[BrewBurns]

So I am interested in brewing a pale ale with the addition of maple syrup.

Does maple syrup have a high enough sugar content to strictly use maple as the malt extract, or should I combine it with a certain percentage of other malts? It seems like the beer would be overwhelmingly 'maple-flavored' with using only maple syrup.

Are yeast nutrients needed too?

Hope I made myself clear!

[Jimmy K]

Maple syrup has plenty of sugar. But if you made something with only syrup it would not taste anything like beer. It would be completely dry and light bodied since all of the sugars are fermentable (like wine). It also wouldn't have residual sugars to balance hop bitterness. Also know that the 'maple' flavor is dependent on having sugars present and it will have more of a woody or (I've heard it described as) bourbon flavor after fermentation. For maple flavor I'd add it after fermentation.

Maybe find a honey ale recipe and replace the honey with syrup to start.

[davidgzach]

Without barley(or a grain subsitute), it's not beer.  You would be making Maple wine as suggested. 

+1 to finding a honey ale recipe and subbing in Maple syrup.  Try searching the recipe section in the forum for someone that has used it in the past as well.  Make a Maple Porter or something.

Dave

[Jimmy K]

I made a maple porter using the vanilla porter recipe from Brewing Classic Styles. I left out vanilla and added 1 qt syrup. It raised the abv, but that's OK. The vanilla porter recipe is similar to the regular porter recipe in that book, but without finishing hops. He said they were left out so the hop aroma doesn't compete with the vanilla. It worked very well.

[morticaixavier]

If making maple wine you will need added nutrients.

By the way the legal sugar contect of maple syrup is 60%+ if that helps.

It's not an overwhelming flavour. so you don't have too much worry about overwhelming any other flavour contributions.