Rusty Pig Hoppy Amber Recipe (20 L)

This beer is a modern American Amber Ale with a solid malt backbone and considerably more hop character than the name “amber ale” might make you expect.

Ølbrygging AS / Rusty Pig Brewery

Rusty Pig Hoppy Amber

A 20 L all-grain American Amber Ale developed by Rusty Pig Brewery in collaboration with Ølbrygging.no, combining a layered amber malt profile with Columbus and Simcoe in the boil and a generous Citra and Sabro dry hop.

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Batch: 20 L

Ingredients Equipment Method Video Notes

Ingredients

  

Malt Bill

• 4 kg Viking Malt Pilsner 73.4%
• 0.8 kg Viking Red Active 14.7%
• 0.4 kg Simpsons Imperial Malt 7.3%
• 0.25 kg Simpsons Crystal Dark 4.6%

Hops

• 10 g Columbus (Tomahawk) 14% AA · Boil · 60 min
• 25 g Simcoe 13% AA · Boil · 10 min
• 100 g Citra 12% AA · Dry Hop · 7 days
• 100 g Sabro 15.8% AA · Dry Hop · 7 days

Yeast

• 2 pkg Lallemand (LalBrew) Windsor Yeast Dry · 15–22 °C

Other Additions

• 0.5 items Protafloc Boil · 15 min
• 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrients Boil · 15 min

Water

• 18.22 L Mash water
• 11.02 L Sparge water

Equipment

• Grainfather G30

Method

 

Mash

1. Mash at 68 °C for 60 minutes.
2. Mashout at 78 °C for 15 minutes.
3. Sparge with 11.02 L of water. Target pre-boil volume is approximately 25.92 L.

Boil

1. Boil for 60 minutes.
2. At the start of the boil, add 10 g Columbus (Tomahawk).
3. With 15 minutes remaining, add 0.5 items Protafloc and 0.5 tsp Yeast Nutrients.
4. With 10 minutes remaining, add 25 g Simcoe.

Fermentation

1. Primary at 18 °C for 14 days.
2. Dry hop with 100 g Citra for 7 days.
3. Dry hop with 100 g Sabro for 7 days.

Video

Notes

Brew Specs

• Batch Size: 20 L
• OG: 1.061
• FG: 1.017
• ABV: 5.8%
• IBU: 28
• Color: 26 EBC
• Carbonation: 2.3 vol CO₂

I brewed this as batch #30 on my Grainfather G30. The recipe calls for a 60-minute mash, but for this batch I deliberately mashed for two hours as an experiment. The recipe card above still shows the original recipe.

I wrote up the full Hoppy Amber brew day on the Grainfather G30 separately.

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About This Recipe

Rusty Pig Hoppy Amber is an American Amber Ale from Rusty Pig Brewery and Ølbrygging, with a solid malt backbone and plenty of hop character from Columbus, Simcoe, Citra and Sabro. This Rusty Pig Hoppy Amber recipe is built for 20 L and works particularly well if you like amber ales on the hoppier side.

The result is designed around citrus-forward hop aroma, a balanced malt profile and that deep amber color that makes the style so appealing. It is the kind of beer I like with BBQ, pizza or just as an easy-drinking hoppy amber when I want something with more malt character than a pale ale.

Brewing Notes

I brewed this as batch #30 on my Grainfather G30. The recipe itself targets an OG of 1.061 and FG of 1.017, while my batch came in a little higher at 1.066 and finished at 1.020, giving me about 6.0% ABV. The measured mash efficiency was 80%, with an overall measured efficiency of 79.2%.

The recipe card above shows the recipe targets, rather than replacing them with the numbers from my individual brew day. I prefer keeping those two things separate: the recipe tells you what to aim for, while the brew-day numbers show what actually happened on my system. The batch was fermented at 18°C and dry hopped with 100 g Citra and 100 g Sabro.

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