Don’t miss our New England Beer & Baseball adventure in 2026! Click here to register!

recipe

Beginner’s Luck Pale Ale

All-Grain Recipe

(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.054  FG = 1.012
IBU = 32  SRM = 10  ABV = 5.5%

Ingredients

10 lbs. (4.5 kg) pale 2-row malt
1 lb. (0.45 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
6 oz. (170 g) acidulated malt (optional)
7.5 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g at 15% alpha acids)
7.5 AAU Centennial hops (10 min.) (0.75 oz./21 g at 10% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) Amarillo® hops (0 min.)
1 Whirlfloc tablet (10 min.)
LalBrew BRY-97 (West Coast Ale), SafAle US-05, or Mangrove Jack’s M44 (US West Coast) yeast
4.7 oz. table sugar (if priming)

Step by Step

Mash in with 4 gallons (15 L) of water at 163 °F (73 °C). Rest one hour at 152 °F (67 °C). For simplicity, this recipe uses a batch sparge: Start by running off all the wort into your kettle. Then add 4.5 gallons (17 L) of water at 170 °F (77 °C) to the mash tun, stir, rest 10 minutes, drain the wort. Bring to boil and add hops per schedule while doing a 60-minute boil. After the boil is complete, add the Amarillo® hops and give the wort a long stir to create a whirlpool. Let stand for 10 minutes.

Chill to 68 °F (20 °C), run off to a sanitized fermenter, add yeast (aeration or rehydration not required). Ferment at or near 68 °F (20 °C) for two weeks. At bottling, make a syrup of two cups of water and table sugar, boil, stir gently into wort in bottling bucket to prime. Keep bottles in a warm-ish (room temperature) but dark place for at least 10 days to carbonate. Alternately, if you use 16-oz. (470-mL) PET bottles, you may prime the beer with one standard (3 g) sugar cube per bottle.

Extract With Grains Recipe

(5 gallons/19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.054  FG = 1.014
IBU = 32  SRM = 13  ABV = 5.3%

Ingredients

6 lbs. (2.7 kg) light dried malt extract
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) crystal malt(60 °L)
6.5 gallons (24.5 L) reverse osmosis or distilled water
7.5 AAU Magnum hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./14 g at 15% alpha acids)
7.5 AAU Centennial hops (10 min.) (0.75 oz./21 g at 10% alpha acids)
1 oz. (28 g) Amarillo® hops (0 min.)
1 Whirlfloc tablet (10 min.)
LalBrew BRY-97 (West Coast Ale), SafAle US-05, or Mangrove Jack’s M44 (US West Coast) yeast
4.7 oz. table sugar (if priming)

Step by Step

This recipe uses the extract and steep method to produce a concentrated wort. Rehydrate malt extract in 3.5 gallons (13.2 L) of reverse osmosis (RO) or distilled water, bring to a boil, and add Magnum hops at the beginning of the boil. While the reconstituted extract is heating, place the crushed crystal malt in a grain bag and separately steep in 2 quarts (2 L) cool RO or distilled water, which you want to heat to 170 °F (77 °C) and hold for 30 minutes. At 15 minutes remaining in the main boil, remove the grain bag from the steep and drain the liquid from the bag. At 10 minutes remaining, pour the liquid from the steep into the main boil, return to a boil, add the Whirlfloc and Centennial hops, and boil for 10 more minutes. Follow the remainder of the all-grain recipe instructions, being sure to top up the fermenter to 5.5 gallons (21 L) with RO or distilled water prior to pitching yeast.

You might also like…

recipe

Flanders Red Recipe

Jamil Zainasheff provides readers with a recipe to recreate an authentically-styled Flanders Red. Just remember that patience is one of the

recipe

Chili Head Fred Barleywine

Marc Martin headed a group of Austin ZEALOTS who were out to make a name for themselves at the Dixie Cup. Marc, the Primary Fermenter, Corey

recipe

Birra Venezia

recipe

River’s Edge Brewing Co.’s Indubious Belgian-Style Dubbel Clone

Indubious, which won a silver medal at the 2015 Great American Beer Festival, is a Belgian-style dubbel brewed with caramel and aromatic mal