American-Style Strong Pale Ale

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Location:North American
Category:Ale
BJCP Comparable Category:22B - American Strong Ale

Beer Style Description

This is the description of how the American-Style Strong Pale Ale style of beer should taste, feel and look. However, there may be perfectly fine beers in this style that fall outside of these ranges and descriptions. This information is just to show the most commonly accepted ranges for the American-Style Strong Pale Ale beer style.

  • Color: Pale to copper
  • Body: Medium
  • Malt Flavors & Aromas: Low caramel malt aroma is allowable. Low level maltiness may include low caramel malt character.
  • Hop Flavors & Aromas: High, exhibiting floral, fruity (berry, tropical, stone fruit and other), sulfur, diesel-like, onion-garlic, catty, citrusy, piney or resinous character that was originally associated with American-variety hops. Hops with these attributes now also originate from countries other than the USA.
  • IBUs/Bitterness: High
  • Fermentation Characteristics: Fruity esters may be low to high. Diacetyl should not be present.
  • Common Ingredients: Well-modified pale malt as a base; some character malts would be appropriate, medium to dark crystal malts are typical. Citrusy or piney American hops are common, although any American or New World varieties can be used in quantity, provided they do not clash with the malt character. Generally uses an attenuative American yeast.
  • Commercial Examples: Bear Republic Red Rocket Ale, Great Lakes Nosferatu, Terrapin Big Hoppy Monster, Port Brewing Shark Attack Double Red, Stone Arrogant Bastard

Brewing Properties of American-Style Strong Pale Ale

These are the functional brewing properties of American-Style Strong Pale Ale beers, as descided by the Brewers Association. These guidelines reflect, as accurately as possible, the historical significance, authenticity or a common profile in the current commercial beer market.

ABV
The alcohol by volume is shows the amount of alcohol this style of beer should have.
5.6 - 7.0%
Bitterness
The International Bittering Units (IBU) scale is used to approximately quantify the actual (not perceived) bitterness of beer.
40 - 50 IBUs
SRM
SRM is a scale for measuring the color intensity of a beer. Low SRM grains impart a pale straw color while higher values mean it will add a darker color to the wort. Learn more »
–
4 - 14 SRM
(8 - 28 EBC)
Original Gravity
Original Gravity (OG) is a measure of the sugar content in the wort before alcoholic fermentation has started to produce the beer.
1.050 - 1.060
Final Gravity
The Final Gravity (FG) is how much sugar is left over in the beer when fermentation is complete.
1.008 - 1.016

If you see an error in our data, please let us know!

Based on Brewers Association 2020 Beer Style Guidelines with changes. Used with permission of Brewer's Association.