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Lawnmower Beer Recipe

What is Lawnmower Beer?
Well it’s not really a recognized style of beer, but more a moniker for the type of beers that are light, crisp and have a mild flavor. There are many different styles that already fit the bill. However many people associate a simple malt bill with some adjunct sugars to dry out the finished product.

Now you might be thinking about the big nationally recognized brewers, but it is possible to brew something just as satisfying at home. More importantly, as an ale!!!

The approach I like to take with lawnmower beers is to keep the flavors clean and simple. Using a good neutral ale yeast makes for and easy ferment, and a quicker turnaround time than if you tried to brew up a lager. I like using American Ale yeast for this. I especially like to use a repitched slurry of fermentis US-05 from a previous beer. Even though this is a dry yeast, it seems to perform unbelievably well on a second pitch. If you can’t plan a brew session when you have this yeast ready, then either make a starter with some White Labs WLP001, or go ahead and pitch two packages of the US-05 (after proper rehydration of course).

Here is another quick and easy light summer beer recipe to continue our trend as summer rounds the bend. Enjoy!

LAWNMOWER BEER

5 Gallon Batch
OG 1045-1050

6.6 lbs light malt extract (2 cans)
1 lb Rice Syrup Solids
1 oz Styrian Goldings (5%AA)- 60 minute boil
American Ale Yeast of choice (I prefer US-05)

Focus on keeping your fermentation under 70F and above 65F. Break out the old “swamp cooler” and that should help you manage your temps.

These summer beer recipes are short and sweet. I’d rather spend my time enjoying good beer on a hot summer day, than brewing it.

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6 Comments

  1. Marty O'Shaughnessy

    Hi Mike,

    I have been looking for a Lawnmower recipe for some time now and stumbled upon yours. I am in the process of building a grain brewery but still need parts for my mash tun so I used your extract recipe.

    I haven’t bottled yet so I wanted to get your thoughts on some of the modifications I made.

    I am trying to fill a 6 gallon carboy so I added some light brown sugar to boost the sugar content on the larger volume. In the past I found just adding more water made the beer watery. Hence more sugar. I think it may add a rummy flavor, but by using the light variety I figured it might be minimized.

    The shop that I got the ingrediants at didn’t have 5% alpha, only 2% so I used 2 oz instead of 1 oz of Styrian Goldings.

    And lastly I missed your direction for a 60 minute boil and only did 30 min. I’m not a big hop fan, I think IPA is my least favorite beer so the reduced hop flavor might actually suit my taste.

    Any idea how it may taste? I sampled it when I transferred to primary. Light hop, very sweet. But I’m curious if you have tried these modifications in your development of the recipe.

    Marty

  2. Hey Marty thanks for reading.
    The use of lower AA hops will likely make for a lower hop flavor impact than the boil shift. Having boiled for ony 30 minutes will give you predominantly hop flavr and little bitterness. I am not sure what it’ll taste like, but let us know.
    Why the use of brown sugar and not plain white sugar? Regardless, simple sugars will ferment out completely anyway, so the beer may still seem thin. In the future it would be better to use DME.
    I think in the end you’ll have a lightly hop flavored ale that has a very clean finish. As for a lawnmower style this is likely to do the trick. If it comes out too thin though, try adding a half pound more DME to the boil next time around.
    BREW ON!

  3. Martin O'Shaughnessy

    Hi Mike,

    The batch came out OK. I ran into issues with the carbonation in the keg, but the flavor was there. Light hop, sweet. flavor was exactly what I was shooting for.

    I have since done a second batch following my previous bout and boiled a little longer. Just transferred to secondery and I like the flavor. This time around it has a bit more hop, but still nice and sweet. Perfect for a hot summer day. I plan on working with the recipe for a while to dial in the best combination for my rig but it looks like that it will be a winner.

    Thanks for the help and advice.

    Marty

  4. Ken Baker

    I brewed this beer and have had it on tap for a couple weeks now. It is a good beer. Nothing special, just good! A few friends have tried it and everyone agreed that it is a nice drinker. The one thing I dont like about this recipe is the rice solids are expencive.

    Thanks

    -Ken

  5. Brittany

    Quick question–when do the rice solids go in? Last 15 minutes of the the boil or earlier?

  6. Hi Brittany,

    You can add them with 15 minutes to go in the boil. You could add them at the start but it’s not mandatory.

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