Red Car Brewing’s Two Rail Pale Ale
If you are looking for a classic American pale ale with a Cascade, Willamette hop profile, here is a great recipe. While it is called a pale ale, this beer will really land you more in the red/amber category than pale.
Two Rail Pale Ale clone
Red Car Brewing Co., CA
(5 gallons/ 19 L, extract with grains)
OG = 1.054 FG = 1.011
IBU = 36 SRM = 13 ABV = 5.6%
Ingredients
6.6 lbs. (3.0 kg) Coopers Light, unhopped, malt extract
0.5 lbs. (0.22 kg) light dried malt extract
9 oz. (0.25 kg) crystal malt (60 °L)
2 oz. (57 g) chocolate malt
6.5 AAU Nugget hops (60 min.) (0.5 oz./ 14 g of 13% alpha acid)
4 AAU Willamette hops (30 min.) (0.8 oz./ 23g of 5% alpha acid)
1.7 AAU Cascade hop pellets (5 min.) (0.3 oz./8.5g of 5.75% alpha acid)
1⁄2 tsp. yeast nutrient (15 min.)
White Labs WLP002 (English Ale) or Wyeast 1098 (English Ale) or Lallemand London ESB Ale yeast
0.75 cup (150 g) of corn sugar (for priming)
Step by Step
Steep the crushed grain in 2.5 gallons (9.5 L) of water at 149 ºF (65 ºC) for 30 minutes. Remove grains from the wort and rinse with 2.0 quarts (1.9 L) of hot water. Add the liquid and dried malt extracts and bring to a boil. While boiling, add the hops as per the hopping schedule. During the boil, use this time to thoroughly sanitize a fermenter. Add the yeast nutrient after 45 minutes of boiling. Now add the wort to 2.0 gallons (7.6 L) of cold water in the sanitized fermenter and top off with cold water up to 5 gallons (19 L).
Cool the wort to 75 ºF (24 ºC). Pitch your yeast and aerate the wort heavily. Allow the beer to cool to 68 ºF (20 ºC). Hold at that temperature until fermentation is complete. Transfer to a carboy, avoiding any splashing to prevent aerating the beer. Let the beer condition for one week and then bottle or keg. Allow to carbonate and condition for two additional weeks and enjoy your pale ale.
All-grain option: This is a single step infusion mash. Replace the malt syrup and dried extract with 10.5 lbs. (4.76 kg) of 2-row pale malt grain. The specialty grains remain the same. Mix the crushed grains with 4.5 gallons (17 L) of 167 °F (75 °C) water to stabilize at 149 ºF (65 ºC) for 60 minutes. Sparge slowly with 175 ºF (79 ºC) water. Collect approximately 6 gallons (23 L) of wort runoff to boil for 60 minutes.
Reduce the bittering hop (60 mins) and flavor hop (30 mins) amounts to 0.4 oz (11.3 g) and 0.75 oz (21.3 g) respectively to allow for the higher utilization factor of a full wort boil. The remainder of this recipe is the same as the extract with grain recipe.
