Cranberry Pale is a champion of fruit beers. As one would expect from this being one of the recipes from my sensei Steve Tillman, everybody loves this beer. Slightly fruity with a touch of tart, this beer shines during both christmastime and summertime. It’s great to brew around Thanksgiving and christmas when cranberries are super cheap and the beer lasts throughout the year. If you don’t drink it all first.
Grains
8oz Pale Malt
8oz Carapils
8oz Varavienne
Hops
1oz Cascade (8.0%AA) @60min
.5oz East Kent Golding (5.4%AA) @5min
Malt
8lbs Light LME
Yeast
White Labs English Ale Yeast (WLP002)
Adjuncts
1tsp Irish Moss @15min
Fruit
6lbs Cranberries (racked onto in secondary)
SG: 1.062
1wk: 1.011 (before adding cranberries)
2wk (Tertiary): 1.016
FG(5wk): 1.010
To prep the cranberries, steep them for 20min @150°. Then use a food processor or blender and blend until you have a hot, cranberry smoothie. Make sure to use a lid when blending hot liquids, otherwise it will literally spray everywhere. TRUST ME.
I can’t believe that I don’t have much more to say about this beer.
*Whenever I come back to CO, I get access to my oldest cache of homebrew beer. Each year I go back, I treat myself to a few of the bottles and year after year, I get to taste older and older beer. While Cranberry pale is not exactly a cellaring beer, I opened a bottle just now (03/05/17 and I bottled the beer 12/31/2012) and wanted to include a couple tasting notes. The clean tartness of the beer has remained, although to a lesser degree and it has become much more dry (not a dry from the tartness, closer to how a dry white wine would be). A bit of mustiness (guessing oxidation) of the beer, which brings a great funk to the beer and brings the taste closer to a lambic. Still retaining a touch of head, the carbonation consists of TONS of TINY little bubbles, very similar to a champagne. It is incredible each time I try one of these old beers and see the development that very few people ever get to experience, made that much more special with knowing that there is one less bottle of a beer made over four years ago left of this in the world now (I believe I have 2 left now). The cranberry aroma and flavor has surprisingly stuck around over the years. I just bought & made the equipment necessary to brew all grain and this beer will be my first personal beer (my first brew will technically be another batch of Sahti I was commissioned to brew for the Nordic Heritage Museum) and I can’t wait to get another full batch of this beer in my closet.