Pale Ale Hiztorical blog

Pale ale is a product of English brewing innovation.

The innovation of American craft beer is a product of pale ale.

Go figure.

Pale ale traces it's roots to early 17th century England - where maltsters were transitioning from wood to coal in it's malt kilning process. The use of wood made controlling the heat difficult and as a result most malted barley was scorched and produced a darker malt and beer. With the cleaner burning coal (coke) a more-even heat could be employed and thus a more "pale" malt was produced. This pale malt produced fine, heady pale ales that were usually reserved for only the wealthy and awesome. Eventually pale ale would also become "Pale ale as prepared for India" - but we will save that for another historical blog entry (beer #3).

Here in 'merica pale ale was influential in the craft beer revolution. Liberty Ale (Anchor, 1975) and Sierra Nevada's Pale ale (1980) paved the road for the craft beer resurgence that we know today (I can say on a personal note that these were some of the first craft beers I've ever had). Sierra Nevada pale ale is the 2nd most purchased craft beer today (2nd only to Boston Lager) and is allegedly Trey's favorite beer.

American pale ale is usually brewed from american 2-row malted barley with a variety of specialty character malts added in (caramel malt comes to mind). I like to add a bit of caramel with some munich or vienna for a bit of malty/breadiness. Hops are usually generously applied of the "C" variety and provide a citrusy/spicy blend in both flavor and aroma. Yeast is usually clean finishing but can provide some esters if you're into that sort of thing.

So that is pale ale. The pale that I've chosen to brew is a bit of an amalgamation of ingredients from different parts of the world (UK, NZ, US, Germany), but it should work well. We will find out in a few weeks either way. For now I can tell you that it smells amazing from the fermenter - kind of like toast with marmalade on it. It should be pretty awesome - 3 more weeks and we will be drinking it! Fuck-yeah!