Mt. Hood/Centennial/Willamette Pale Ale

How about magnum, Willamette and Crystal ?

 

Willamette and cascade go great, so I suspect Willamette and centennial would also go great. I doubt there's anything that doesn't go with Willamette. Don't skimp on the Willamette either, especially if you want complexity. These are pretty subtle, but still have great flavor and aroma if you are generous with them.

No idea on Mt Hood. Never used them.

 

Used Mt. Hood in the Brewers Best Smoked Porter and Belgian Caramel Wit kits primarily for bittering and used 1oz @ 10 min on a smoked ale I did recently. The porter I can't say much cause it was my first homebrew and it didn't last very long at all! I still have a couple BCW's and almost all the smoked. The smoked is still greenish (only a month in the bottle) and The BCW is about 4 months old. The bittering on both is very subtle, not prominent at all. Decent hop for bittering. The smoked was more malt forward so the hops are very subdued. I'd keep the Centennial to a minimum on this one!

 

I know "Gandalph" has Crystal, used it once. Cant remember off hand which brew though....

 

If you're asking about balance, it would be helpful to know some other details of the recipe...OG, for example.

Don't have any experience with Willamette, but I might try at least a 2:1 ratio in favor of the Willamette and Mt. Hood if you're pairing them with Centennial, and you don't want the Cent. to dominate the hop profile. Good luck.

 

^
Hm...why the chocolate malt?

I'd shoot for 45-50 IBU's. Get all your IBU's from late additions, 20 min. and under. Dry hop with 2 oz of Willamette and maybe .5 oz Centennial.

Sounds like it'd make a tasty beer. The only question mark for me is the chocolate..but, hell, what do I know?

Good luck!

 

Fair enough. I prefer my pales a bit on the paler side, though

 

If you're only going to use 0.5 at 15 and 0.5 at 5, you're going to wind up with a pretty darn subtle beer. Depending what you're aiming for, I'd suggest 1.5 oz of willamette at 5, and 1 oz at 15 (to maintain this subtle level of hopping). However, I'd personally use more hops for a pale, something like 1 oz cent or cascade at 15, 1 oz willmette at 15, 1 oz cascade or cent at 3, 2 oz willamette at 3.

 

You could dial back the bittering hops at 60 to get a lower overall bitterness. BJCP guidelines on beersmith list APA as 30-45 IBUs, which I personally tend to think is a good range for my pale ales. No reason you couldn't dial the overall bittering to the low end, with mostly late hops as the source. Kinda like hop bursting, but without trying to make a full IPA-hoppy beer.

 

I tried to restrain you!! .... well not really! HAHA!

 

My APA's are hoppy little bastards, yours can be too!

 

Heck, you're still in apa territory by today's standards. Besides, we've all had apa's that were hoppier than some IPAs. Dale's pale ale comes to mind. That hop combo will be amazing, BTW. You will be happy you picked up all that willamette, it will compliment the other hops very well.