🍺 Top-down Brew: American Amber Ale

Enter the desired original gravity as specific gravity (1.0XX) or degrees plato (°P).

Specification: 1.045 to 1.060; 11.2 to 14.7 °P

Enter the desired volume at the end of the boil. The volume units can be either liters, gallons, or US barrels.

Select the preferred unit of measurement for the inputs and outputs. Metric uses liters, grams, and kilograms. US uses gallons, ounces, and pounds. US Barrels (31 gallons = 1 barrel) is in barrels, pounds, and ounces.

Enter the anticipated mash efficiency percentage. If this is not known, try the following values based on the sparge method: Steeping (50%), No-sparge or brew-in-a-bag (65 to 75%), Batch sparge (80%), or Continuous (fly) sparge (85 to 90%).

Enter the name, fermentable %, Lovibond, and yield (SG or percent) with comma separations.

The base malt can be either standard American two-row or pale ale malt. Medium crystal malts (40 or 80L) are typically 5 to 10%. Small amounts of darker crystal or roasted malts like chocolate malt, roasted barley, or black malt may be used for color (not roasted flavor). Highly kilned malts (Munich, Vienna, or Victory malt) or lightly kilned malts (Biscuit, melanoidin, etc.) can be about 10%.

• Beer-analytics.com American amber ale
• Brew United's grain database
• BYO magazine grain and adjunct resource

Enter the name, fermentable %, Lovibond, and yield (SG or percent) with comma separations. The grain and sugar percentages must add to 100%.

Sugars are not needed. Malt extract brewers can steep 5 to 10% crystal malts and 1 to 2% chocolate malt, then use a pale malt extract for the remainder of the fermentables. Another malt extract strategy would be to use mostly or all amber malt extract.

• BYO magazine sugar resource

Enter the desired bitterness in international bittering units (IBUs).

Style specification: 25 to 40 IBUs. The beer-analytics.com averages suggest a BU/GU of .59.

Enter the hop name, IBU %, AA %, and boil minutes with comma separations.

The hops are standard American varieties that have pine and citrus qualities: Cascade, Centennial, Columbus, etc. Hop flavor and aroma comes from late boil or possibly restrained dry hop additions. Cascade is often paired with Centennial, Amarillo, or any of the other suggested American hops.

• Beer-analytics.com American amber ale
• Brew United hop database
• BYO magazine's hop resources

Enter late boil additions like spices with the name and dosage (grams/liter), with a comma separation.

Spices are not needed for this style.

Enter dry hops with name and dosage (grams/liter), with a comma separation.

Dry hopping with American hops is optional. It may be used for hop flavor and aroma.

• 0.5 to 0.9 g/l: Light
• 1.0 to 2.0 g/l: Moderate
• > 2.0 g/l: High

Select the yeast type, ale or lager.

This style typically uses a neutral American ale-type yeast, such as White Labs 0001 or Fermentis US-05.