June Brew - Apricot Pale Ale (Summer Beer #3)

Starting the boil.

For the month of June, I attempted an apricot pale ale.  No, it's not meant to be a Magic Hat #9 clone, but all research on a recipe took me to variations of that beer.  It was actually inspired more by Dogfish Head's Aprihop which I found to be fantastic.  

Granted, I am going more toward a pale ale rather than an IPA which is DFH's slant with the Aprihop.  What I wanted is a nice hoppy pale ale with a HINT of apricot sweetness and tart.  We'll see in the tasting notes in a few weeks.

I used a standard pale ale malt bill and threw in a small dose of lighter lovibond crystal malt as well as my standard Carapils addition.  My hopping schedule is a bit unique as I used Galena hops as the bittering hop with standard "American Pale Ale" Centennial and Cascade hops at 30 and 10 minutes.  I further dry hopped with an addition of Saaz and Galena, then Cascade, then racked on top of 1 lbs of Apricots which I pureed and sterilized as well as a half ounce more of Cascade.

I intend to keg the beer tomorrow and it will be a week before it is nice and carbonated.  This is my first fruit beer and I'm a bit nervous as to it's dryness.

Here's the recipe:

My OG: 1.045

My FG:  1.006

Calculated ABV = 5.6%

10 lbs American Two Row

1.0 lbs Crystal 10

0.5 lbs Carapils

  Mash at 154 deg. for 1 hour or until converted.

60 min. boil

60 min:  0.5 oz Galena 

30 min:  0.5 oz Centennial

30 min:  0.5 oz Cascade

10 min:  0.5 oz Centennial

10 min:  0.5 oz Cascade

Flame Out:  0.5 oz Cascade

Pitched Wyeast 1056

  Dry Hop Schedule:

.25 oz Galena (at 11 days)
.25 oz Saaz (at 11 days)
0.5 oz Cascade (at 14 days)
.75 lbs Apricot puree (racked to secondary fermenter at 18 days)
0.5 oz Cascade (secondary at 18 days)

 

I'm excited to try this one...it tasted phenomenal right before adding the apricots.

UPDATE: Tasting Notes.

This beer turned out fantastic. The beer pours a golden orange colorand has a nice floral and citrusy nose from the hops and hint of apricot. Taste is late addition hops with slight citrus hops. There I a residual sweetness however the beer finishes nice and dry. I had one (or maybe 3) after a baseball game with friends the other night and found this beer to be EXREMELY thirst quenching. Will be sad when this runs out...