Sprecher Special Amber Lager Clone

5 gallons, extract with grains; OG = 1.054; FG = 1.015; IBUs = 34–37; ABV = 4.7%

Ingredients:

• 4.0 lbs. Alexander’s pale malt extract syrup
• 2.0 lbs. Briess Light dry malt powder
• 0.5 lb. dark Munich malt (20° L)
• 0.5 lb. crystal malt (120° L)
• 0.5 lb. Belgian CaraVienna malt
• 8.5 AAU Cascade hops (bittering) (1.7 oz. of 5.0% alpha acid)
• 4.0 AAU Mt. Hood hops (aroma) (1.0 oz. of 4.0% alpha acid)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian Lager) or White Labs WLP830 (German Lager) yeast
• 0.75 cup corn sugar (for priming)

Step by step:

Steep the crushed malts in three gallons of water at 150º F for 30 minutes. Remove the grains from the wort, add malt syrup and powder, and bring this mixture to a boil. Add the Cascade hops and Irish moss and boil for 60 minutes. Add the Mt. Hood hops for the last two minutes of the boil.

When done boiling, strain out the hops, add the wort to two gallons cool water in a sanitary fermenter and top off with cool water to 5.5 gallons. Cool the wort to 70º F, aerate the beer and pitch your yeast. After the beer has started fermenting (about 12-18 hours), move the fermenter to a 50° F location and let the beer cool and ferment until fermentation is complete, about 14 days.

Then, cool the beer to 33° F and lager for an additional three to five weeks. Bottle your beer, carbonate and enjoy!

All-grain option:

Replace the light syrup and powder with 8.5 lbs. Pilsner malt. The Sprecher brewery does a two-step mash. Mash all your grains at 122º F for 30 minutes, then raise the temperature to 155º F for 45 minutes. Collect enough wort to boil for 90 minutes and have a 5.5-gallon yield. Lower the amount of boiling hops to 0.9 of an ounce to account for higher extraction rate of hop bitterness in a full boil.