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!
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