# Style Of The Week 24/1/07 - Cream Ale



## Stuster (24/1/07)

Another requested style, this week we are looking at Cream Ale. This smooth style is an ale version of a light lager, BJCP style 6A.

So what are your experiences with this style? Grains? Adjuncts? Hops? Kits? Which yeast to use? Any fermentation or conditioning tips? Any commercial examples? (Does Coopers fit this category? :unsure: )

Tell us all you know about this style. :chug: 


Some links.

All About Beer article
The Jamil Show on Cream Ale



> 6A. Cream Ale
> 
> Aroma: Faint malt notes. A sweet, corn-like aroma and low levels of DMS are commonly found. Hop aroma low to none. Any variety of hops may be used, but neither hops nor malt dominate. Faint esters may be present in some examples, but are not required. No diacetyl.
> 
> ...


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## Stuster (24/1/07)

Bump. Anybody made one of these? :unsure:


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## Kai (24/1/07)

Yes! I've made one.

http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=291

Definitely into classic american territory by the specs, but it hid 30 IBU well (not to mention 6% ABV). I think the challenge with this style is balancing the dryness and sweetness with the attenuation, grist and hopping levels. Definitely a rewarding style to get right, this batch vanished with 20 days of bottling.

There are a couple notable CACA brewers on this forum, hopefully they'll chime in with their 2 bob.


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## jayse (24/1/07)

I made one a couple years back, didn't use any of the conventional adjuncts for it but threw some flaked barley in there which attenuates quite well I have found while still offering up some foam improvements.
Also used some malted wheat and the majority was JWM pilsner malt mashed at 65-66c. Hops were all american crystal hops which I found a little girly perfume like but not too bad. I wouldn't buy them again though. Yeast was wyeast 1272 american ale II.

Quite a good beer really overall and worked out much better than some more recent atempts which I used flaked maize and wyeast german ale in. Not blaming the maize or the yeast though for those beers because it was more a case of not playing proper attention to the yeast and fermentation etc.

Anyway a nice easy drinking long session style beer that everyone can enjoy.


Jayse


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## Doc (24/1/07)

I've made a number, and after a few attempts got a recipe I was happy with. It is on here somewhere, and I've had PM's from members that brewed it and really enjoyed it.
I'll look at digging it up later tonight.

Doc


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## Doc (24/1/07)

Found the recipe here 

Beers,
Doc


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## Voosher (25/1/07)

Kai said:


> Yes! I've made one.
> 
> http://www.aussiehomebrewer.com/forum/inde...&recipe=291
> 
> ...



On the basis of this effort Kai is entitled to claim status as one of the notable CACA brewers. It was a fantastic beer.
My only effort so far was JW Ale malt, 10% maize and 10% wheat; Amarillo @ 60m for bittering, again at 10m and Cascade at flameout. Wyeast 1272.
It was a bit heavy for a cream ale. The wheat and the maize seemed to clash. Next effort will use pils malt, no wheat, and the yeast will either be WLP008 or Wyeast 1332.


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## Mr Bond (25/1/07)

I've used small amounts of maize in ales in the past with good results,but never done a true CACA.

Flying in the face of convention and following on from the the "white tail" experiment,I've decided to indulge my wheaty prediliction with a wheat cream ale.

80% wheat
15% maize
5 % carapils
)

25 IBU Glacier
1 g/pl Glacier (Flava)
1 g/pl Glacier (aroma

US 56 yeast.

I imagine this will be a thinnish bland,dry ale with a hoppy zing.

It is still in the develpomental stage and prolly won't happen for some months, but is out there now and open for discussion/ opinions.


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## Stuster (25/1/07)

Looks nice, Brauluver. But I reckon you should go totally barley free and use say 2% crystal wheat instead of the carapils. I know it'll add a bit of colour, but that much. It sounds like a tempting experiment to me either way. :super:


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## warrenlw63 (25/1/07)

I've done several CAPs which I guess qualify as the lager version of a CACA. Nice, easy to drink beers that if made with good ingredients really surprise you.  

Doing the cereal mash tests your patience a little but is worth it in the end. The corn flavour is apparent yet does not detract from the overall beer.

My last effort was about 9 months ago and ill fated. Used 20% polenta with Powells trad ale. Not a good idea at all. The polenta gave me the impression that it didn't convert. Went to vorlauf and wound up totally blocking the plumbing on the mashtun. Had to pull the whole thing to bits and poke the grain out with a chopstick. Needless to say the mash cooled considerably after baling it out and wound up tossing the whole lot in the bin out of pure frustration. <_< 

Lesson learned? Wouldn't do high adjunct mashes with Powells malts ever again.  

Warren -


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## Kai (27/1/07)

Voosher said:


> On the basis of this effort Kai is entitled to claim status as one of the notable CACA brewers. It was a fantastic beer.



And a good one for making people bleed, smash things and fall over too


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## Voosher (27/1/07)

Kai said:


> And a good one for making people bleed, smash things and fall over too



... and feel no pain.
 
At least not until the next day anyway.
:blink:


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## brendanos (27/1/07)

The "overall impression" always makes me chuckle, the use of the phrase "lawnmower beer" is brilliant.

Warren, I can understand your frustration, it was powells malt that concinved me to buy a mash paddle!


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## fixa (30/1/07)

So how would this go?

88% galaxy
10%wheat
250g puffed wheat (supermarket variety, no sugar/salt etc)
2% light crystal
25g cascade [email protected]
20g willamette @10
US56


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## Stuster (30/1/07)

Never having brewed a cream ale, that looks right on the money to me. :lol: 

I think the vast majority of US cream ales use corn in some form, but that doesn't mean you have to. This looks like it'll be quite to style, an easy drinking lawnmower beer that your VB-swilling mates will rave about, and you will like too.  

Willamette is a nice hop. You could even add it a little later to get more aroma than flavour out of it, but that recipe will make nice beer as is. :super:


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## DJR (30/1/07)

I made one, the cereal mash using fine polenta was actually easier than i thought after reading all the horror stories. I heated up 2.5L of water to about 60C, added 750g of polenta, making a thick cornstarch porridge type thing, then after i got sick of stirring i added 150g of crushed JW Pils into it and raised the temp to 65. About 30 to 60 seconds after adding the malt, all of a sudden it became MUCH easier to stir, more like a soup than a porridge. Kept the temp to 60-70 ish for a little while, then boiled it for a while and added it into my mash that was about 20mins into its sacc rest. Bittered with some POR and Liberty to about 18IBU. 

Tastes quite nice, but unfortunately i did an experiment with using W34/70 in combo with an ale yeast at 22C, and then bottled too early. Loads of sulfur unfortunately. I might pour the batch back into the fermenter and cold condition it for a while!

But i can definitely vouch for the cereal mash. Wasn't a huge problem. I wouldn't think that you would have to boil it that hard. I have a new addition to the kitchen as of yesterday that might get a go: a pressure cooker. Somehow boiling polenta at 15PSI/121C with a lid on might alleviate the problems that people have boiling the cereal mash


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## RobW (30/1/07)

DJR said:


> I made one, the cereal mash using fine polenta was actually easier than i thought after reading all the horror stories. I heated up 2.5L of water to about 60C, added 750g of polenta, making a thick cornstarch porridge type thing, then after i got sick of stirring i added 150g of crushed JW Pils into it and raised the temp to 65. About 30 to 60 seconds after adding the malt, all of a sudden it became MUCH easier to stir, more like a soup than a porridge. Kept the temp to 60-70 ish for a little while, then boiled it for a while and added it into my mash that was about 20mins into its sacc rest. Bittered with some POR and Liberty to about 18IBU.
> 
> Tastes quite nice, but unfortunately i did an experiment with using W34/70 in combo with an ale yeast at 22C, and then bottled too early. Loads of sulfur unfortunately. I might pour the batch back into the fermenter and cold condition it for a while!
> 
> But i can definitely vouch for the cereal mash. Wasn't a huge problem. I wouldn't think that you would have to boil it that hard. I have a new addition to the kitchen as of yesterday that might get a go: a pressure cooker. Somehow boiling polenta at 15PSI/121C with a lid on might alleviate the problems that people have boiling the cereal mash



I did one of these a few weeks back and found pretty much the same. Quite straightforward technically - just took a bit longer. It's lagering atm and progressing nicely (they're only little tastes Warren, honest  )


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## warrenlw63 (30/1/07)

RobW said:


> I did one of these a few weeks back and found pretty much the same. Quite straightforward technically - just took a bit longer. It's lagering atm and progressing nicely (they're only little tastes Warren, honest  )



Oh well... They always say the last pint's the nicest. :lol: 

Warren -


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## locost (30/1/07)

I did a cream ale asome time ago and tried to keep it as lager like as possible.

If i recall it was 85% pils malt and 15% polenta. I did a cereal mash on the polenta and hopped to an IBU level in the low 20's with German Hops (Northern Brewer and Hersbrucker if memory serves).

Fermented with 1056.

It was fantastic!


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## therook (7/1/08)

I'm looking at having a go at one of these next weekend

2.3kg Galaxy ( Barrett Burston )
2.3kg Pale Ale ( Barrett Burston )
500 grams Flaked Maize
500 grams Flaked Rice

Mash at 65c
Fermented at 18c US56

Listening to Jamil's show he recomends Liberty Hops, but i dont have any, which of the following would be a good substitute

1.Simcoe
2.Willamette
3.Fuggles
4.Cascade
5.Tettnanger
6.Target
7.Spalt
8.E.K
9. Perle

Thanks
Rook


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## Stuster (7/1/08)

Liberty are a hallertau type hop as you may know. Probably from that list Tettnanger would be the closest, with Spalt or Perle other reasonably close subs. You could also use Willamette on this, it's not the same, but should work well in a cream ale as it's a fairly smooth, soft hop.


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## therook (7/1/08)

Stuster said:


> Liberty are a hallertau type hop as you may know. Probably from that list Tettnanger would be the closest, with Spalt or Perle other reasonably close subs. You could also use Willamette on this, it's not the same, but should work well in a cream ale as it's a fairly smooth, soft hop.




Thanks Stu....i know very little about Hops, but i will endevour to do so by 2009  

So which one is it to be...decisions decisions

Rook


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## rude (5/9/10)

Ok going to try this what do yas recon

Rudes Cream
Cream Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 25.0
Total Grain (kg): 4.353
Total Hops (g): 45.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.044 (P): 11.0
Colour (SRM): 4.1 (EBC): 8.1
Bitterness (IBU): 19.3 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 80
Boil Time (Minutes): 90

Grain Bill
----------------
3.482 kg Pale Ale Malt (80%)
0.218 kg Munich II (5%)
0.653 kg Flaked Corn (15%)

Hop Bill
----------------
20 g Centennial Pellet (6% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.8 g/l)
15 g Cascade Pellet (5.5% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.6 g/l)
10 g Amarillo Pellet (9% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Aroma) (0.4 g/l)

Single step Infusion at 64C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 18c with Wyeast 1056 - American Ale


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

Im using 600g of polenta boiled with 2 litres of water then put in the mash


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