Youngs American Pale Ale (APA)

[merrydown]

Yeah, the APA is very good and fruity I thought. It lasted well, while it lasted :) I wasn't keen on the Coffee Porter, but that's personal taste, not quality. The Youngs range came as a personal recommendation to me, which I pass on myself. It is also backed by hundreds of people online

The packaging of their own brand is tolerable, but they always give the opposite advice to that I read online.

I used to make wine and they were always advising making, fining and bottling without delay at each stage, where the winemakers were all advising bulk aging.

The same with beer, they say it is stupid to wait before bottling or kegging.

Their Punk IPA clone kit hop-sachet is to be added up front, not at the end too. I'm going to give it a shot as per instructions, but I don't know what to expect there...

 

[Longhead23]

I bottled this Young's American IPA last night. I have to say it smelt great and tasted fantastic, and it is obviously not carbonated yet. Two weeks in the warm, and the two weeks in a cool place as advised. Can't wait. I tasted so much better than I expected. Thoroughly recommend this kit.

 

[-Bezza-]

I bottled this Young's American IPA last night. I have to say it smelt great and tasted fantastic, and it is obviously not carbonated yet. Two weeks in the warm, and the two weeks in a cool place as advised. Can't wait. I tasted so much better than I expected. Thoroughly recommend this kit.

The APA is darker, although mine seems to be darker than some of the pictures earlier in the thread. Admittedly the pint I poured needed to condition a bit longer, but intrigued by the colour variation. Perhaps some of the earlier pics were for the IPA too - the acronyms are certainly confusing!

 

[Longhead23]

Ahhh. Not really confusing. I just should have read it better!!

 

[-Bezza-]

Ahhh. Not really confusing. I just should have read it better!!

No, no - definitely confusing, given the IPA is called "American IPA".

 

[GhostShip]

That's it sorted then. Will chuck the hops in next Wednesday and then bottle on Saturday morning.

Looking forward to trying this one - if it's as good as the IPA, then I'll have no complaints.

 

[merrydown]

I found the APA different to the IPA. It took longer to mature and was lovely and fruity. I quite liked the immature flavours even. It was just as good as the IPA and arguably more flavoursome for me.

 

[GhostShip]

That’s my APA bottled and everything washed and cleared away. Not a bad way to spend a grey, wet, miserable Sunday afternoon.

Couldn’t believe the amount of debris that was caught by the muslin bag over the end of the siphon tube. The bag was absolutely full and looked like it might burst!

Anyway, there’s something very satisfying at having another batch of beer done and secondary fermenting away in the back room.

It smelled great and I’ll come back with a review in a few weeks.

 

[Jakeyboi]

I knocked this kit up last week on a whim as I was passing a homebrew shop and kegs are running dangerously low. I brewed to 21.5l and ended up with an og of 1058. These kits always seem to end up much higher abv than stated on the box, I must make a mental note to reduce the dextrose if I ever do another one. Still looking forward to it even if it gets me smashed . Will post a review in a few weeks

 

[thesteve]

Has anyone tried brewing this kit without adding the brewing sugar?? Thought it might lower the ABV but did not want to wreck the kit totally?

 

[GhostShip]

Has anyone tried brewing this kit without adding the brewing sugar?? Thought it might lower the ABV but did not want to wreck the kit totally?

Not quite sure what you mean here. If you don't use the brewing sugar supplied, then you'll have to replace it with something else, otherwise you won't get a decent secondary fermentation and certainly won't get any carbonation.

Sorry if I've misunderstood what you're trying to do.

 

[Clint]

The supplied bag of sugar,iirc,is to achieve the kit abv,if you leave it out the beer will be weaker.
You will still need to add more sugar for carbonation when bottling.

 

[thesteve]

Just wanted to lower the ABV a little and wondered about just putting in the liquid malt extract on its own into the primary fermenter rather than adding the brewing sugar as well?

 

[thesteve]

If I wanted to knock down the ABV to about 4% how much of the sugar do you think I would need to add?

 

[Clint]

What's the weight of the malt and sugar? You could always add more water to the fv and get more beer...

 

[thesteve]

Clint, the malt is 3kg and the sugar is 650g. The kit ABV is 5.6%. Don't think there would really be any room in the fv for more water.

 

[Clint]

From my notes...200g dextrose gives approx 0.44%,500g gives approx 1.10%....

 

[thesteve]

Going by that then Clint it looks like I would be pretty close to a 4% beer if I just left all the sugar out. Do you think that would make much difference to the taste?

 

[Clint]

No not much,the sugar would maybe dry it out a bit.

 

[GhostShip]

Sorry, @thesteve I was forgetting that you add sugar at the first stage with that kit - I assumed you were talking about the bottling/barrelling stage.

All I would say is that those are premium kits and generally produce a really good result. Given the time and effort that goes into producing a kit beer, you mess around with it at your own risk!