BEER IS MEANT TO BE PLAYED WITH. If it weren’t, wouldn’t that be horribly boring? Or to put a finer point on it: horribly German? Since we’re not bound to a code of tradition or legal definitions of what a beer is, we’re free to make whatever beer we want to make. Face it, though; everyone has a favorite style or two, and we’re no different.
In this chapter, we’ll each look at a few of our favorites. We’ll provide a couple of recipes for each favorite, too. One recipe will be a base beer made for playing with the ingredients in the chapters that follow. To demonstrate the recipe’s flexibility, we’ll throw in a couple of simple variations that work like a charm. The second will be an experimental recipe that departs in some dramatic way from the base beer. And who knows what other shenanigans we’ll talk about.
The poor maligned American Wheat. Whatever did it do to get such a reputation for being boring? Well, it was probably a little boring. Its rise started in 1986 with Rob and Kurt Widmer at their eponymous brewery in Portland, Oregon. While they called their beer a Hefeweizen, it’s very clean and rumored to be brewed with an old Alt yeast strain. Because of this, it lacks the banana, clove, and bubblegum aromas of the classical Bavarian Hefeweizens. In the years since, a fair number of craft brewers adopted this innocuously sweet and middling style of American Wheat. It gives bartenders something to offer the megaswill consumer who isn’t ready for the bold flavors of a pale ale. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Good brewers can reclaim the American Wheat! Look no further than one of America’s great craft brewers, Bell’s Brewery of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Oberon, Bell’s summer staple, is ubiquitous across the Midwest and is both refreshing and interesting.
As part of the ongoing effort to expand the craft beer market, early micros threw everything at the wall to see what stuck. If you were drinking craft brew before 2000, you’ll surely remember the endless variety of blueberry ales, strawberry ales, and so on. However, a few breweries have hit on truly sublime fruit and wheat combinations. Just try 21st Amendement’s Watermelon Wheat. For a bigger, more radical version of wheat and fruit, try and get your hands on New Glarus Brewing’s Wisconsin Belgian Red. The idea you should take away is more fruit, always more fruit.
In recent years, craft brewers have even figured out how to slap a few hops into an American Wheat beer, because, well, that’s what craft brewers do. Time to stop in the Midwest again and mention Three Floyds’ Gumballhead. It’s stacked to the gills with big juicy grapefruit from the infusion of Amarillo hops. This is a real face slapper of a beer, which smartly utilizes a less harsh hop variety to great effect. While the same impact can be achieved from other low-cohumulone hops, the higher alpha varieties like Amarillo allow you to put less green matter in the kettle, meaning less chlorophyll to stand out against the sweetness of the wheat.
Adding fresh fruit to a wheat beer is your best bet. It will turn out much more nuanced and delicious than cloyingly sweet, since the yeast will eat up all that yummy fruit sugar. See page 164 for more, but whatever you do, never ever use artificial flavorings…especially cherry (unless you like cough drops). Okay, you can use artificial flavors, but use them sparingly as an enhancement to real fruit flavor instead of as the only source of it.
There are a few other things beyond fruit to consider. The sweetness of the wheat can carry an amazing amount of spice before blowing out the palate. Whether you’re interested in trying black pepper, clove, or chiles, you’ll find that American Wheat helps smooth out your mistakes more than other styles. Remember that traditional hefeweizens have a strong spicy phenolic character from the yeast. So an American wheat can take the punch of your spices and not seem jarring or out of place.
Unexpected roasty flavors, such as coffee, can also work. Think of that other German weizen, the dunkelweizen. In that case, the roasted malts add a cutting character to the profile. Naturally, this means you can follow the German example and use adehusked chocolate malt like the Carafa specials or reach a little and use a roasted wheat (such as Briess Midnight Wheat) or mix it up with Weyermann’s Roasted Rye. Or you can throw caution to the wind. Buy a pound of a medium-roast coffee. Grind it up and throw it in the mash during your sparge.
With all the sweetness that the beer gets from wheat, you should avoid flavors and aromas that also play up the sweet factor: sweet chocolate, red sweet apples, caramel, and so on. Too much sweetness becomes cloying and unpleasant. You may be able to survive a glass, but you’ll never make it through more. One of the worst beers I’ve had the misfortune of tasting was a white chocolate wheat beer. It was just sweetness built on sweetness with some extra sweetness tacked onto the finish.
A traditional Bavarian Hefeweizen consists of around 60 percent wheat malt and 40 percent pilsner malt. In the case of an American Wheat, you need to look at what your desired flavor is. Do you want a sweet and bready base to play off some spices? Then go ahead and use 60–70 percent wheat. If you want a crisper base beer, reverse the percentages and use 60–70 percent base malt to 30–40 percent wheat malt. Domestic pale malt is a reasonable substitution here, since you really want as innocuous a base flavor as possible.
Whenever you use more than 40 percent wheat, you should seriously consider an addition of rice hulls. I generally use a pound for each 5 gallons of beer I’m making. They don’t cost much and don’t add flavor (assuming you’re not oversparging). Rinse them well before adding them to the mash tun. Since wheat doesn’t have a husk, the rice hulls help ensure that your mash doesn’t become a wet ball of bread dough. It’s cheap insurance to avoid a brutal day of stuck sparges. If you don’t want to use them (out of masochism disguised as traditionalism), that’s totally your call, but I will be decidedly unsympathetic when your story of a horrible brew day comes to light.
Looking around at older advice about brewing, there are plenty of sources that advise a protein rest (for example, a 20–30 minute stop between 120°F–130°F) when using wheat to cleave haze-causing proteins. But with the rise of well-modified malts, a protein rest doesn’t carry the same impact as it used to and in fact may be detrimental to the head and body of your beer! Instead, I prefer to run a temperate mash (152°F) to create a finish that’s neither too sweet nor too dry.
Hops should remain neutral; a 60-minute bittering addition is usually all you need. I like a really clean hop such as Magnum. Of course, if you’re aiming to make a hoppy wheat, you need to up your game! I favor fruity, expressive hops for this sort of beer. This means varieties like the big juicy grapefruit bomb of Amarillo or the mango madness of a hop like Citra. I avoid hops like Chinook and Cascade, because I don’t like the palate dissonance caused by the hop harshness and the wheat sweetness.
The whole point of this beer is to be inoffensive and neutral. It turns out that it’s also amazingly easy to drink and makes a perfect summer beer. (Just make sure to name it something more enticing than Humdrum.) See the variations if you want to add some kick.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.057, 13 IBUs, 5.6% ABV
GRAIN BILL
6.0 lbs |
Domestic 2 Row Pale Malt |
6.0 lbs |
Wheat Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
153°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.25 oz. |
Magnum |
Pellet |
12.9% AA |
60 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY1010 American Wheat, WY1056 American Ale, WLP001 California Ale, or WLP320 American Hefeweizen
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment in the mid 60°sF to reduce esters and allow wheaty sweetness to predominate. Carbonate to 2.5–3.0 volumes for maximum fluffiness.
VARIANTS
• Citra Wheat: Add 1.0 ounce of Citra hops at flameout and allow to steep for 15 minutes while you whirlpool (covered). Ferment as normal. Taste prior to packaging and if desired, add another 1.0 ounce of Citra as a dry hop for 7 days.
• Jolting Joe Wheat: Mash the beer as usual. Add 1 pound of freshly ground light city roast coffee after you finish your mash recirculation. Proceed as normal.
• Midnight Wheat: Add 0.5 pounds of Melanoidin malt to the mash and cap the mash with 0.5 pounds of Briess Midnight Wheat Malt (or Weyermann Chocolate Wheat) during the sparge to produce a hearty-looking but easy-drinking dark wheat. This beer is a great base for vanilla and spice tones, like a dark chocolate dessert.
• Smoothie Wheat: There need be nothing hard nor boring about a fruity wheat beer. I like to take 1–2 pounds per gallon of achingly fresh fruit from the farmers’ market or frozen berries and purée them in a sanitized blender with juice from a freshly opened bottle. Add the purée to the beer in a large secondary vessel and allow to age for 2 weeks on the fruit. For extra kick, add a knob of ginger or fresh herbs to your blender! Feel all those invigorating healthy vitamins as you enjoy your beer!
I don’t use many of the older lower-alpha European varieties that people seek out, because I think the quality available to homebrewers is unspectacular and can actively ruin a beer. (This applies well beyond wheat beers; be careful with imported hops, as many that we get seem less than stellar. Always smell your hops!)
On the fermentation front, pitch a neutral American strain and keep it on the cooler side (64°F) to avoid warm fruity esters. It’s a balancing act, though; I’ve noticed that my wheat beers fermented colder or with lager yeasts get hammy. (It’s entirely possible I’m crazy.) Don’t forget to leave plenty of headspace. Wheats tend to throw more head than anything else I brew except Imperial Stouts.
The krausen collapsing is your cue to take to the flavoring cabinet. This is the best time to grab the fruit, the spices, the dry hops, or whatever you like. If you decide to transfer to secondary and are adding a flavoring with plenty of sugar (say, fruit purée), make sure to provide plenty of room for a lively secondary fermentation.
When it comes time to package the beer, I like to aim for 3.0 volumes to really pop the head and push the aromas of the beer.
Drew: This recipe comes from a fellow member of the AHA Governing Committee. I judged this beer once in competition and was impressed enough to give it a medal. The amazing part is that I normally hate chiles in beer. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that hot and beer don’t belong near each other except in the sentence It was hot, so I grabbed a beer to cool down. Turns out this beer had just enough chile heat to be interesting but not so much as to ruin a great base wheat beer.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.056, 15 IBUs, 5.6% ABV
GRAIN BILL
6.0 lbs |
Domestic 2 Row Pale Malt |
5.5 lbs |
Wheat Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
135°F |
15 minutes |
Rest |
150°F |
20 minutes |
Rest |
155°F |
15 minutes |
HOPS
0.55 oz |
Sterling |
Pellet |
7% AA |
60 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WLP011 European Ale or WLP029 Kolsch Yeast in a 1.5-L starter
PRIMARY FERMENTATION ADDITIONS
15 grams |
Fresh serrano or jalapeños, chopped with seeds |
15 grams |
Dried Pasilla chiles, chopped with seeds |
10 grams |
Dried chile de arbol, chopped with seeds |
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment on the chiles for 10–14 days. Check the gravity and heat level. The chile flavor should be subtle with just a hint of the burn. If more heat is desired, rack to secondary and add more chiles.
As we all know by now, India Pale Ale made its name as a stronger, hoppier version of pale ale. In the last twenty years, American brewers and hop varieties have taken over the style and spun off numerous variations. (Though it’s questionable how many of these new styles are really IPAs. Session IPA? Really?) But who are we to look down on styles that aren’t styles. Whether you’re interested in a bona fide Imperial IPA, or a marginal IPA like black, chances are you’re after something where the hops stand out.
From something that began as a beer that would survive a trip from England to India, IPA has branched out and evolved into many versions. Anchor Liberty Ale, introduced in 1975, is cited by the brewery as being the first modern American IPA brewed since Prohibition. It certainly set the mold for the American IPAs to follow with its use of whole cone Cascade hops all the way through the brew, including dry hopping. Since then, American IPA has seemed to be on a binge to create wilder and more extreme variations. The chart on pages 106–107 lists some of those variations along with their primary grains, hops, yeast, and any special ingredient. The specs come from the BJCP guidelines and a cross section of commercially available IPAs, but keep in mind that a lot of American IPA brewers do what they want to do, guidelines be damned! The ingredients in the chart are typical, but in no way inclusive.
There are a number of things you can try with IPA while remaining true to its origins. Perhaps the most obvious is to play with your selection of hop varieties. While American IPA has traditionally focused on the more intensely citrusy hops varieties, the newer, more fruity varieties are finding their way into IPA. Sometimes used as the sole hop and sometimes blended with older varieties, these hops can add flavors of mango, passion fruit, or strawberry to the IPA.
You can change the quality of the bitterness by adjusting your water. (See page 159.) You can also try hopping techniques like first wort hopping, hop bursting, or a hop stand.
But the malt side can be just as interesting. Changing up the grist from the typical combination of American 2-row pale malt and Crystal malts can have very positive and interesting effects on an IPA. Using 15–25 percent rye malt adds a great mouthfeel, a bit of spiciness, and a beautiful orange color. Using about 10–20 percent Victory or Special Roast malt will give the beer a really complementary nutty or toasty flavor. Using 10–25 percent of your grist as Munich malt will add to the malt backbone of your beer to balance the hops—assuming you want balance. In fact, an all-Munich grist for IPA can be a really nice change of pace. The increased maltiness and body can take an even higher hop load than you might normally consider for IPA. A little of Special B will add a bit of raisiny sweetness that really balances a highly hopped beer. Just don’t overdo it. You want a complementary, not dominating, flavor from these additions.
Last but certainly not least, yeast selection makes for a fun experimental IPA. The classic choice is something clean and attenuative like WY1056 American Ale or WLP001 California Ale. However, some of the best commercial IPAs stray from Chico. Obviously WY1450 is Denny’s Favorite. It provides a uniquely smooth mouthfeel while still letting the hops shine. A British strain of yeast is often used in American IPA. The slight fruitiness of some of these yeasts can complement the hoppiness, as long as the fruity esters of the yeast don’t take over the beer. WY1968 is often used by breweries such as Ninkasi for their American IPA. Lagunitas uses WLP002 English Ale, which is basically the same thing. Rumor has it that Stone started out with WLP007 Dry English Ale, but it has evolved over time into something different. But you know how rumors are!
You can also go further from the norm and try a Belgian yeast strain that will change the beer radically. Pay attention to flavors created by the yeast. A fruity British or Belgian strain might not be the best choice for every recipe. For Belgo-American IPAs, I prefer a strain that’s more phenolic than fruity. WY3522 Ardennes makes an IPA that has just such a phenolic edge to the flavor, which blends really well with American C hops like Chinook, Cascade, Centennial, and Columbus. Some people prefer the fruitier Belgian yeasts, like those sourced from Chimay or Rochefort. If you want to try those, consider using fruitier hops, like Citra or Mandarina Bavaria, to complement fruit with fruit. Or try splitting a batch with two different yeasts, one fruity and one phenolic, to see which you prefer.
First, a caveat: When it comes to flavors, it’s all about subjectivity. Since I’m writing this, it comes with my taste prejudices. What I say doesn’t work may well sound like IPA nirvana to you. Take that into consideration and experiment to find what you like.
Ingredients that clash with the hops in an IPA should be avoided. There are exceptions to this rule, but be wary of using a heavy hand with dark malts. Yeah, I know, there are “black IPAs” out there, but some of them are much more successful than others. Consider the integration of flavors, not just how black you can make it.
Drew: I would also advise against the use of smoked malts. I’ve made a number of attempts to blend smoke into a hoppy beer and have yet to find one that I feel works. The smoke phenols produce, for me, a jarring clash against the heady aroma and hop phenols of a well-made IPA.
English | |
OG and ABV | 1.050–75 |
Grains | Pale malt, maybe crystal or sugar |
Hops | English (Challenger, Fuggle, EKG, Target, Progress) |
Yeast/Special | English yeast, may be fruity or sulfurous |
Taste | Hoppy, moderately strong; hop character more earthy and subdued than American styles |
Examples | Fuller’s IPA, Samuel Smith’s India Ale, Brooklyn East India Pale Ale |
Classic American | |
OG and ABV | 1.056–75 |
Grains | Pale or pale ale malt, usually crystal malt, maybe some Munich |
Hops | Cascade, Chinook, Centennial, Columbus, Citra |
Yeast/Special | Clean American ale yeast, often sulfate additions to water |
Taste | Decidedly hoppy and bitter; often with citrus or tropical fruit notes from the hops |
Examples | Anchor Liberty Ale, Sierra Nevada Celebration |
Rye | |
OG and ABV | 1.060–75 |
Grains | Rye malt replaces some of the pale malt from Classic American |
Hops | American hops like Classic |
Yeast/Special | Clean American ale yeast, sulfates often added |
Taste | Bitter, with intense American hop aroma and some spiciness from rye; rye also contributes to full mouthfeel |
Examples | Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye, Founder’s Red’s Rye IPA, Harpoon Rich and Dan’s Rye IPA |
Session | |
OG and ABV | 1.040–45 |
Grains | Pale, pale ale or pils malt |
Hops | American hops like Classic |
Yeast/Special | American or English ale yeast |
Taste | Lots of hop aroma and flavor but reduced bitterness to complement reduced strength |
Examples | Founder’s All Day IPA, Boulevard Pop-Up Session IPA, Victory Hop Ticket, Stone Go To IPA |
Black* | |
OG and ABV | 1.050–90 |
Grains | Roast barley, black patent, chocolate, or other dark malt in addition to Classic grist |
Hops | American varieties |
Yeast/Special | American or English yeast, sometimes sugar |
Taste | Hop character typical of Classic or Imperial, roast character from dark grains |
Examples | Stone Sublimely Self Righteous, Deschutes Hop in the Dark, Firestone-Walker Wookie Jack |
*Cascadian Dark Ale, American Black Ale | |
Denny: Likewise with fruit. While I’ve heard from people who have used grapefruit or orange juice in an IPA to bump up the citrus qualities of the hops they used, something like a cherry or plum IPA may have you wondering what you were drinking when you came up with that recipe!
Drew: And you should be careful with hop varieties from year to year, from farm to farm, and even row to row! Hops are an agricultural product, and there can be considerable variation. For instance, that grapefruit/sandalwood scented Simcoe can instead be strongly catty and oniony in some crops from some suppliers.
East Coast | |
OG and ABV | 1.050–75 |
Grains | Classic IPA grains, may use more caramel malts than other styles |
Hops | American varieties |
Yeast/Special | American or English yeast |
Taste | Hop character very present but bitterness reduced compared to Classic or West Coast versions |
Examples | Victory Hop Devil, Founder’s Centennial IPA, Troegs Perpetual IPA, Surly Furious IPA |
West Coast | |
OG and ABV | 1.06080 |
Grains | Classic IPA grains, sometimes crystal, Munich, Vienna or other grains |
Hops | American varieties |
Yeast/Special | Clean American ale yeast, sometimes one of the cleaner English ale yeast |
Taste | Intense hop character almost like an Imperial IPA |
Examples | Ninkasi Total Domination, 10 Barrel Apocalypse, Stone IPA, Firestone Walker Union Jack IPA |
Imperial | |
OG and ABV | 1.070–90 |
Grains | Pale or pale ale malt; sugar often added to reduce body and distinguish it from American Barleywine |
Hops | American varieties like Classic IPA, but in larger amounts |
Yeast/Special | Clean ale yeast |
Taste | Bitter with big hop flavor; malt should not be cloying or intense |
Examples | Russian River Pliney the Elder, Lagunitas Hop Stoopid, Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA, Avery Maharajah |
Red IPA | |
OG and ABV | 1.060–85 |
Grains | Classic American grains with crystal, CaraRed, Muncih, Special B, others |
Hops | American and Australian varieties, both citrusy and fruity, including Galaxy, Topaz, Citra |
Yeast/Special | Clean American or English ale yeast |
Taste | A cross between an IPA and amber ale |
Examples | Sierra Nevada Flipside, Summit Horizon, Sam Adams Tasman Red |
White IPA | |
OG and ABV | 1.060–75 |
Grains | Pale or pils malt, wheat (malted and/or unmalted), limited specialty malts |
Hops | Both citrusy and fruity hops including Cascade, Centennial, Bravo, Citra |
Yeast/Special | Clean American or English ale yeast; special ingredients may include sweet orange and coriander |
Taste | A slightly subdued IPA with a soft tanginess from the wheat; some approaches fall into “Hoppy Witbier” territory |
Examples | Deschutes Chainbreaker, New Belgium Accumulation, Harpoon The Long Thaw |
There are almost as many strong opinions about what American IPAs should contain as there are homebrewers making them! I think the one thing everybody agrees on is that the hop character should be at the forefront, but consensus seems to end there! Here’s what I think.
The base malt should be either 2-row pale or pale ale malt, although pils malt can be used for lighter color and a less toasty flavor. Some sort of caramel malt will add body and maltiness to balance the hops. That can be anything from a very light malt like carapils to the more traditional 60L crystal, to a 120L crystal for deep malt flavor. Blending different crystal malts can add a depth of flavor. Many homebrewers feel like you should keep the cara/crystal malts to less than 5 percent of your total grist, but I don’t like rules like that. John Maier at Rogue Brewing has shown that larger amounts can be successfully used if you take factors like hopping and overall beer body into account. Many of my recipes follow that lead.
American varieties should dominate the hop profile. Using British or German hops along with them can increase the hop complexity and make for a more interesting beer.
Mash temperatures in the low 150s work well for IPA, although you can go lower for a longer time for a thinner body or use higher temperatures for more body and to increase the effects of the crystal/cara malts.
This IPA recipe will provide you a base for experimenting with grains, hops, yeast, and water treatment. Or just brew it and drink it as it is!
For 5.5 gallons at 1.072, 73 IBU, 7.5% ABV
GRAIN BILL
13.75 lbs |
2-Row Pale Malt |
1.38 lbs (22 oz) |
Crystal 60°L Malt |
8.0 oz |
Carapils Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
153°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
1 oz |
Mt. Hood |
Whole |
4.9% AA |
First wort hop |
0.85 oz |
Columbus |
Whole |
17.8% AA |
60 minutes |
0.5 oz |
Mt. Hood |
Whole |
4.9% AA |
30 minutes |
1.5 oz |
Mt. Hood |
Whole |
4.9% AA |
0 minutes |
1 oz |
Columbus |
Whole |
17.8% AA |
Dry hop |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
Water adjustment as necessary to reach 250 ppm sulfate
YEAST
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite or WY1056 American Ale in 3-qt starter
VARIANTS
• Wry Smile Rye IPA: Replace 3 lbs of the pale malt with 3 lbs of rye malt for a rye IPA.
• Oaked IPA (by Drew): Decrease the 60-minute Columbus addition to 0.5 ounce and ferment with a British strain like WLP005 British Ale or WY1275 Thames Valley. After primary fermentation, add 2 ounces of boiled oak cubes (French, medium toast) for 1–2 weeks. Go by taste. Package the beer at a slightly lower carbonation and you have an Englishy-oaky IPA!
Not that long ago, the bitterest Belgian beer you could find was DeRanke’s XX Bitter. It’s a nice beer—assertive, but compared to the new IPAs flowing out of America, it’s not that hoppy. No one could crack the code of how to marry aggressive American hops and Belgian yeast phenolics in a beer that really worked. Then Brassire Achouffe’s Houblon Chouffe did it by ditching the prototypical American hops (Chinook, Centennial, Cascade) and going with two newer varieties: the neutral Warrior and the low-cohumulone, grapefruity Amarillo.
Today, there are a slew of new hops available that break the mold of expected hop characters. For example, Nelson Sauvin, a New Zealand variety, smells like Sauvignon Blanc, and Citra brings pineapple and mango to the party. That’s not to say the usual American hops can’t work for you, given a complementary choice of yeast. The big thing to keep in mind with this recipe is to think of it as an American IPA with a Belgian yeast, rather than as a Belgian beer with American hops. I don’t use sugar because I want it to be more like an IPA than a tripel.
For 5.5 gallons (20.8L) at 1.080, 97 IBUs, 8.2% ABV
GRAIN BILL
16.0 lbs |
Pilsner Malt (use a continental brand) |
1 lbs |
Crystal 20°L Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
152°F |
90 minutes |
HOPS
1 oz |
Falconer’s Flight |
Pellet |
10.5% AA |
First wort hop |
1.15 oz |
Chinook |
Whole |
13% AA |
60 minutes |
1 oz |
Centennial |
Whole |
8.6% AA |
30 minutes |
1 oz |
Amarillo |
Whole |
8.9% AA |
10 minutes |
1 oz |
Simcoe |
Whole |
12.9% AA |
5 minutes |
1 oz |
Cascade |
Whole |
8% AA |
0 minutes |
0.5 oz |
Cascade |
Whole |
8% AA |
Dry hop |
0.5 oz |
Amarillo |
Whole |
8.9% AA |
Dry hop |
0.5 oz |
Simcoe |
Whole |
12.9% AA |
Dry hop |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
Water adjustments as necessary to achieve approximately 250 ppm sulfate and 50 ppm chloride
YEAST
WY3522 Ardennes in 2-L starter
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment for about 10–14 days, starting at 63°F–65°F. Check the gravity and let the temperature rise if near 1.012. That will make sure the beer reaches the 1.012 goal. When the beer is at or near 1.012, transfer to secondary and add the dry hops for 1–2 weeks. If you keg, dry hops can also be added to the keg.
VARIANTS
• Switch-Up Belgian IPA: Try different hop combinations, but keep a distinct American C hop character. Try using a combination of a fruity hop like Citra with a pungent hop like Chinook or Columbus.
• Light IPA: Use a neutral ale yeast and make an American IPA. The pils malt and crystal 20 will give you a lighter color and body than a traditional IPA, with less toastiness from the malt.
• Belgian Rye IPA: Replace part of the pilsner malt with an equal amount of rye malt. Make sure it’s at least 15 percent of your total malt bill.
Belgian Golden Strong Ale (BGSA) and Belgian Tripel are two sides of the same coin. The main difference between them is the yeast strain used. A tripel may also be a bit hoppier, whereas Golden Strongs tend to present more phenols and alcohol tones. Both styles make a great base for an experiment because they’re pretty neutral beers. The fermentables are often just Pilsner malt and sugar.
The character of both beers comes from the yeast. Even if you’re unfamiliar with these styles, you’re likely familiar with the yeast character in the classic examples: Duvel for Golden Strong and Westmalle for Tripel. Duvel yeast is reputedly derived from a Scotch ale yeast. Although it’s developed a bit of phenolic character through the years, it has very low esters and is a relatively clean yeast. Westmalle yeast is more phenolic and a little more estery than Duvel’s, but those characteristics are still pretty restrained. Westmalle’s fermentation schedule, which stays in the low- to mid-60°sF during fermentation, reduces the fruitiness that the yeast can produce when it ferments warmer.
These are Belgian styles. You can pretty much do what you want to do and call it what you like. That’s the Belgian beer spirit! Just remember that if you get too wacky, people may not recognize the base beer any more. And be sure to take a look at the recipe design chapter of this book for ideas on how to conceptualize what an ingredient might do when you add it.
Some Golden Strongs use Grains of Paradise for a peppery spice with a hint of fruit. White peppercorns approximate that flavor while bringing another dimension to the beer by taking that grains of paradise flavor and bumping it up a notch. Black peppercorns will add a definite spice to the beer. My favorite is a combination of red, white, and green peppercorns for a complex fruity spiciness that doesn’t overwhelm the beer.
Other herbs and spices can also work well in these styles. Coriander, rose hips, cumin seeds, or rosemary can make interesting accents. The important thing to remember is to use restraint. A tripel with a hint of rosemary can be great. A rosemary tripel, not so much!
Using a clear or golden Belgian candi syrup in place of the sugar can add depth to the flavor. Golden Belgian syrup can even add a bit of honeylike flavor to your beer. For that matter, try different types of sugars: piloncillo, demerara, and date sugars each lend their own character to the beer.
Fruit is pretty risky, since it can easily overwhelm or compete with the yeast in these styles. Also, dark malts are pretty much contrary to the style if that matters to you. Even if it doesn’t matter, think about how the roasty malt will interact with a Belgian yeast. If that kind of thing sounds good to you, consider brewing a Dubbel or Belgian Stout instead of trying to put roasted grains in a tripel or BGSA. Using a fruitier yeast that is typical for those styles will complement the roast malts.
BGSA/Tripel recipes should be based on good pils malt. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a Belgian pils malt. If you have good German Pils malt on hand already, that will be perfectly fine. With most modern malts, a protein rest isn’t necessary. You can do a step mash if you feel there’s a benefit. (Hey, that sounds like an experiment on page 210.) I simply use a 90-minute rest at 148°F. The longer-than-usual mash time assures full conversion at a lower-than-normal temperature. The temperature makes sure you get a very fermentable wort, producing a beer with the digestibility that Belgian styles are noted for.
Sugar is a necessity for both of these styles in order to keep the fermentability of the wort high. Don’t fall for the old line that sugar will give your beer a cidery flavor, whatever that’s supposed to mean! The sugar can be added at the beginning of the boil (my preferred method), the end of the boil, or even in the fermenter. As discussed on page 143, different sugars will give you different effects. But don’t be afraid to use good old table sugar, either cane or beet. There’s really no difference in the final product between those two, and they’re what Belgian brewers usually use. We don’t recommend the use of rock candi sugar. It offers no advantages over table sugar and is much more expensive. Candi syrups, on the other hand, are a great way to add flavor and fermentability to the beer.
Many people don’t realize that tripels are hopped to a fairly high bitterness level. I shoot for about 30 IBU in my Westcoastmalle Tripel. A too-sweet tripel is hard to drink!
It used to be thought that Belgian beers are fermented at high temperatures. That’s not exactly true. Most BGSA/Tripel styles will benefit from starting the fermentation in the mid-60°sF and holding that temperature for 3–7 days. After that, temperatures can rise to the mid-70°sF to ensure complete fermentation. Remember, we’re going for digestibility, so we don’t want a thick, sweet, underattenuated beer.
On the yeast front, after years of fighting the “make a starter, dammit” battle, there are still some brewers trying to use yeast pitching rates to affect the final character of the beer. The belief is that by pitching reduced amount of yeast, you’ll create a stronger ester and phenol profile in comparison to pitching at traditional ale rates. There’s truth here in that additional reproductive stress will cause an increase in stressor chemicals, but most homebrewers are already actively pitching at levels below what’s ideal, even when they use a starter. Remember that as a beer’s gravity goes up, so does the amount of yeast required. By the time we’re in beers of these strengths, it’s almost impossible to pitch too much yeast by making a starter.
As for trusting online yeast calculators—which a number of brewers use to plan their yeast starter sizes and timings—please remember that those calculators are helpful, but they’re estimations based on presumed normal factors. The right answer if you want to do this is to grab a microscope, a hemacytometer, and some methylene blue. We cover this technique on page 91.
Here’s my basic recipe for tripel, which I call Westcoastmalle. As you might guess, it’s my homage (I don’t use the word clone) to Westmalle Tripel.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.081, 34 IBUs, 9.4% ABV
GRAIN BILL
12.0 lbs |
Pilsner Malt (continental, not domestic) |
2.5 lbs |
Table sugar (cane or beet) |
Note: Add sugar any time after boil starts.
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
148°F |
90 minutes |
HOPS
1 oz |
Czech Saaz |
Pellet |
4.3% AA |
First wort hop |
1.25 oz |
Hallertauer |
Whole |
4.8% AA |
60 minutes |
0.5 oz |
Tettnanger Tettnang |
Pellet |
4% AA |
30 minutes |
1 oz |
Czech Saaz |
Pellet |
4.3% AA |
5 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY3787 Trappist High Gravity in 2-L starter
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment for about 14–21 days, starting at 63°F–65°F. Check the gravity, and if it’s near 1.010, let the temperature rise. That will make sure the beer reaches the 1.010 goal.
VARIANTS
• Kentucky Revival Tripel by Drew: Soak 1 ounce of American oak cubes in enough Bourbon to cover for at least 2 weeks, although longer is preferable. When the primary has completed, transfer the beer to a cold space (50°F) and add the oak for 2–4 weeks. The result is a smooth vanilla-and-bourbon tropical custard in your glass!
• Sugar Sugar Tripel: Replace the 3 pounds of table sugar with an equal amount of demerara, piloncillo, or date sugar to deepen the flavor and add fruit notes. You can also caramelize some honey, agave syrup, light candi syrup, or even liquid malt extract in a sauté pan and add that. Boil down the syrup or honey until it turns a little darker and is reduced by about 25 percent, then add it to the kettle at the end of the boil.
So unless you’re ready to perform viability counts, you should stick to the principle of more yeast and a complete ferment. Little is worse than a sickly sweet underfermented strong ale. You can also brew a smaller beer (OG <1.055)—say Belgian Blonde—and use that batch’s yeast cake to power your main ferment.
This recipe will yield a richly flavored tripel with a hint of spice on the finish. However, it’s still a highly drinakable beer due to the overall amount of sugars promoting great fermentability. You’ll also notice the bitterness is just a bit lower than the Westcoastmalle Tripel so that it doesn’t compete with the white peppercorns. A word of warning: Don’t enter this into a competition as a tripel. The honey and and peppercorns take it way out of style. That’s OK, though. You’ll want this one all to yourself anyway!
For 5.5 gallons at 1.081 OG, 24 IBU, 9.4% ABV
GRAIN BILL
12 lbs |
Pilsner Malt |
2 lbs |
Honey, caramelized (see Additional Instructions) |
1 lbs |
Demerara sugar, 10 minutes |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
148°F |
90 minutes |
HOPS
.5 oz |
Horizon |
Pellet |
12% AA |
60 minutes |
.5 oz |
Tettnanger Tettnang |
Pellet |
4% AA |
20 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
15 |
White peppercorns, coarsely cracked |
2 minutes |
YEAST
WY3787 Trappist High Gravity in 3-qt starter
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
You can use any type of honey you like; it doesn’t have to be expensive specialty honey. While the mash and boil are going on, add the honey to a wide pan and put on medium low heat. You want to reduce the honey by about 1/3–1/2, or until it begins to darken and become caramelized. Heat slowly to avoid scorching and keep an eye on it. It can go from golden brown to burned in just a few seconds. When you see it begin to change color, remove it from the heat immediately. Add the caramelized honey to the kettle at flameout. Chill wort to 62°F. Ferment at 65°F for 7 days, then let temperature free rise for another 10–14 days or until done.
To the modern American brewer completely divorced from the realities on the ground in the United Kingdom, the mild remains a mystery. Yet the modern dark mild is worth getting to know. It is a fine balancing act of malty sweet and just a modicum of roast with no overt hop character to get in the way. Then there’s the pale mild: subtract the roast and rock on.
At first glance, a beer best known for sessionability may not seem like the best style to play with, but the easy-to-quaff factor is actually a big reason I recommend it. A beer of low carbonation that is sweetish, but not cloying; toasted, but not acrid; rich, but not heavy; soft, but not wimpy can be a thing of beauty. In other words, it is a beer of such balance that it becomes a perfect canvas for flavors and techniques that are on the less extreme end of the spectrum.
In a time where music plays as loud as possible and even potato chips are battling a war of “xtremez,” it’s easy to forget that more does not necessarily mean better. Look at a modern song’s volume amplitudes, and you’ll see that the song’s dynamic range (difference of low volume to high volume) is tiny, and the sonic envelope is flattened into a dreadful buzz. Try the newest flavor of nacho-cheez-blasted corn chip and try to taste any hint of corn—or actual cheese. My point is that you can and should experiment with beer without overpowering your senses and sensibilities. Sometimes turning the volume down is the best way to fully appreciate a flavor or aroma.
Oh and there’s another great reason to brew a mild: speed. If you have kegs and can force-carbonate the beer, then you can put a mild on tap in as little as four days.
If you can imagine a coffee with the flavor you’re exploring, then you can incorporate it in a dark mild without much problem. Sweet flavors work especially well, including things we perceive as sweet—think Christmas cookie spices or a vanilla chocolate mild. Unlike many of the other styles in this chapter, a mild works really well with these sweet flavors.
A mild can also work well with warm spices, such as curry, Chinese five spice powder, or cinnamon. For best results with these hotter spices, you’ll want to make sure you retain a fair amount of body either with a less attentuative yeast strain or with the addition of flaked barley or oats. Alternatively, if you’re working at the upper end of the mild spectrum, you could add strong fruit, like sherry-soaked raisins or currants, to give a little winter warmth.
The pale mild category is a bit of an ahistorical odd duck; does it exist or is it just a fresh and less hopped bitter ale? We’ll leave that matter to our friends who are righteous experts in the practical history of the styles, like Ron Pattison of the Shut Up about Barclay Perkins blog (and author of The Home Brewer’s Guide to Vintage Beer). What we do know is that a pale mild is a hell of a treat and can be doctored with a number ingredients. Careful with spices, though, unless you want someone to confuse it for a strange witbier.
The biggest thing to keep in mind is that anything can ruin a mild if you use too much of it. Avoid going over the top with your additions and changes to the base recipe. While the malt flavors give you some buffering capacity, you don’t have nearly the margin of error that you do in a bigger beer.
This recipe was inspired by a proposed plan by the Belgian government to replace soda machines in their schools with machines that served tafelbier (table beer), which used to be served to children at meals. Please note, even though the recipe is built for 5.5 gallons, it’s really a lot easier to make as a double batch due to the small amount of grain!
For 5.5 gallons at 1.025, 7.2 IBUs, 1.7% ABV
GRAIN BILL
3.75 lbs |
Belgian Pilsner Malt |
1.0 lbs |
Caravienne Malt |
4 oz |
Aromatic Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
155° |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.5 oz |
Czech Saaz Pellets |
3.2% AA |
60 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
|
1 tsp |
Freshly cracked black pepper |
5 minutes |
YEAST
WY1214 Belgian Ale
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
• Capture the first gallon of runnings and boil in a separate pot until reduced in half. Take the remaining runnings and proceed as normal. Add the cracked black pepper and the boiled runnings syrup in the last 5 minutes of the boil.
• Ferment cool and carbonate to 3 volumes to fluff up the body of the beer.
Two specific things to avoid are sour flavors and anything tannic. Bright acidic notes tend to clash and overaccentuate the roasted malts, which throws the palate sensations completely out of whack. This also applies to tannic flavors, so use a very light hand if you plan to use oak or any other woods.
This is a beer I’ve turned around quite successfully in just four days from brew day to people’s glasses. If that’s not outrageous enough, just look to the variants.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.036, 12 IBUs, 3.2% ABV
GRAIN BILL
6.5 lbs |
Maris Otter Malt |
1.0 lb |
Flaked Oats or Oat Malt |
8.0 oz |
British Crystal 55°L Malt |
8.0 oz |
Carafa II Special Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
154°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.25 |
Target |
Pellet |
11.5% AA |
60 minutes |
0.12 |
Progress |
Pellet |
8.1% AA |
20 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY1275 Thames Valley or WLP022 Essex Ale
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment cool and carbonate to a low volume (1.5–2.0). Serve quickly and enjoy fresh.
VARIANTS
• Cherrywood Smoked Mild: Substitute 3 pounds of the Maris Otter Malt with Briess Cherrywood Smoked Mild Malt. Drop the Progress addition and ferment and package as normal for a lightly smoky session beer. Try other smoked malts to see their flavors (except Peat malt, which doesn’t belong anywhere near a beer).
• Cocoa Insanity: Substitute Pale Chocolate Malt for Carafa II in the grain bill and add another half pound of oats. At packaging, add homemade vanilla extract and our defatted cacao extract (see page 179), to taste.
• Old Time Mild: Increase the Maris Otter Malt to 14 pounds and up the hop additions to 1.0 ounce Target and 0.5 ounce Progress. This pushes the beer into more traditional mild territory of the 1700s, when milds weren’t weak! (For a commercial example similar to this, hunt down Original Sarah Hughes Dark Ruby Mild from the United Kingdom.)
Curry, particularly tikka masala, is widely considered the modern national dish of Britain. Why not make a beer that celebrates the complex relationship between East and West? This beer is based around a spice load that contains many of the pungent aromatics of Northern and Southern Indian curries, including the ubiquitous and ever-changing North Indian garam masala. Since different brands of garam masala can vary, find a brand that works for you. (I use a garam masala blend from a local spice house.) This beer also uses one my favorite and less celebrated ingredients: Oat Malt (see page 141).
For 5.5 gallons at 1.036, 14 IBUs, 3.5% ABV
GRAIN BILL
6.0 lbs |
Maris Otter Malt |
2.0 lbs |
Flaked Oats or Oat Malt |
8.0 oz |
British Crystal 55°L |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
152°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.25 |
Magnum |
Pellet |
12.9% AA |
60 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
1 knuckle |
Ginger, peeled and sliced |
15 minutes |
1/2 tsp |
Freshly ground cumin |
0 minutes |
1/2 tsp |
Freshly cracked Indian coriander |
0 minutes |
1/2 tsp |
Garam masala powder |
0 minutes |
1/4 tsp |
Rough cracked black peppercorn |
0 minutes |
1/4 tsp |
Paprika |
0 minutes |
YEAST
WY1275 Thames Valley or WLP022 Essex Ale
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
• Ferment cool and carbonate to a low volume (1.5–2.0). Serve quickly and enjoy fresh.
• If you want more color, prepare a 4-ounce vodka tincture (see page 75) with 1 teaspoon each of paprika and turmeric. Strain through coffee filters and add to the beer.
With a low original gravity (1.030–1.038), the mild requires nothing but the best ingredients in order to stand as a platform for your tests. This begins with your choice of base malt. While that American 2-Row looks tempting and cheap, for the love of all that’s holy, use a proper premium British Ale malt like Maris Otter or Golden Promise. Supplement that with a solid British medium crystal for a touch of sweetness. If you want a body boost, an addition of oats (flaked or malted) will do the trick. Finally, we come to the dark part of the equation (for dark milds). Traditionally you’d use a British chocolate or black malt and call it a day, but I prefer using the softer, less acrid Weyermann Dehusked Carafa II malt for color and a light roasted toffee character. For a pale mild, just leave the roasted malts in the bin.
Mash the grain on the warm side, at least 152°F–154°F, to create those extra dextrins. A simple single infusion mash is both practical and traditional. When you first make a beer with this little grain, you may want to plan for an efficiency drop. If you want to play it safe, boost the malt bill and then dilute with water to achieve your target gravity if needed—on the upside, more beer! It is also paramount to watch your pH and keep it from rising too high in the sparging steps, since the tannins will be extra noticable in this smallish beer.
For hops, go traditional with British strains like Fuggles or EKG throughout. You can also use a British bittering hop like Progress or Challenger. Keep the IBUs unconscionably low from an American perspective at around 12. Use one or two charges and enjoy the time spent brewing without dashing to the kettle every five minutes for hop additions.
Choose a yeast that accentuates malt, such as WY1275 Thames Valley or WLP022 Essex Ale. Ferment cool and allow it to finish out. Voilà, you have a session ale that’s ready for quaffing! Before you start sipping, you’ll need to carbonate it, but keep the carbonation low. Somewhere around 1.5–2.0 volumes of CO2 is to style. This is a traditional English session ale after all!
American Robust Porter is bigger and has more flavor than a brown or English-style porter. This extra flavor makes it a great base for your experiments. No matter what you decide to add, the underlying porter flavor doesn’t get lost as it might with a beer with less body or flavor.
I love to experiment with this style because the basic flavor profile reminds me of chocolate. Just think of all the things that go along with chocolate.
Speaking of things that go with chocolate, coffee is a real treat in a robust porter—especially if you happen to be one of those overachievers who roast their own coffee! Believe it or not, blueberries work great in a porter, too. They are pretty subtle, so I’d recommend you use more of them than you might for a lighter-flavored beer. The upside of that subtlety, though, is that the blueberry flavor integrates wonderfully when you get it right. While a strongly flavored beer like a porter can stand up to strong flavors, don’t completely abandon the idea that it’s great to land your flavors to be right on that edge of “what’s that?”
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that the base porter recipe on page 122 was developed for a Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter. The combination of the chocolaty porter with vanilla beans and bourbon is a real wintertime treat.
There are lots of things that wouldn’t work in this beer: lemons, beef, pickles, and aspirin, for instance. But that’s all obvious stuff, right? The following recommendations are based on my own tastes. If you disagree, be my guest.
A lot of people like chocolate and mint together, but adding mint to a beer like this can make it taste a lot like cough syrup. Chocolate and peanut butter? Also not for me, thank you. But if it sounds good to you, take a look at Drew’s information about powdered peanut butter on page 133.
I would avoid the fruitier hops, like Citra and Meridian, as the sole hops for this style. Although blueberries might be great, too much tropical fruit flavor will clash with the chocolate and roast flavors in this recipe. If you want to use those hops, be sure to blend them with something that will temper their impact.
No matter what specialty ingredient you choose, be aware that you can easily go over the top with bitterness in this beer style. If you add something like coffee, you might even want to experiment with reducing the bittering hops to compensate for the bitterness from the coffee.
While a rye porter isn’t as off-the-wall as some of the other recipes here, it’s an unusual style that you don’t see too often. The rye adds a real smoothness to the mouthfeel. You need to take a careful approach to both the grist and the hopping, though, so that the spiciness of the rye and the roastiness of the malt don’t result in a sharp and biting flavor. In this recipe, the hops are cut back a bit from what I use for other porters, and the use of Munich malt smooths out the flavor. The Special B adds some sweetness and raisiny flavor to offset the dark malts.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.073, 40 IBU, 8% ABV
GRAIN BILL
11.0 lbs |
2-Row Pale Malt |
1.75 lbs |
Munich Malt (10°L) |
1 lbs |
Crystal 60°L Malt |
1 lbs |
Flaked Rye |
14 oz |
Chocolate Rye Malt (350°L) |
8 oz |
Special B Malt |
1 oz |
Black Patent Malt |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
154°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.75 oz |
Tettnang |
Pellet |
4.6% AA |
First wort hop |
0.6 oz |
Magnum |
Whole |
14.6% AA |
60 minutes |
0.75 oz |
Cascade |
Whole |
6% AA |
10 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite or WY1056 American Ale in 3L starter
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment for about 10–14 days, starting at 63°F–65°F.
The original gravity of this beer is fairly high, and the final gravity is, too. That’s intentional to give it a chewy body. The Munich malt and two different crystal malts contribute to that. The brown malt is an essential for this recipe. Be aware that different maltsters have very different ideas of what brown malt is! For the purposes of this recipe, you want a brown malt that’s about 70°L.
The hops should be supportive, not take center stage. I use Magnum for the smooth bittering they give you and finish with just a bit of East Kent Goldings, which have a candylike character.
If you’re going to add flavorings to the base recipe, keep the yeast neutral. Something like WY1056 American Ale or WY1450 Denny’s Favorite works well. The latter will accentuate the smooth mouthfeel of this beer.
Be aware that the final gravity of this beer flies in the face of the low numbers that homebrewers strive for. It will finish in the 1.020–25 range. Don’t think you have a stuck fermentation! The recipe is designed for that FG.
Don’t be fooled by the name. While this was designed as a base beer, if you don’t add anything at all, it’s still a very tasty brew! Do note that this beer has a high final gravity; don’t worry if it doesn’t get as low as you’re used to.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.086, 40 IBUs, 8.7% ABV
GRAIN BILL
12.0 lbs |
2-Row Pale Malt |
2.75 lbs |
Munich Malt (10°L) |
1.6 lbs (26 oz) |
Brown Malt (70°L) |
1.38 lbs (22 oz) |
Chocolate Malt (350°L) |
1 lbs |
Crystal Malt (120°L) |
8 oz |
Crystal Malt (60°L) |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
154°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.75 oz |
Magnum |
Whole |
14.6% AA |
60 minutes |
0.5 oz |
East Kent Goldings |
Whole |
4.75% AA |
10 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY1450 Denny’s Favorite or WY1056 in 3-L starter
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment for about 10–14 days, starting at 63°F–65°F. Check the gravity and let the temperature rise once you’re getting close to the 1.030 mark.
VARIANTS
• Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter: This porter was originally devised to have bourbon and vanilla added to it. When fermentation is complete, split 2 vanilla beans lengthwise. Scrape all the seeds and gunk from them and add the scrapings to a sanitized secondary fermenter. Chop the beans into 2- to 3-inch-long pieces and add them, too. Rack the beer onto the vanilla in the secondary. Leave in secondary 10–14 days, then taste. You want the vanilla to be a bit on the strong side, since it will fade. If the vanilla flavor is adequate, rack to bottling bucket or keg and add approximately 375 milliliters of Jim Beam Black Bourbon. You don’t need to use an expensive bourbon, and you don’t want to add a lot. The beer shouldn’t scream, “BOURBON!” at you. It should have an integrated flavor of chocolaty porter, vanilla, and bourbon. This beer does not benefit from extended aging. I prefer it within a few months of brewing.
• Coffee Porter: Add a sanitized muslin bag with about 5 ounces of coarsely cracked coffee beans to a secondary fermenter once fermentation is complete. Rack the beer into the secondary and let that steep for 5–7 days for a great aroma and a bit of flavor. Then when you bottle or keg the beer, add strong brewed coffee to taste.
• Blueberry Porter: If you want to add blueberries, use at least 1.5 pounds per gallon for this beer. The best way to add blueberries is to freeze and thaw them before adding them to a sanitized secondary fermenter and racking the beer onto them. The freeze-thaw process breaks down the cell walls and allows you to extract more juice. Leave the beer in secondary 1–2 weeks, then taste. Package when the blueberry flavor is the strength you want.
• Banana Porter: If you like bananas and chocolate, try fermenting this porter with a German Hefeweizen yeast. Ferment in the low 70°sF to increase the banana flavor.
Saisons are a class of farmhouse ales steeped in romantic legend. The story says that in days of yore, farmers needed to slake the thirst of their laborers. Since plain drinking water was often unsafe, they would make beer during the off-season and crack open the barrels and bottles to ease the long hot work of farming. The beer provided was part of the pay for the field hands, but it was also part hospitality. At one point, providing booze as the only pay to farmhands was so widespread that laws forbidding the practice were put on the books. (In the United Kingdom, for example, it wasn’t farmhouse ale, but cider that had to be curtailed.)
While that’s a great story, as near as I can tell, it’s a load of pucky when it comes to the modern notion of saison. When Belgian brewing scientist extraordinaire Jean De Clerck wrote his comprehensive A Textbook of Brewing in the late 1940s, he made no mention of saison as a style. It’s likely that the whole modern take on saison was inspired by the exemplar of the style, Brasserie Dupont. In Belgian practice, which largely ignores style, Dupont’s beers would have been considered as ambrées. Where then did the notion of the formal category arise? More than likely it was the original evangelist, Michael Jackson, who sought categories to help readers understand the wide varied world of beer.
Saisons these days come in two strength categories: normal/table or super. The normal version provides 4–6.5 percent ABV, while the super saisons can climb into the teens. Which you choose to make is up to you, but remember that the higher the gravity, the trickier your ferment will be.
Speaking of which, saison is all about the yeast selection and fermentation. No other style of ale is as driven and defined by the yeast you use. Fortunately for homebrewers, an ever-increasing variety of style-specific strains is available to make your beers sing. In 2011, when I first performed a saison yeast comparison, ten strains were commonly available to homebrewers. Since then a new raft of varieties have hit the market. Today you can find yeasts from Brasserie Dupont, Brasserie Thiriez, Brasserie Blaugies, Fantome, and others dug out of old banks. See page 156 for my cheat sheet on yeast selection.
The usual additions of Munich malts and wheat or other adjuncts provide enough body to support almost anything you throw at it: spices, hops, fruits, tea, or the kitchen sink. There’s very little that doesn’t work in the framework of a saison. The main thing to watch for is the interaction of your target flavor with the spice phenols produced by your yeast. Of the myriad strains of saison yeasts available, WY3711 French Saison provides the cleanest saisonesque backdrop with which to play. There are enough phenols to establish saison provenance, but not enough to interfere with most other ingredients. By itself, however, I feel that a better straight saison can be had with many of the other more finicky strains.
The blend of maltiness and dryness in saisons makes them ideal candidates for fruit. Also, despite the dryness, saisons have enough malt character to stand up to a high level of hopping—especially with noble or fruity new hops.
Where a number of the classic Belgian IPAs are based on Belgian Golden bases, there’s a real history in the saison world of hoppy beers. You need look no farther than the 1970 creation of Avec Les Bon Voeux de la Brasserie Dupont, or as most Americans say, Avec. This beer, translated as, “With the best wishes of the Dupont Brewery,” started as a New Year’s present to friends of the brewery. But it caught on and became a year-round beer! It comes in at 9.5 percent ABV with a brisk tropical fruit character broken by the grassy spiciness of noble hops. Unusual for a Belgian beer, it’s also dry hopped. Where did Belgian IPA start? Looks like we have a good candidate!
So far we haven’t talked about the use of Brett and other “wild” creatures in a saison. A trend that I see is a number of increasingly funky wild saisons. The operating theory is that how sanitary would a farmhouse be? I strongly prefer any wild character in a saison to be a secondary note and will almost always reach for the spicy, fruity B. claussenii over the funkier, earthier B. lambicus or B. bruxellensis. Added to the secondary or later in ferment with a little extra food, B. claussenii provides bright, spicy notes that integrate well with existing saison aromas.
Candy-sweet flavors are best avoided. While there’s someone out there right now ready to argue the merits of their awesome Milk Chocolate Caramel Saison, I politely disagree. Sweet things need to be considered very carefully when played against the backdrop of the bone-dry saison.
Too much sweetness will make a clashing, cloying, muddled mess of a beer. This includes not just sugary things, but too much of any spice or flavor that triggers sweet associations in the brain. For instance, substantial vanilla will cause your palate to hunt out any signs of sweetness. However, a hint of vanilla can provide a rich top note to your saison.
In 2011, a beer like this was brewed at Eagle Rock Brewing Company and pitched with thirteen different yeast strains for presentation to the attendees of the 2011 American Homebrewer’s Association National Homebrewer’s Conference. It was quite eye-opening and was an experiment that I encourage you to repeat. Of course, whatever experiment you want to get up to is off to a perfect start with this brew. It is dry, crisp, and refreshing as all get-out.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.048, 22 IBUs, 4.7% ABV
GRAIN BILL
8.75 lbs |
Pilsner Malt |
8.0 oz |
Flaked Wheat |
8.0 oz |
Table sugar |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
150°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.35 oz |
Magnum |
Pellet |
12.9% AA |
60 minutes |
0.45 oz |
Saphir |
Pellet |
4.4% AA |
10 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY3711 French Saison for flavor experiments or WLP565 Belgian Saison I for straight or spicy saisons
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Don’t forget to chill the beer into the lower 60°sF before pitching the yeast. Once the yeast is in, keep the beer chugging along in the high 60°sF for a day or two and allow it to rise naturally into the low 80°sF. You’ll end up with a spicy, but not headache-inducing, beer this way.
VARIANTS
• Jasmine Dragon Saison: My wife loves Jasmine-infused green tea, so one year as a treat for her, I combined my love of saisons with her love of tea. To make it, take a simple saison like the one above and add a tea tincture made by soaking 1/2 cup of jasmine dragon pearl tea in 1 cup of vodka for a week. Shake routinely and add to the keg by taste. Also, enjoy the show as the pearls blossom into beautiful tea flowers.
• Saison Sangreal: California runs amok with produce, and one of my favorite seasonal pieces is the late winter arrival of Moro blood oranges. Drop the Saphir from the recipe above. Make at least 3 liters of blood orange juice; that’s usually 20–25 pounds of oranges. Freeze the juice. Zest 3 of the oranges and add to the kettle whirlpool. After primary fermentation subsides, add the thawed blood orange juice and complete the fermentation.
• Saison Vin: I like associations and stories with my beers, and this one is as simple as French style name + the French love of wine. This is also the only way you’ll see me using a superconcentrated canned wine kit. They cook the grape must into a thick syrup that is used as brewers use liquid malt extract. Unfortunately, the must ends up tasting cooked and stale, unlike liquid malt extract. For this variant, scale up the pilsner to 10 pounds and the wheat to 1 pound, and drop the sugar. Once the krausen rises in primary fermentation, add one can (48 ounces) of Merlot concentrate. Swirl the fermenter gently and allow the fermentation to complete before adding 2 ounces of French Oak cubes that have soaked in red wine for at least 1 month. Leave the oak in contact for a minimum of 2 weeks.
Denny has a strong dislike of all tropical hop beers, but this is the beer that should shut him—or any hater—right up. Magnum doesn’t provide much flavor, just a nice clean bitterness.
For 5.5 gallons at 1.058, 51 IBUs, 6.5% ABV
GRAIN BILL
6 lbs |
Pilsner Malt |
4 lbs |
Wheat Malt |
0.5 lbs |
Munich Malt |
0.7 lbs |
White table sugar |
MASH SCHEDULE
Rest |
149°F |
60 minutes |
HOPS
0.7 oz |
Magnum |
Pellet |
12% AA |
90 minutes |
1.8 oz |
Citra |
Pellet |
11% AA |
5 minutes |
OTHER INGREDIENTS
1/2 tablet |
Whirlfloc |
10 minutes |
YEAST
WY3711 French Saison
ADDITIONAL INSTRUCTIONS
Ferment using our saison profile: cool and then warm up. Before you package the beer, give it a taste and see what you think of the Citra flavor and aroma. If you want more Citra, then add 1 more ounce of Citra as a dry hop. Be careful, though, because Citra is intensely aromatic and can become jarring when used in excess. Adding too much may render the beer overly intense, overwhelming its “saisonness.”
In fact, I strongly encourage brewers to embrace simplicity in making saisons. Even amongst commercial brewers, I see a ton of overreaching combinations of things like Pineapple Upside Down Cake Golden Raisin Bourbon Oaked Saison. Focus your flavors, people! Your saisons will be better for it.
Start with a base of clean, crisp pilsner malt. You can use a European variety like Weyermann or Best Pilz or turn to a domestic variety like IdaPils. Make sure it’s fresh and firm before use! On top of the pilsner, consider a portion of Munich if you want a slightly orange color and a hint of toasted biscuits in the brew. To round it out, add a portion of wheat malt. This will provide a lingering sweetness that isn’t cloying and will preserve a little body to avoid straight-razor dryness from the fermentation. Want to play with other grains? Remember that the Belgians are big fans of oats, and I think oats work well here to provide a little roundness. If you want to make a super saison, increase the pilsner malt poundage and add a pound or two of sugar as well. My rule of thumb no matter the gravity is sugar below 10 percent of fermentables, oats between 10–15 percent, and wheat for up to 50 percent.
For chilling, you’ll want to get the wort good and cold, about 63°F–65°F, before pitching the yeast. The yeast should have been grown into a 2-liter starter or pitched from a previous batch of beer. Saison yeasts can be temperamental beasts; don’t start them off in a weakened state! Allow the yeast to reproduce cold for 24 hours and then allow it to naturally ramp in a water bath into the low 80°sF. Let it hang there and ferment until the gravity is below 1.010. If the yeast stalls, be patient. If it still hasn’t finished in a month, pitch a neutral yeast and allow it to finish the ferment.
What is the most common flaw amongst homebrewed saisons? It’s sweetness—not just from sweet-intensifying flavors, but from poor yeast performance and high final gravities. Before you do anything funky odd with a saison, you really must strive for a complete fermentation—one that drops the final gravity below 1.010.
