Sometimes your beer drinking friends will put in a request for a brew.  A few years ago, I got asked to brew a Rauchbier which was received well.  This year, there has been a call for a Yule Lager.  Outside of a play on words,I am not sure what kind of beer that is.

I started to think about how I would brew this beer and the idea of spices came into my head.  That thought only lasted a few moments since I don’t want to brew a spiced lager.  Instead, I thought I would brew a black lager with a hint of roasty flavors.

This beer is similar to my Schwarzbier recipe but it has a few other malts that really don’t need to be there.  I am hoping to get some roasty, chocolately flavors in the finished beer.  That should be enough for a yule lager for holiday cheer.

Pre-Boil Volume: 7 gallons

Post Boil Volume: 5.5 gallons

Ingredients:

7.25  lbs Munich
3.25 lbs Pilsner Malt
4 ounces Roasted Barley
4 ounces Weyermann Carafa Special® TYPE II
4 ounces Chocolate Malt
.5 oz Magnum pellets, 14.5% AA – boiled 60 minutes
0.5 oz Mt. Hood pellets, 4.5 %AA boiled 15 minutes
0.5 oz Mt. Hood pellets, 4.5 %AA boiled 1 minutes
Yeast: White Labs WLP830 German Lager

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.050
Terminal Gravity: 1.013
Color: 23.09 °SRM
Bitterness: 27.0 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 4.8 %

Instructions:

Prepare a large yeast starter a few days before your brew day or buy the appropriate number of yeast packages for a proper fermentation (use a yeast pitching rate calculator).  Mash grains at 156 degrees F for 60 minutes.  Boil for 60 minutes and add hops to boil at appropriate times.  Chill wort after boil to a temperature of 48 degrees F.  Pitch yeast and let the wort warm up to 50 degrees F for about 2 weeks or until your terminal gravity is met.  Keg or bottle as normal.

I will be using my homegrown hops for this recipe.  They should give this beer some noble/floral aromas and tastes.

Check out the brew day for this recipe!

Watch the video with our tasting notes!

Brew On!