Simple Maple Syrup Pale Ale

We are in the midst of summer and the heat is pouring on us, hopefully you have been keeping cool.  It is a pretty good time to start thinking of beers that are going to be good for September though.  I know, crazy talk!  You figure 2 weeks in Primary, 2 weeks in Secondary, and ample time for the bottles puts us right in the midst of September.  Don’t worry though.  If you are having brewers block not know what direction you should go for brewing up a batch of beer, I got just the one for you.

This is a Maple Syrup Pale Ale.  One of our first recipes for this blog was a Maple Syrup Amber.  It’s pretty good.  I really like to go with the maple syrup route in the fall and really lean on the earthy flavors, it’s just a personal preference thing.  This beer is best suited for the warm days where you can wear either shorts or pants and then in the evening you start to get those first crisp breezes from fall.  This beer is made for just that.  The reason why I will be making this one pretty soon is, I like to let this one sit for a bit and I try not rush it too much.  The Maple syrup can bump up the ABV quite a bit depending on how much you add and it may taste a bit hot if it gets rushed, so giving it some time really does help it out.

If you plan on doing this recipe all-grain we do have a conversion chart.  There is one thing to note though.  Since this recipe does have amber malt extract take the conversion of all-grain, 95% of that is Pale malt and 5% is going to be 80L.

MAPLE PALE ALE

1 lbs 40L

4 lbs Amber LME

3 lbs Light LME

6 oz Maple Syrup (last 5min)

1 oz Mt. Hood (60 min)

.5 oz Simcoe (30 min)

.5 oz Cascade (15 min)

.5 oz Cascade (dry hop)

.5 oz Simcoe (dry hop)

WLP 001

OG: 1.056

FG: 1.013

SRM: 14.59

IBU: 37.2

ABV: 5.7%

Directions:

• Steep grains in about 2.5 gallons of water for 30min
• Take out grains
• Add LME
• Bring to boil
• In the beginning of the boil add 1 oz Mt. Hood hops
• Boil for 30min
• Add .5 oz Simcoe hops
• Boil for 15min
• Add .5 oz Cascade cops
• Boil for 10 min
• Add Maple syrup
• Boil 5 min
• End boil
• Cool down, put in fermenter pitch yeast.
• After 7-14 days rack into secondary and dry hop for 7-14 days
• Bottle using 5 oz of corn sugar and keep in bottles for 3-4 weeks before you drink

Conclusion

This can be a bit on the sweet side by adding a pound of 40L as well as using amber malt extract.  The beer will have a nice hop aroma by dry hopping and you should pick up on a faint maple syrup flavor.  If you have a keg, and plan on kegging this beer, you can always add 6 oz of maple syrup directly to your keg to give it a bigger maple syrup flavor.  Since you are adding hops to this beer in the secondary, it will give the illusion of a hoppier beer then what is actually there.   It’s a pretty good beer for those that are into IPA’s but want to please friends that do not have the same appreciation for hops that you do.

Related Post

Maple Syrup Pale Ale Recipe

Maple Syrup Wheat Recipe

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