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Author Topic: if you could improve the standard north american industrial lager in 1 step how?  (Read 8554 times)

Offline Saccharomyces

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Back when my parents and all of my aunts and uncles were alive, I used to brew an 80% American 2-row/20% corn grits beer with an O.G. of 1.060. I used galena as my kettle hop and tettnanger as my finishing hop.  It was made in the Pro-Pro Pils style with a double mash.  I used BrewTek CL-660 for fermentation.  I would take a full soda keg to an extended family party and it would come home empty.  All my uncles and my remaining grandfather all said that it reminded them of beer when they were younger, back when brewing was more regional.  I tried my luck with a 95% Durst pilsner malt/5% carapils/5% 20L crystal grist and all noble hops at a higher hopping rate and brought home most of the keg.  I learned an important lesson that day.   Even though I brewed what I thought was a superior beer, my family thought that it is was too heavy and too bitter.  I am kind of that way with IPA today.  I so burned out on beer that tastes like I am sucking on hop pellets. The moral of the story is that if one is brewing a beer for others to consume, one needs to brew a beer that others find enjoyable to consume.

Offline fredthecat

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I must be an odd ball, but I brew American Lagers. I don’t like the apple flavor found in Bud and Coors. Miller High (low) Life has way too much sulfur and smells like ass.

So brew a straight up lager. 85% Rahr Premium Pils and 15% Minute Rice. Bittered to 12 IBU and fermented at 46-48F with 34/70. The cleaner the fermentation the more the malt comes out. The rice has a nice sweetness in the middle, but finishes dry. It’s a really nice crispy beer and I yet to find it from a commercial brewery. It’s kind of German in character, a Helles, but a little lighter.

absolutely. i remember reading about use of rice in northern german historical beers, and frankly the cheap adjunct beers with rice from japan (yes, confirmed rice, not assumed) taste better than the corny beers from america. my next brew scheduled is a pale lager, just to see how it turns out when i do it.  do you use much aroma hops?

Actually, Labatt's house culture was a two-strain ale culture.  I discovered these cultures in the NCYC and contacted the scientist who originally isolated them a few years ago. The neat thing about the Labatt culture was that the strains were co-flocculent.

cool, are you sure they used it for labatt blue too? its funny, i guess i just kind of assumed most pale lagers are made with lager yeast, but who really knows.

Back when my parents and all of my aunts and uncles were alive, I used to brew an 80% American 2-row/20% corn grits beer with an O.G. of 1.060. I used galena as my kettle hop and tettnanger as my finishing hop.  It was made in the Pro-Pro Pils style with a double mash.  I used BrewTek CL-660 for fermentation.  I would take a full soda keg to an extended family party and it would come home empty.  All my uncles and my remaining grandfather all said that it reminded them of beer when they were younger, back when brewing was more regional.  I tried my luck with a 95% Durst pilsner malt/5% carapils/5% 20L crystal grist and all noble hops at a higher hopping rate and brought home most of the keg.  I learned an important lesson that day.   Even though I brewed what I thought was a superior beer, my family thought that it is was too heavy and too bitter.  I am kind of that way with IPA today.  I so burned out on beer that tastes like I am sucking on hop pellets. The moral of the story is that if one is brewing a beer for others to consume, one needs to brew a beer that others find enjoyable to consume.

very interesting anecdote. ron pattinson has pretty clearly shown at least in english brewing, and by extension and with some evidence canadian brewing, there was no crystal malt (that i can remember seeing on his recipes posted) used, just plain and variations on roasted.

im guessing the 80/20 2row/corn grits finished dry? that would have been a strong beer if it was 1.005 or below. ~6.5%?


Offline mdyer909

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All this talk reminds me that the original Michelob, the stuff I drank in the 0's and early 90's, was once a really good beer. IIRC it was an adjunct free lager.

None of us were alive when Michelob was adjunct free.  Michelob was once a premium all 2-row malt and noble hops based beer.   As far as AB's products go, Michelob is still a premium product.

When I was a youngster Michelob was definitely a high class product.  If someone showed up at a party with a sixer of it, we were envious and impressed!  For a very brief time in the late 80’s Miller made some really decent ale in windowpane bottles.  About the time Pete’s Wicked came out.  They’ve got it in them to make decent beer.  If I’m going out camping in the summer, I stuff my cooler with Molson Canadian!


Offline hopfenundmalz

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All this talk reminds me that the original Michelob, the stuff I drank in the 0's and early 90's, was once a really good beer. IIRC it was an adjunct free lager.

None of us were alive when Michelob was adjunct free.  Michelob was once a premium all 2-row malt and noble hops based beer.   As far as AB's products go, Michelob is still a premium product. It is an adjunct beer made with noble hops. AB originally created Elk Mountain Farms in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho as an additional source of noble hops. AB chose Bonner's Ferry because the peak photo period exceeds 16 hours.  All of the noble landrace cultivars come from areas where the peak photo period exceeds 16 hours.  Elk Mountain Farms is the largest hop farm in the world.

It is 1800 acres, maybe contiguous. Carpenter Ranges in Yakima Valley is 2000+.
Jeff Rankert
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BJCP National
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild
Home-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

Offline captfitz

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Jeff Renners "your Fathers Moustache". Making it this week - 8 lbs six-row, 2 lbs Bob's Red Mill Polenta (de-germed corn grits). Download the recipe, follow it EXACTLY. Cereal mash - yes! I have been making this for years, make two 5 gallon kegs for the summer. Use Wyeast 2007 (Yes! Budweiser's yeast! The only thing they do right.) Or, 2204 or similar. 34/70, 2124 are too clean for this recipe. Hey, even try the Octoberfest blend! Clusters for the bittering hops, Saaz, Hallertau, Mount Hood or similar for the finish. Galena for bittering, Mt. Hood for the finish is great, also. But I say that you have to use a malty finishing yeast here for body, flavor and finish. Pay attention to the hopping schedule in this recipe - watch your IBU's (they're fairly prominent in this formulation, believe it or not). You know something good has happened, when you take a keg of this down to the firehouse picnic and there's a fight between the 22 year old beer snobs and the 80 year olds (Hey! This tastes like beer! You guys remember beer, right?) for a place in line for a plastic pint (bring the clear plastic pint glasses yourself, this beer is too pretty for a red Solo cup).

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Jeff Renners "your Fathers Moustache". Making it this week - 8 lbs six-row, 2 lbs Bob's Red Mill Polenta (de-germed corn grits). Download the recipe, follow it EXACTLY. Cereal mash - yes! I have been making this for years, make two 5 gallon kegs for the summer. Use Wyeast 2007 (Yes! Budweiser's yeast! The only thing they do right.) Or, 2204 or similar. 34/70, 2124 are too clean for this recipe. Hey, even try the Octoberfest blend! Clusters for the bittering hops, Saaz, Hallertau, Mount Hood or similar for the finish. Galena for bittering, Mt. Hood for the finish is great, also. But I say that you have to use a malty finishing yeast here for body, flavor and finish. Pay attention to the hopping schedule in this recipe - watch your IBU's (they're fairly prominent in this formulation, believe it or not). You know something good has happened, when you take a keg of this down to the firehouse picnic and there's a fight between the 22 year old beer snobs and the 80 year olds (Hey! This tastes like beer! You guys remember beer, right?) for a place in line for a plastic pint (bring the clear plastic pint glasses yourself, this beer is too pretty for a red Solo cup).

I've brewed it often, Jeff Renner is a friend. I've had his CAP many times, too.

His favorite yeast for that later on was WLP-833 German Bock. I've used it in my CAP, and it works great.
Jeff Rankert
AHA Lifetime Member
BJCP National
Ann Arbor Brewers Guild
Home-brewing, not just a hobby, it is a lifestyle!

Offline HighVoltageMan!

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I must be an odd ball, but I brew American Lagers. I don’t like the apple flavor found in Bud and Coors. Miller High (low) Life has way too much sulfur and smells like ass.

So brew a straight up lager. 85% Rahr Premium Pils and 15% Minute Rice. Bittered to 12 IBU and fermented at 46-48F with 34/70. The cleaner the fermentation the more the malt comes out. The rice has a nice sweetness in the middle, but finishes dry. It’s a really nice crispy beer and I yet to find it from a commercial brewery. It’s kind of German in character, a Helles, but a little lighter.

absolutely. i remember reading about use of rice in northern german historical beers, and frankly the cheap adjunct beers with rice from japan (yes, confirmed rice, not assumed) taste better than the corny beers from america. my next brew scheduled is a pale lager, just to see how it turns out when i do it.  do you use much aroma hops?


No aroma hops. The grain does come through in the nose. The beer is more grainy then malty, if that makes sense.