Style Of The Week 4/7/07 - Specialty Beers

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Stuster

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After all these style of the weeks, I though it'd be good to look at a no-style style this week. :huh: Category 23 on the BJCP guidelines is for beers that fall outside the style guidelines, Specialty beer.

It includes historic beers like 18th century porters, strange ingredients like rye or yoghurt :blink: , strange combinations like a smoked fruit beer, wannabe styles that don't have a category yet like Czech Dark Lager or stronger or weaker variations or other beers, like the weaker APA discussed here earlier in the week. It doesn't include odd Belgian beers as they go in category 16E.

So what strange, wacky, weird beers have you made. And were they any good? :lol:
 
This one should run to a couple of pages with some of the concoctions I've read on here.
 
Well, I've made some slightly unusual beers, but nothing that wacky. I've got a porter sitting in secondary with brettanomyces which should give it a bit of a different taste. I've used rye (great stuff) and triticale (very similar to rye, although I need to use it in greater quantities to be sure about it). Lower gravity APAs are great IMO. You get all the great hop flavour and aroma, but they're light and refreshing. Good summer beers. Lower gravity Belgians are also good. Again, lots of yeast character, but an easy-drinker.

Mostly though, I've slavishly followed some style it seems. :(
 
I guess one of the easiest "specialty" beers to make would be a honey ale.

One of the keys to nailing a really good honey beer (or any specialty beer for that matter!) is to start with a good base beer. There's no point adding honey to an already average beer in the hope that it'll turn out better.

I've had great success with a basic APA - JW Ale & Munich, Simcoe to bitter and Amarillo the rest of the way to 30-35IBU.

Ferment out, and crash-chill for a week or so to drop the yeast out.
My technique is to then bring the beer back up to room temp, and rack to secondary.
I add 1kg of heated, runny honey to the secondary during the racking to mix it all through, and leave it for a couple of weeks/1month to let any remaining yeast finish off.

Beware if you're bottling a honey beer, you'll need to leave it fermenting the honey out for at least a month (take SG readings to be sure), else you're likely to get bottle-bombs.

Kegger's need not worry :)

There's heaps more specialty styles to choose from, go nuts! :beer:
Tim
 
Cerny Pivo

Nuff said

Then again you might as well enter it as a Dunkel or Schwarzbier, they are very similar.

Mostly pils, a touch of Munich and about 150-200g of dehusked black malt, then bitter to about 25IBUs, 50g Saaz at 20m, 25g at flameout. Ferment with a Czech or German pils yeast (WLP802 is perfect)
 
Cerny Pivo

Nuff said

Then again you might as well enter it as a Dunkel or Schwarzbier, they are very similar.

Mostly pils, a touch of Munich and about 150-200g of dehusked black malt, then bitter to about 25IBUs, 50g Saaz at 20m, 25g at flameout. Ferment with a Czech or German pils yeast (WLP802 is perfect)

<asked> What is the difference to a SchwartzBier? Seems very very similar to me... Otherwise is it 'just' a black pilsener? I missing something?

Tim.
 
Yeah, I think the absence of Czech tmav beers from the BJCP is the greatest outrage in human history. It baffles me that there are three grades of bitter, three grades of Scottish ale and nothing for this. But anyway...

Phrak, to me, the difference between a tmav/cern and a dunkel/schwarzbier is the same as the difference between Czech and German pilsners. The Czech ones have a much fatter, rounder malt character (presumably from lots of decocting), fuller body, lower carbonation and more Czech hop character, relatively speaking.

It probably doesn't seem like a huge difference on paper, so you're better off trying some beers and finding out. Problem is the only ones you can get here (Kruovice Čern, Kozel Čern) aren't very good, but they'll give you an idea.

Anyone have any info on what commercial Czech breweries use in their dark beers?
 
Not sure if this was quite honey enough to qualify but then again 500g Leatherwood is probably worth 1kg of honey with no flavour :)


2kg Light DME. 500g Leatherwood honey. 180g Crystal 60L 170g Chocolate Malt. 100g Dark Brown Sugar. 30g Northern Brewer hops. 25g Perle Hops. 20g Target hops Safale US56 yeast.

Steeped grains for 30 mins. Sparge with water into brewpot. 30g Northern Brewer@60. Sugar, DME, 100g honey@15 25g Perle hops @5. 20g Target hops, 400g honey@endAdded some chilled and some room temp water to make up to 20L.

Was aiming for a brown ale with that bite of Leatherwood. In an AG I would definitely aim to get a full body as this was much drier than I wanted. I'd use an english yeast like Windsor or S04 with an extract version, probably with an AG too.

The beer got down to 1008.

Opinion was firmly divided on this beer.

I love Leatherwood honey so the only issue for me was that it was a little bit dry. Others who like that honey also liked it.
Others thought it tasted like medicine.
 
Was thinking that all my other out there beers fitted into categories then I remembered the Thai Beer from my kit days...

Was attempting to have a wheat beer with those classic Thai curry flavours, minus the coconut.

Way too much ginger in the end. SHould have used galangal but it wasn't so easy to find as it is now...

ESB Bavarian Wheat

Kit + juice and rind of 1 lemon, juice of 2 limes, about 12 kaffir lime leaves, 75g coriander, 2-3 sticks of lemon grass, 5 lumps of ginger and about 25-28 odd chillies

brought water to boil with rind and some juice. Kit, juice, rind, ginger, lemongrass, kaffir lime leaves and a couple of chillies at 20. Steep with heat down for 20. Strained into fermenter then added water and yeast placing stocking bag of coriander, ginger and 25 odd chillies as well.

Would have been the kit yeast which is probably k97.

Lots of people really liked this beer. It wasn't hot. It tasted very much like a ginger beer with a hint of citrus.

All I could ever taste was not getting the flavours I wanted but the beer was all drunk anyway, mostly by others...

My wife reckoned it was a bit "soupy" though...

I still think kaffir lime leaves go great in a wheat. I've used them before and since.
 
That's certainly an interesting beer, bconnery. Thai curry beer. How much ginger would you suggest if you were to do it again? Strange that no heat came through from all those chillies. :blink:
 
Thai Beer from my kit days...

Thai curry flavours, minus the coconut.

SHould have used galangal

12 kaffir lime leaves

25-28 odd chillies

lemongrass

My wife reckoned it was a bit "soupy" though...


leaves go great in a wheat

:blink: Bens Bizarre Beers :lol:
 
That's certainly an interesting beer, bconnery. Thai curry beer. How much ginger would you suggest if you were to do it again? Strange that no heat came through from all those chillies. :blink:

Depends on what you want. I'd drop the ginger altogether and use galangal, or else use just a couple of slices...
 
Yeah, I think the absence of Czech tmav beers from the BJCP is the greatest outrage in human history. It baffles me that there are three grades of bitter, three grades of Scottish ale and nothing for this. But anyway...

Phrak, to me, the difference between a tmav/cern and a dunkel/schwarzbier is the same as the difference between Czech and German pilsners. The Czech ones have a much fatter, rounder malt character (presumably from lots of decocting), fuller body, lower carbonation and more Czech hop character, relatively speaking.

It probably doesn't seem like a huge difference on paper, so you're better off trying some beers and finding out. Problem is the only ones you can get here (Kruovice Čern, Kozel Čern) aren't very good, but they'll give you an idea.

Anyone have any info on what commercial Czech breweries use in their dark beers?

I use a recipe loosely based on Gerard's recipe which is based on the recipe in use at U Fleku (not sure about the wheat malt however). I tweaked it a bit to make it a bit more like a Schwarz but next time i will go more towards the Czech end of the scale and hit it with lots of munich malt and do a quick decoction. Any german style "coloured" malt (ie farbmalz/carafa) for colour adjustment will do, dehusked preferably for a smooth character. I wouldn't think they would use roast barley as the examples i've tried don't have the harsh smoky bite that roast gives.

I'm thinking the main difference is more malt character (although a Dunkel can be pretty damn malty) but definitely more bitterness, more hop flavour/aroma and probably less alcohol, Kozel for example comes in at about 3.7% from memory, this is a function of high FG and low OG compared with the German brethren that means that in Czech Rep the girls drink it because it's sweet. I should do a roundup tasting at the next ISB meet of my Cerny vs Kostritzer Schwarz vs Kozel Dark and see what the differences are.

Another type is the amber pivo (not sure what the czech term is) like Bernard Amber which i had the other day at the Bazaar beer cafe near my work, that was pretty nice, seemed to be using some caramel malt to give it some colour and sweetness.
 
I use a recipe loosely based on Gerard's recipe which is based on the recipe in use at U Fleku (not sure about the wheat malt however). I tweaked it a bit to make it a bit more like a Schwarz but next time i will go more towards the Czech end of the scale and hit it with lots of munich malt and do a quick decoction. Any german style "coloured" malt (ie farbmalz/carafa) for colour adjustment will do, dehusked preferably for a smooth character. I wouldn't think they would use roast barley as the examples i've tried don't have the harsh smoky bite that roast gives.
Can you post or provide a link to Gerard's recipe? I can't find anything about it...

I think your beer at the schwarzbier end of the scale isn't necessarily any less authentic than something more brown. Sure, most of them are probably closer to a dunkel but some of them are pretty roasty - like the one at the Strahov Monastery in Prague for instance. But yeah, I can't imagine roast barley is even remotely authentic.

Another type is the amber pivo (not sure what the czech term is)
Jantar/grant/polotmav? I have no idea, I find Czech incredibly confusing.

Oh yeah, it sounds like you're a big enough Czech beer nerd to be interested in this book, if you haven't already heard of it. It's fantastic.
 
Here's Charlie Papazian's recipe called Ivan the Wonderful's Dark Czech Lager, accompanying his story on U-Flecku in the sept/oct 2005 issue of Zymurgy

19L based on 80% efficiency

2.7kg pils malt
454g munich
225g aromatic (melanoidin?)
225g carapils
113g caramunich
113g carafa

4.6 AAU of Saaz at 60 mins
4.0 AAU of Mt Hood at 15 mins
Whirfloc
Czech lager yeast

30 min rest at 53C
30 min rest at 68C

OG 1048
FG 1012
IBU's approx 22

Trent

EDIT - After finishing the story again, Papazian said that Ivan the brweer at U-Flecku told him the starting gravity was 1056. Papazian has cut it town to 1048 to account for the 4.5%, which apparently may be due to low attenuation at the brewery itself. So if you have had U-Flecku, this beer may not be as full bodied as the original, but I am just guessing at that.
 
polotmave= amber. where's this bazaar thing djr? i used to drink a lot of bernard in prague when i was a drunken backpacker slob. their 13% cerny in particular is great, really roasty.

there's a difference between tmavy/tmave and cerny/cerne which is tmavy = "dark" and cerny = "black" - sometimes this actually equates to the tmaves being more caramelly and sweet and the cernes being more roasty and stoutlike, but in practice the breweries dont seem to care much about the distinctions - roastiness and colour really varies. the gravity seems to matter more - 10% tmaves like kozel or krusovice are sweet and mainly drunk by the cesky holky (gurls) - 12% ones can be sweet or roasty or somewhere in between - and if you spot a 13 or 14% cerny or tmavy they are often more in the direction of a stout - bigger roast, bigger body, bigger hopping. not really anything like kostritzer which is quite light-bodied.

ron pattinson has a good explanation of all these styles at http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/czecintr.htm

i never got to u fleku. im an idiot. but back then $4/500ml seemed like a ripoff when i could get bernard for 50c.
 
As nice as U Fleku is its probably to Prague what the Hofbrauhaus is to Munich. The consumate tourist trap.

A little vague but Roger Protz gives U Fleku's grainbill as this;

50% Pils Malt
30% Munich Malt
15% Caramalt
5% Roast

Wild guess he'd be reasonably close. :beer:

Warren -
 

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