Brew Dudes

Irish Red Ale is a great beer for homebrewers of all experience levels to brew. It is an easy drinking, smooth ale with a reddish hue and a dry finish.
In the past, we struggled getting a red ale to actually be red and not some sort of weird yellowish-hued-brown color. Through research and trial and error, we learned that using a small amount of roasted barely (1-2oz total) in the grain bill imparts a red color without much flavor.

Mike really worked on getting this beer to attenuate as much as it can. He used a healthy pitch of yeast and worked with the fermentation temperature to get the final gravity down. In this post we have two all grain recipes and one extract recipe. Choose any of them – they all are great variation of the style.

Irish Red Ale Recipe 2013

Brewed by Mike Feb 2013

All Grain
Batch: 6.5 gallons
EST. OG: 1.050
IBUs: 23

11 lbs US 2-row
6 oz Crystal 40L
6 oz Crystal 120L
4 oz Roasted Barley (525L) Crushed extra fine
1.5 oz East Kent Goldings 60 mins
Nottingham Dry English Ale Yeast

Mash temp 154F
90 mins boil

—————————————————————————————————–

Extract Irish Red Ale Recipe

Ingredients:

6.5 Extra Light Dry Malt Extract
6 ounces Roasted Barley
6 ounces Crystal 40°L
6 ounces Crystal 120°L
.5 ounce Northern Brewer boiled 60 mins
1 ounce East Kent Goldings boiled 30 mins
1 teaspoon Irish Moss boiled 15 mins

Yeast: WLP004

Predictions:

Original Gravity: 1.054
Final Gravity: 1.014
Color: 17 SRM
Bitterness: 25 IBU
Alcohol (%volume): 5.2%

I brewed this recipe and here is the details of the brew day.

Here’s the review of the first tasting.

—————————————————————————————————–

Irish Red Ale Recipe – All Grain

9-D Irish Red Ale
Version 1

Size: 6.5 gal
Efficiency: 65%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Original Gravity: 1.049 (1.044 – 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.010 – 1.014)
Color: 19.2 (9.0 – 18.0)
Alcohol: 4.82% (4.0% – 6.0%)
Bitterness: 26.79 (17.0 – 28.0)

Ingredients:

12 lbs American 2-row
1 lbs 2-Row Carapils® Malt
0.5 lbs Midwest Wheat Malt
0.5 lbs Crystal 60
0.125 lbs Crystal 120
0.25 lbs American Black Patent
0.25 lbs Roasted Barley
1.5 tsp Irish Moss – added during boil, boiled 15 min
0.5 oz Nugget (13.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 20 min

Yeast: White Labs WLP004 Irish Stout

Mash temp 154F.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.28

This recipe comes to us from a good brewing friend of mine, Lauren.  He loves this beer from the Seattle area.  He originally posted his recipe for this on the Brewing KnowledgeBase website, and its become one of the most viewed recipes on the site.  Furthermore, at least a dozen folks over there have brewed the recipe.  I know this is a popular beer for folks that can get it.  So I thought I’d pay homage to Lauren and his brewing success with this one, and also publish his great recipe here to reach out to an even larger audience.
Brew it in good health and enjoy!

10 gallon batch
90 minute boil
1.060 OG
1.018 – 1.013 FG

18lbs Marris otter
2lbs munich
1lbs crystal 80
2oz centennial 60 min
1oz dried sweet orange peel 30 min
2oz cascade 2 min
2oz cascade dry hop
White Labs WLP005 (British Ale) or Wyeast 1098 (British Ale) yeast or Fermentis Safale 04

Mash at 155F for 60min.
Lauren recommends adding the dry hops in primary after 5-7 days of primary.
He also isn’t very particular about the type of orange being used for the peel.  He has also used the peel from 2 fresh oranges if you can’t find dried peel.
Lauren doesn’t use any finings in this brew (Irish moss) because the original has a slight haze to it.
Dryhopping is a MUST for this beer to get the profile right.
Lastly, this beer does well to sit for 30 days in the bottle or keg.

For his original write-up on the official recipe, click here.

A word from the man himself:
“If you ever get to Seattle try it, it’s fantastic.  My brother just sent me some, and this clone tastes exactly like the original, the original is just a bit sweeter, but I contribute that to the house yeast.  Use the WLP005, and it’s exactly like the original in flavor profile, and esters.”

BREW ON!