Trick My APA

[Jbug]

I've been wanting to try the AB clone... I can't get the real deal here in Louisiana... I guess I missed the rebrew episode...
P.S. We miss out on a shit load of great beer here but, I'm starting to enjoy my own a lot more than what I can pick up at my local beer store!

[thatguy314]

Use an interesting malt. A guy in my club made an all-vienna pale ale. It was surprisingly good. Make sure to mash extra dry when you do all that maltiness.

As far as blending hops, there are a couple that work really nicely. If you like amarillo, try blending it with an equal amount of palisade. Palisade sucks on its own and is very low aroma (think Saaz) but when blended with amarillo you get all these subtle notes like orange creamsickle that really support the base amarillo character.

Also try hop-bursting. Put all your hops in the last 30 minutes. It works nicely. Just give it a good malt backbone to support all those hops.

Do something different. Try making a pale ale with continental malts and hops. Ever had a beer dry-hopped with hallertau or saaz?

[Jbug]

I havnt dry hopped with those guys yet... I've only dry hopped one beer ( I loved the results).... I've been reading on hop bursting, sounds like something I would like to try... You hear people talking about the different layers of hop flavor. I don't know if my pallet is able to dissect all that yet but it sounds good and I like a bit of a challenge on brew day. So, I think I'll do the hop bursting soon

[thatguy314]

I havnt dry hopped with those guys yet... I've only dry hopped one beer ( I loved the results).... I've been reading on hop bursting, sounds like something I would like to try... You hear people talking about the different layers of hop flavor. I don't know if my pallet is able to dissect all that yet but it sounds good and I like a bit of a challenge on brew day. So, I think I'll do the hop bursting soon

Try amarillo, centennial, cascade as a layered flavor. I find centennial to be something inbetween the two flavors. I think it'll create a nice nuance.

But if you want to learn your flavors, brew some beers. Do some single hop pale ales where you use the same hop for bittering, flavor, and aroma additions. You'll really learn the character of hops that way. If you have some friends, try to brew a standard recipe and have everybody do something a single hop pale ale where the only changes you make are the hop you use, and the amount in the bittering addition (to normalize IBUs). Keep it as simple a recipe as possible, and use extract to make it easily replicatable. I'd suggest something like 6 pounds of DME and 1 pound of crystal 40. It's not going to necessarily be the world's most interesting beer, but it's clean and will showcase the hops in the framework of a basic pale ale.