I stole this recipe from a recent BruSho episode. I was a little reluctant to brew it since commercially I haven’t found many examples of an altbier I liked. This particular recipe is solid though and makes a perfect fall or winter style beer. I fermented with Kaiser at 70F which is 10F warmer than recommended, and it definitely threw some esters. Because of that, the beer is less cleanly lager-like and something between an altbier and an english brown ale. Despite that I prefer this beer to other english brown ales and brown porters I’ve done in the past and I now have a couple of ideas to make those beers better. As for this beer, I’ll probably make changes to better suite my palate, which is to say cleaner with less caramel.
Notes
Color is a dark brown to black, way darker than anticipated. Likely due to color differences in the malt manufacturers than generic.
Strong bitterness right out of the kettle and through fermentation. This mellowed out after carbonation and in my opinion did not balance out the malt caramel from the caramunich.
Nice spice and earthy hop flavor.
Some nice bread notes underneath the caramel.
Recipe
Style:
German Altbier
Batch Size:
6.0 gal
Boil Time:
60 min
Mash Efficiency:
79%
OG
FG
ABV
IBU
SRM
1.049
1.011
5.0%
26
12
Yeast
Imperial Kaiser
1.0 pkg
Fermentables
Munich
2.5 kg
(49.5%)
Pilsner
2.0 kg
(39.6%)
Carapils
0.25 kg
(5.0%)
Caramunich III
0.25 kg
(5.0%)
Carafa I
0.050 kg
(1.0%)
Hops
Saaz, Czech
28 g
60 min
Hersbrucker
20 g
60 min
Saaz, Czech
28 g
30 min
Saaz, Czech
28 g
0 min
Extras
Whirlfloc
0.5 each
Mash at 66C for 60 minutes. Mash out at 76C for 10 minutes. 60 minute boil. Ferment at 68F for 2 weeks. Cold condition in keg at 36F for two weeks.
Changes
Lose the caramunich to lighten the color to a copper and decrease caramel flavours.
I stole this recipe from a recent BruSho episode. I was a little reluctant to brew it since commercially I haven’t found many examples of an altbier I liked. This particular recipe is solid though and makes a perfect fall or winter style beer. I fermented with Kaiser at 70F which is 10F warmer than recommended, and it definitely threw some esters. Because of that, the beer is less cleanly lager-like and something between an altbier and an english brown ale. Despite that I prefer this beer to other english brown ales and brown porters I’ve done in the past and I now have a couple of ideas to make those beers better. As for this beer, I’ll probably make changes to better suite my palate, which is to say cleaner with less caramel.