F1-02-01-09: Finney's Pale Ale

Label inspiration: I wanted to name a beer after my grandfather's family.

This beer is named after my grandfather. Since some of my relatives were Pennsylvania Dutch, I called it a Pennsylvania Dutch Pale Ale (instead of India Pale Ale) in honor of them. This recipe is a lot better than the basic pale ale recipe that comes with the Mr. Beer kit. The label shows the beer as being 4.6% ABV but it's actually 6.0%.

From the Mr. Beer website:

(Mr. Beer’s American Devil IPA)

ABV: 4.6 + 1.4% Booster= 6.0%  SRM: 8  IBU: 58

2 cans of American Devil IPA

2 packets of dry yeast

1 package of Booster

Brewed this beer on April 3, 2011. I added the Booster before mixing the wort because I wanted more body to the beer and more alcohol. I hope pushing it up to 6% won’t make it too sugary. We’ll see.

I tried to follow all of the sanitizing instructions the best I could. I think I did fairly well. I’m looking to perfect this recipe, perhaps by adding DME, honey and/or hops in the future. I hope I can do this recipe once a year.

Bottled Finney’s Pale Ale on April 17, 2011.

I really haven’t been keeping track of making beer only because I was in the process of moving at the time I did the last two beers, but this beer went fast. VERY FAST. Adding the Booster helped, I think and I’ll be adding it to my other batches for sure.

UPDATE:  I couldn't keep this beer in the refrigerator! This was my best beer to date, by far. I have a relative growing some hops for me so maybe for the next batch I'll add some homegrown Cascade hops...

It's hard to make beer any better than this, in my opinion. I love IPAs ans I thought this beer tasted like an IPA you'd get from the store. It wasn't overly hoppy and I like really hoppy beers, but it was still very good.

OVERALL SCORE: 10 of 10!!!!