Celebration Ale Clone

Description:

There was an early issue of Amateur Brewer (post-Eckhardt, pre-American Brewer, I believe) that had a recipe for Celebration Ale provided by one of the SN brewers.

Here is a 10 gallon version, with a little fiddling. I’m pretty sure they harden the water with gypsum; I know I had to with Portland’s soft water.

I’ve subsequently made versions I liked better, although they weren’t as true to the original. I substituted some dextrine malt for some pale (about 2 pounds), and use British caramel malt rather than (yuk) American. Problem is, it’s richer and darker that way.

You can’t really over-hop this beer, and my experience was that the dry-hopped beer reached its peak after about 4 weeks in the keg. Problem was that the beer usually ran out at about that point. The SN brewer made a similar comment about aging it on the hops (4-6 weeks, I remember) before kegging/bottling.

Ingredients:

• 20# Klages (Harrington’s these days)
• 3# Briess crystal malt
• 2 oz Chinook after 30 min
• 1.5 oz Cascade after 60 min
• 1.5 oz Cascade at end-boil
• 1 oz Cascade dry-hopped
• Wyeast Chico ale yeast

Procedure:

Mash at 150 F. for 90 minutes.