. which was G.E.B - could I even call it G.S.B/B.S.B?? (George's/Brann's Special Brew)

Brewers Friend Screenshot (click to enlarge)

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Your recipes/suggestions/alterations welcome!

Until next time.......Happy Brewing