Every year since John has been growing hops he looks for new ways to use them. His offering this year is a Kellerbier. According to the 2014 BJCP guidelines, Kellerbier is an amber hoppy lager of German origins.
He brewed it. We drank it.
The aroma in this brew has a great candied orange peel thing going for it. There was a subtle malt character underneath it, but it was predominantly a hoppy, fruit quality.
There was a large amount of hops used in this beer as compared to most five gallon recipes. All told, nearly a pound of hops was used during the making of this beer, from the kettle to dry hopping in the carboy.
John used the Mexican Lager strain on this one. A unique strain for sure with a German influenced Kellerbier. It seems to work here. We spent most of the time debating this subtle phenolic quality that was super well balanced in the total presentation. It could have been yeast derived – we are not totally familiar with the Mexican Lager strain so who knows.
I suspect however that the phenolic quality was hop derived. I did a SMaSH beer not long ago that used only Magnum hops. Tasted by itself, there was a subtle mint-like note to it. I think that its totally possible that the homegrown version may be a little phenolic. Added to the other hops in the mix and it seems likely that my palate was simply interpreting it as a phenol.
Regardless, it was a great use of home grown hops and a great time to use a new yeast strain. Next year, we hope to time things a little better and try a wet hop brew on harvest day. Should be fun.
If you would like to see the recipe for this harvest lager, check out this post.
Cheers. Happy Holidays. BREW ON!
Mike
Love the blog and the weekly posts.
For starters I would say that kellerbier is a new entry in the 2014 BJCP guidelines, and is not restricted to a certain style (e.g. amber and hoppy) but rather about being a fresh unfiltered entry to a base style. I’ve had kellerbier based on helles, pils, and vienna lager that were all successful.
Funny how around the 2:50 mark that Mike can’t stop smelling and tasting it. Must be good stuff!
I suspect that if the phenolic character is strong, then your intuition about hop derived aromas and flavors is correct. There’s really nothing in the recipe that suggests assertive candied citrus or phenolic character, but if it worked in this case then all the better. I’m a big fan of the White Labs Mexican Lager Yeast, and find it to be very forgiving. It would be hard to judge the yeast character in such a hoppy beer, so I might suggest using it in a simpler recipe that you’re more familiar with for comparison. I think you would have great success in the vienna lager that you’ve already nailed down, with the simple substitution of WLP940 in place of WLP830. It just seems to click. I get a very subtle ester profile from this yeast, but it still produces clean lager beer. If you’ve had any of the better Mexican lagers (hard to find, I know, and even harder to find fresh) such as Victoria or Bohemia then you’ll see the balance that they strike. Try it out sometime.
John
Hi Mike – thanks for the feedback. I have yet to find another bottle that had the same phenolic character that he detected on that taping day. The recipe was fairly simple in terms of a grain bill – just American 2-row malt and a small percentage of caramel malt.
If I can find a fresh example of the Mexican lagers you list above, I will check them out. Brew on.