Stone Pale Ale retired - recipe released

[Ibasterd]

In the wake of Stone retiring it's classic Pale Ale, they have listened to fan outcry and released the recipe. I may give this a go in the spring.
http://blog.stonebrewing.com/index.php/ ... le-recipe/

[John Sand]

Cool! Thanks!

[philm00x]

Saved to BeerSmith! Thanks!

[LouieMacGoo]

I saved the recipe. I think I might just upload it to Kit Lab when they open up and make some money!


I'm totally kidding of course but I can see someone trying to do that.

[Kealia]

That's pretty cool of them to do that. Stone's Pale Ale was never my favorite and now that I see the recipe it might be because of the yeast they use. I'm typically not a huge English yeast fan.

I did find this interesting: "Hold the mash at 156°F for 20 minutes."

But again, I think it's really cool of them to do this.

[philm00x]

156 is a pretty high mash temp, for medium-full to full body. Not something I expect for a pale ale. Although, with the specs provided, I would have to achieve 66% mash efficiency with a mash temp of 154*F to get the proper OG and FG. I would probably use a packet of S-04 dry yeast because... just because!

[MadBrewer]

It's interesting to see them retiring these staple beers, this is what the 3rd one recently? I know there's a bigger demand for their other Ales but I'm sure the Pale Ale and Levitation are still sellers. I think Stone Pale Ale and Levitation were the first Stone beer I tried.

As far as recipe, I have the Stone book and they have several recipes in there. Most call for a very short mash rest...I don't understand where they are advising brewers to mash for 10-20 minutes? I brewed this recipe and I had nothing like Stone Pale Ale. I even followed the water profile. I did a full 60 min mash and I mashed a little cooler because I thought 156* was too warm for this kind of beer, but with that yeast you need a higher mash temp so I should have gone with the 156*. Mine was much darker, more of a Brown than that deep Red. It also didn't have the hop character. I look at that recipe and there's barely any hops in it. I would double or nearly triple those amounts to make it anything like Stone Pale Ale and have the hops stick around.

[BlackDuck]

Anybody have any thoughts on why they are retiring some of their mainstays?

That recipe does look interesting...from the 20 minute mash to the hop schedule. I know commercial equipment is different from homebrewing equipment, but a 20 minute mash at 156 doesn't make much sense to me. Unless of course we homebrewers have been doing it wrong for all these years. And I always thought their pale ale was pretty flavorful, but I just can't see all that flavor coming from the hop schedule they are using.

So that would lead me to see how MadBrewer would say how his didn't come out anything like Stone PA.

[Beer-lord]

I like choice and selection but keeping up with Stone beers has been challenging. It must be fun to have such play room with brewing and going from thought to discussion to brewing.
But, I think they can see that with all the options we have for craft beers, the bottom sellers have to go.

[mashani]

RE: the Mash Time and Temp.

One thing I do know is that Beta-amylase although denatured at those temperatures, doesn't just immediately stop working/not work which lots of home brewers assume. It does still work. Just not as effectively/as long. But perhaps you could get 20 minutes of it still working ok along side the Alpha-amylase. And conversion does happen quicker at higher temperatures, and slower at lower temperatures. So who knows, it could be right/intended/good enough. If you were looking for some body in a lighter beer, and not being a FG/attenuation weenie like home brewers often are (ignoring that some beer styles don't really need more then 68-70%) then perhaps it could work fine. Considering it is using an English yeast, so apparently styled more like an English pale, then this could be totally as intended. But who knows. Or they could actually be doing a step mash and that's the second step and they forgot to publish the first step. Only they know.

RE: the brown vs. red color - the 90 minute boil in a pot could do that at home brew scale. IE if they are boiling it 90 minutes at commercial scale in a very large vessel, it may not caramelize the wort as much as you would be doing on your burner in a small pot. I'd try it again as a 60 minute boil and see how it works out before tweaking the grains.

RE: it turning out without the hop character - Ahtanum hops to me are boring. I'm actually surprised those are the only late hops in that beer. Unless their Ahtanum hops are radically different animals then the stuff I've gotten. So either they get the good/fresh Ahtanum and we get the old/suck Ahtanum (or at least I always do somehow)... I donno... I'm lazy, I'd at the very least end up rounding up those hops to full ounces at least, IE 1 and 1.25 instead of .78 and 1.whatever they have there... more hops is always better in pale ale LOL.