Cream Ale Recipe Comments Please

[locost]

Gearing up for the year's first AG and thought I'd explore the world of ******* Lagers.

I'm interested in an American hybrid called cream ale (interstingly it was also called
American sparkling ale) which is really an ale version of Classic American Pilsner - cream ale was
the ale brewers' collective response to a flood of golden Pilsners being produced by German
immigrants.

I was thinking along the lines of the following for a 20 - 25 L batch:

3.50 kg. Australian Pilsner
0.75 kg. German Light Munich
0.75 kg. Corn Flaked
15 g. Northern Brewer (Pellets, 9.7 %AA) boiled 60 minutes.
20 g. Tettnanger (Pellets, 4.60 %AA) boiled 10 minutes.

According to the BJCP, cream ale should have the following characteristics:

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.

Appearance: Pale straw to moderate gold color, although usually on the pale side. Low to
medium head with medium to high carbonation.

Flavor: Low to medium-low hop bitterness. Low to moderate maltiness and sweetness, varying
with gravity and attenuation. Usually well attenuated. Neither malt nor hops prevail in the
taste. A low to moderate corny flavor from corn adjuncts is commonly found, as is some DMS.
Finish can vary from somewhat dry to faintly sweet from the corn, malt, and sugar. Faint
fruity esters are optional.

Vital Statistics:
OG 1.042 - 1.055
FG 1.006 - 1.012
IBUs 15 - 20+
SRM 2.5 - 5
ABV 4.2 - 5.6%

I plan to mash at about 67oC and ferment below 20oC with Wyeast 1098.

Any comments please

 

[Gulf Brewery]

Locost

The only thing I might (not would) change is when you add the tett hops. They might give a bit too much flavour added that late. Possibly add at 30 or 20 and adjust the quantity for your 15 to 20 IBU's

Cheers
Pedro

 

[AndrewQLD]

Also, I would drop your mash temp to 64c. This beer is supposed to be well attenuated and at 67c it would finish too high. With the low IBU too many dextrines will make for a very thick/sweet beer.

Andrew

 

[warrenlw63]

Locost,

I've made a couple of CACAs (scary acronym) .

I've yet to use flaked corn. I usually cereal mash with polenta and use Perle as bittering hops.

Other than that they turn out pretty nice, easy drinking beers. Try and keep your fermentation temps. low as well to keep the esters to a minimum. If you can get hold of some Wyeast 1056 this will make the beer more lager-like, otherwise Wy. 1098 should be OK.

Bear in mind any fault in these sort of beers has no room to hide and will jump out and taint the flavour.

Enjoy!

Warren -

 

[Jovial_Monk]

Actually a mash temp of 67C will be fine: 750g of lfaked maize will lighten the body of the beer up quite a bit.

Jovial Monk

 

[Gulf Brewery]

locost

The is a lot of info on HBD about this style. Goto HBD and search on CACA or "Classic American Cream Ale".

Interestingly, this site has an email from Jeff Renner which says to mash at 63, then 70.

Cheers
Pedro

 

[Tim]

Just thought I would add that 'cream ale' is the featured style in the latest edition of BYO magazine. There is all sorts of info about the beer style with some recipes there also.

 

[warrenlw63]

This is handy article from Brewing Techniques that will help too.

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/library/b.../jankowski.html

Warren -