A Tale Of Two Beer Kits

The first two beers planned came as a result of kits - I've worked away from needing kits to build a beer, having a functional homebrew store a mile away and enough experience to know what I want inside a style definition.

But, with hops and malt going up, it was a good time to buy - and the APA and Dubbel kits were on order from ebrew.com.

Some irregularity led to a backorder shipment, followed by an irregularity in the selection of ingredients:

APA
6 lb DME
2 cups (~8 oz?) Crystal 120L
1.75 oz Hallertau hops (pellets)
2x 0.5 oz Cascade hops (full flower)
White Labs WLP001 California Ale Yeast

Dubbel
6 lb DME
1/2 lb Belgian Carapils
1/2 lb Special B
1/2 lb light Candi Sugar
1/4 lb dark Candi Sugar
1 oz Hallertau hops (pellets)
1 oz Centennial hops (pellets)
1 oz Glacier hops (pellets)
White Labs WLP530 (Westmalle cloned Abbey Ale)

So, what's the big deal?
Let's start with hops. American Hallertau in an APA? Bizarre. Cascade to finish is fine, of course, and in the end bitterness is (in theory) bitterness, but it was an odd choice. It shows up again in the Dubbel against logic; Centennial makes no sense at all, and Glacier may be a suitable replacement for Kent Goldings in aroma, but it's still bizarre. They put together what they could put together, apparently, as opposed to filling to style, and for that reason, I reworked everything.

So, I now have 2.75 oz Hallertau sitting, and a trip to the brew store gave me 1 oz each Amarillo and cascade pellets. At the last minute, I remembered I had Centennial, and added those to the APA as well. It may have been too much, but it was fun and what better a time to burn a bunch of hops than your first pale ale attempt? I could've easily just gone with an ounce of cascade to add, thrown centennial at the 20 min mark, the other ounce of cascade at 15 and 10, and finished with the Glacier.

Then, grain: Crystal 120L seemed more like an economy addition than a realistic one. 120 gives a heavy caramel and even biscuit taste, where crystal 20 or 40 would give a much lighter sweetness and color. So, I threw in a half pound each crystal 20 and 40 without the intent of adding 120, but ended up putting 4 oz 120 in anyway. The result will probably be too sweet, but by color in promash it's within reason.

So, remaining after the APA: all I have left of the Belgian is DME, two half-lb specialty malts, candi sugar (which isn't really necessary - it could easily have been table sugar and a touch of color), 5 oz crystal 120L, and yeast. Which is fine, I have been underwhelmed by that kit, too. The kit may give way to another beer, like the southern english brown, along with the 120, and the yeast/candi sugar may have to sit for another round.