Northern Amber Ale

Northern Amber Ale is a Mr. Beer recipe that Tracy got me for my birthday.  It will be a dark amber beer with a balanced flavor and low, but almost moderate bitterness.  According to the description, there is a definite hint of caramel and is light and dry to the palette.  I expect to like this beer very much.

Date Note
04/05/2009 Sun Mixed up the beer.  Boiled the Honey and Hops in a hop bag 5 minutes.
04/09/2009 Thur Looked at the recipe on the website and noticed that I was only supposed to use half the bag of hops.  Oh well, I guess we'll see how it turns out.
04/15/2009 Wed Tried a little sample.  Still a little sweet, but it seems to be coming close to tasting like a pretty good beer.  Not scheduled to bottle for another 10 days, but I'm not sure it needs the whole 10 days to ferment.
04/24/2009 Fri Am planning on warm-conditioning this beer for at least 2 weeks before putting into fridge.
04/26/2009 Sun Bottled in 4 PET and 12 12oz bottles.  Batch primed with 55g of cane sugar.  Did not taste a sample, but the beer smelled pretty good.
05/10/2009 Sun Placed in big cooler for conditioning.  Will keep in cooler until at least 5/29
05/22/2009 Fri Took 4 bottles out of the cooler and put in the beer fridge.  Will try a couple this weekend to see how they are doing.
05/25/2009 Mon Tried the 4.  Good beer, but I do not think the 2 weeks of conditioning quite smoothed out the "Mr. Beer taste".  Will leave in conditioning cooler a couple more weeks.
06/05/2009 Fri Tried another couple.  Definitely improving.
06/06/2009 Sat Moved all but a couple into the fridge.
06/15/2009 Mon All are now in the fridge.
08/09/2009 Sun Shared with a guest.  He really seemed to like it.  I did too.  Wonderfully blended hops and malt.  Very good beer.  Might have to add this to the "always on hand" list.  But, next attempt of Dragon Spit will be a combo of these two beers.  We will have to see how that turns out.
09/11/2009 Fri Shared WW, WB, P&T, Northern Amber, Eric's Red, and Dragon Spit with Jerry, Lisa, and Grammy.  Jerry and I were the only ones that drank this one.  Very good after all the conditioning time.  Finished off the last bottle, so I'll have to figure out how to get this back into the rotation.
10/12/2009 Mon Pleasant surprise finding one of these.  Tried.  Seems more hoppy than I remember, but so good.
10/23/2009 Fri Finished the very last one.  Full of the Mr. Beer taste.  Not sure why.  Not as good as the rest were.

Northern Amber Ale

Recipe Northern Amber Ale Style American Amber Ale
Brewer Sheppy Brew Batch 2.13 gal
Extract

Recipe Characteristics
Recipe Gravity 1.052 OG Estimated FG 1.013 FG
Recipe Bitterness 19 IBU Alcohol by Volume 5.0%
Recipe Color 11° SRM Alcohol by Weight 3.9%

Ingredients
Quantity Grain Type Use
0.38 lb Honey Sugar Other
1.21 lb MrB. Englishman's Nut-Brown Ale Extract Extract
1.21 lb MrB. Mellow Amber UME Extract Extract
Quantity Hop Type Time
1.00 oz MrB. Englishman's Nut-Brown Ale Pellet 5 minutes
0.50 oz U.S. Goldings Pellet 5 minutes
Quantity Misc Notes

Recipe Notes

Boiled 1/2 cup honey with hops in hop bag for 5 minutes.

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