-- 

Designing a great beer involves all of the brewer’s arts. It requires a knowledge of ingredients, the ability to objectively evaluate flavor, and the patience to make adjustments over time. We asked five pro brewers how they created their best beers. They talked about the process of designing a signature beer, offered tips for homebrewers, and even provided recipes.

Mike Munroe, Gilded Otter, New Paltz, N.Y.
Three Pines IPA

Ingredients:
• 7 lbs. English pale malt
• 1 lb. English crystal malt, 75° Lovibond
• 0.25 lb. caramalt (dextrin malt)
• 0.5 lb. cane sugar (last 15 min. of boil)
• 6.5 oz. East Kent Goldings hop pellets (4% to 5% alpha acid, 26 to 32.5 AAUs): 1.5 oz. for 60 min., 1 oz. for
30 min., 1 oz. for 15 min., 2 oz. at end of boil, 1 oz. dry hop (optional)
• 1 pt. starter English ale yeast (such as White Labs WLP023, Burton ale)
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:   

Mash in with 2 to 3 gal. of water at 158° F until conversion is complete. Sparge to collect 5.5 gal. of wort. Total boil is 60 min. Bring to a boil and add 1.5 oz. of East Kent Goldings pellets. Boil 30 min., add 1 oz. of East Kent Goldings. Boil 15 min. more, add 1 oz. East Kent Goldings and cane sugar. Boil 15 min. more, turn off heat, and add 2 oz. East Kent Goldings. Cover and steep for 20 min. Cool to 70° F and pitch yeast.    

Ferment at 70° F until fermentation is complete, about one week. Transfer to secondary for one week. Dry hop with 1 oz. of East Kent Goldings if desired. Keg or prime with corn sugar and bottle. Allow to carbonate for one to two weeks.

Extract:    

Substitute 7 lbs. English light malt extract for pale malt. Combine crystal malt and caramalt in 2 to 3 gal. of water and steep for 15 min. in 160° F water. Remove grains. Continue heating water, adding extract. Bring water to a boil. Total boil is 60 min. Follow hopping and fermentation schedule in all-grain recipe.    

OG = 1.056, FG = 1.016, Bitterness = 50 IBUs

--   

When Mike Munroe set out to create a menu of beers for his new brewpub, which opened last November, he knew it would include his own favorite brew, an IPA. The particular IPA served at the Gilded Otter is actually an incarnation of a beer he brewed as head brewer at the Fort Hill Brewhouse in Boston. “Over about three or four years, I’ve tweaked it to make it the beer it is today. For the most part my beers are works in progress,” Munroe says.   

“Tweaking” is a term brewers use to describe the ongoing process of altering their recipes ever so slightly over time to get the desired result. The changes are usually subtle and might involve everything from playing with the hopping rate or grist bill to altering the mashing schedule.  His approach with the IPA, as with any of his recipes, was to research the style thoroughly first. Next, Munroe sampled as many beers in that style as he could find, narrowing the field to several he thought were worthy competitors. By isolating the best qualities of each — color, body, hopping rate — he had the basis of his own recipe.    

Like many professional brewers, Munroe doesn’t believe in pilot brews. His test batch is always a full batch.  That’s where familiarity with ingredients comes in. For homebrewers anxious to try their hand at recipe formulation, Munroe is adamant that knowing the look, taste, and smell of the raw ingredients — hops, yeast, and malt — is the only way to put together a successful brew.   

“It’s a matter of training your palate,” he says. “I taste everything that goes into my beer. I think your palate is a very good instrument that, with practice, can be trained.” For example experienced brewers should be able to recognize the difference not only between crystal and Munich malts but also between English and American pale malts.   

In describing his Three Pines IPA, Munroe says, “I try to brew traditional to the English style, using sugar, which adds to the
flavor and complexity. I also use English hops and malt. I think a lot of brewers have a tendency to make IPAs too bitter. There’s a fine line. You need balance.”    

That balance is what he feels sets his IPA apart from others in that style. His subtle yet thorough use of hops is another. The recipe calls for a surprising number of kettle additions — four, to be exact — and also uses a hop back.  A hop back is a separate vessel containing a “hop tea” that the brew passes through on its way from the kettle to the heat exchanger. Home-brewers can create the same effect by filling a five-gallon bucket with leaf hops and hot water, allowing it to steep for the duration of the brew. The bucket must be equipped with a top inlet to allow the hot wort to flow in and a bottom outlet to allow it to flow out and through the wort chiller.    

A filter, such as fine cheesecloth, is necessary to prevent hop residue from being carried into the fermenter. Dry hopping, the technique of adding hops to the fermenter, is another alternative.   

Munroe’s use of cane sugar in the recipe might come as a shock to experienced homebrewers, who might have used it as beginners and been disappointed with the results. “Homebrewers may have used too much and gotten a cidery taste,” says Munroe. “You only want to use up to 10 percent (of total grain bill weight). Mainly, it will give your beer a higher alcohol content.”

Mark Edelson, Iron Hill Restaurant & Brewery, Newark, Del.     
Lodestone Lager 

Ingredients:
• 6 lbs. pilsner malt
• 10 oz. carapils malt
• 9 oz. pale crystal malt, 10° Lovibond
• 13 oz. light Munich malt
• 1 oz. German Perle hops (7.5% alpha acid, 7.5 AAUs) for 60 min.
• 1.2 oz. Czech Saaz hops (3.7% alpha acid, 4.4 AAUs) for 5 min.
• 1 pt. starter of Wyeast 2206 (Bavarian lager)
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:   

Mash in with 2 to 3 gal. of 152° F water until conversion is complete. Sparge with 168° F water to collect
5.5 gal. of wort.  Bring to a boil and add Perle hops. Total boil is 60 min. Boil 55 min., then add Saaz hops. Boil 5 min. more. Chill to 68° F and pitch yeast.    

Ferment at 53° F until done, about 10 days. Rack to secondary and condition at 37° F for five weeks. Prime with corn sugar, bottle, and age one to two weeks.

Extract:   

Substitute 6 lbs. light malt extract for pilsner malt. Combine carapils, crystal, and Munich malts in 2.5 gal. water and steep for 15 min. at 160° F. Remove grains and bring to a boil. Follow all-grain boiling and fermenting instructions.   

OG = 1.046, FG = 1.011, Bitterness = 25 IBUs

--

For Mark Edelson, a degree in chemical engineering and a background in homebrewing have proven to be an ideal combination for concocting award-winning brews.   

When Edelson and his partners opened the first Iron Hill in Newark, Del., in 1996, they hired a consultant to help create the brewery’s first beers. Then Edelson took over, modifying and adding to the recipes over the past two years until they came into their own.    

“We thought about the profiles of the beers we wanted and wrote descriptions. Then we brewed and tweaked based on what we were tasting and what we heard from our customers,” Edelson says.   

The strategy paid off. Iron Hill’s Lodestone Lager won a gold medal in the Munich Helles category at the 1997 Great American Beer Festival. And Iron Hill’s Wee Heavy strong Scotch ale took a bronze medal at last year’s GABF.   

“The lager is one of our regular styles and is one of our best sellers. Of course, it’s also one of the best-selling styles in the world,” says Edelson. The lager stands alone among the brewpub’s ales. It is traditional in its golden color, malty character, light hopping, and five-week lagering period. Imported German malt is used. The use of Czech Saaz hops, however, sets it apart from other beers in the style.    

Edelson admits to being somewhat surprised at the judges’ decision, as his beer is late hopped with Saaz hops, which is not true to the German tradition. But, he says, “It’s a very clean beer.”    

In another divergence from the German tradition, the beer is brewed using a single-infusion mash rather than temperature
program (upward step) or decoction. “The real key is the fermentation temperature. That’s the biggest insight I can offer homebrewers,” Edelson says. The lager is fermented at 53° F and conditioned at 37° F.    

As any homebrewer knows, temperature control is not easy. Yet fermenting a lager at temperatures that are too high can result in an estery beer that tastes more like an ale.    

Edelson recommends that any homebrewer interested in brewing lagers invest in a used refrigerator and install a separate temperature controller. He also stresses the importance of good sanitation practices in the home brewery.

Denise Jones, Third Street Ale Works Restaurant & Brewery, Santa Rosa, Calif.
Sisters Blarney Dry Irish Stout   

Ingredients:
• 0.5 tsp. chalk (CaCo3) for mash water
• 8 lbs. Great Western pale or Maris Otter malt
• 0.75 lb. roasted barley
• 0.5 lb. Great Western caramel malt, 60° Lovibond
• 0.25 lb. flaked barley
• 0.5 oz. Admiral hops (15.2% alpha acid, 39 AAUs) for 90 min.
• 1 oz. East Kent Goldings (5.6% alpha acid, 10 AAUs): 1 oz. for 90 min., 0.5 oz. at end of boil
• 1 pt. starter of Wyeast 1318 (London ale III)
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:   

Add chalk to 3 gal. water for mash. Mash all cracked grains, except flaked barley, into 163° F water to achieve
target mash temperature of 150° F. Sprinkle flaked barley on top of mash (but do not stir in) and hold temperature for 90 min. Lauter with 170° F water for about 45 min. to collect 6.5 gal. Total boil is 90 min. Boil 30 min., add Admiral hops and 0.5 oz. East Kent Goldings hops. Boil 60 min. more, turn off heat, and add rest of East Kent Goldings. Cover and steep for 20 min. Chill to 68° F and pitch yeast starter.    

Ferment for seven days at 68° to 70° F or until target gravity is 1.018 to 1.016. Rack to secondary for two days, allowing some pressure to build in keg. Chill keg and lager for 10 to 14 days at 40° F. Lager one more day at 12 to 14 psi.

Extract:   

Substitute 7 lbs. pale malt extract for pale malt. Combine 0.5 lb. each of pale malt, roasted malt, crystal malt, and flaked barley in 2.5 gal. water and steep 15 min. at 160° F. Remove grains and bring to a boil. Follow boiling and fermenting instructions in all-grain recipe.   

OG = 1.060, FG = 1.016, Bitterness = 49 IBUs

-- 

Although she has more than 40 recipes in her brewing repertoire, Denise Jones has an intimate relationship with each beer.
That’s because she insists on becoming fully immersed in the style before brewing even one drop. Her education includes a
program of tasting, reading, and researching all aspects of each style she brews.    

To best create a recipe for a certain type of beer, Jones combines elements unique to the style and uses ingredients as close to those found in the style’s region of origin as possible. Never a brewing hobbyist, Jones has not worked with anything less than a professional system and has never brewed test batches. Her present brewhouse is 14 barrels (434 gallons).    

“If you want to get down to it, every one of my batches is a pilot batch. I know with 95 percent
certainty if it’s going to turn out,” she says.   

Unlike many brewers, Jones prefers not to treat her water, believing that brewing with house water gives beer a character all its own. There are, however, a handful of exceptions among her recipes, notably her Sisters Blarney Dry Irish Stout.    

Jones, who also brews an oatmeal stout, said her dry stout differs from that beer in several ways, including the water treatment. “I like to use chalk (CaCo3) to dry it out,” she says.    

The additive hardens the water — thereby mimicking the hard water of Dublin, Ireland — and is ideal for brewing dark beers such as stouts. “It’s a drier fermentation with no residual alcohol, and has a higher gravity. The dry stout is richer and thicker in body than my oatmeal stout.”   

Jones says her recipe differs from other dry stouts she’s encountered because it’s lower in gravity, lighter in taste, and not aggressively hopped. “I think mine has a little bit more girth — and it’s more balanced,” she adds.   

Although she was never a homebrewer, Jones has some practical advice for those inter-ested in attempting the beer at home. Rather than combining the flaked barley the recipe calls for in the mash, Jones advises sprinkling it on top of the mash and holding at 150° F for 90 minutes. “You still get a nice flavor, but you don’t create the stick right out the gate,” she says. (The adjunct’s gummy nature can make wort separation difficult.)   

This technique also can be used for equal distribution of the chalk. Lastly, Jones strongly suggests using liquid yeast, specifically a yeast that is compatible with the temperature conditions in your home brewery.

Keith Symonds, Starlight Brewing Co., Southfield, Mich.
Fall Rye Beer   

Ingredients:
• 5.5 lbs. light malt extract
• 1.5 lbs. Munich malt
• 1 lb. rye malt
• 1 lb. wheat malt
• 1 oz. Mt. Hood hops (4.8% alpha acid, 4.8 AAUs) for 45 min.
• 2 oz. Tettnanger hops (4.1% alpha acid, 8.2 AAUs): 1 oz. for 45 min., 1 oz. for 20 min.
• 1 oz. Saaz hops (2.2% alpha acid, 2.2 AAUs) for 20 min.
• 1 tsp. Irish moss
• Wyeast 1338 (German ale)
• 3/4 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:   

Add crushed grains to 2 to 3 gal. cold water and heat slowly. Remove grains from kettle when temperature approaches boil 20 to 30 min. total steeping time). Add malt extract and bring to boil. Total boil is 60 min. Boil for 15 min., add Mt. Hood and 1 oz. Tettnanger hops. Boil 25 min. more, add Saaz and Irish moss. Boil 20 min. more. Cool wort to 68° F and pitch yeast.    

Ferment at 66° to 68° F until fermentation is complete, about one week. At end of primary fermentation, rack to secondary and cool to 35° F (if practical). Allow the beer to age for one to two weeks.    

Prime with corn sugar, bottle, and allow to carbonate for one to two weeks before drinking.    

OG = 1.052, FG = 1.010, Bitterness = 21 IBUs

--

When Keith Symonds’ new brewpub opens sometime early next year, he’ll be faced with the challenge of creating a menu of beers to complement the restaurant’s American-bistro fare. Luckily for Symonds, he’s brought a number of recipes, in various forms, with him from other brewing positions.   

One of the recipes he’ll resurrect is his Fall Rye Beer. Symonds first experimented with rye malt several years ago after he sampled some West Coast rye brews at the 1995 Great American Beer Festival in Denver. He returned to his East Coast brewing job determined to put the underused malt to work in his own recipe.   

“I understand flavors and I’m very good at combining ingredients, so I just gave it a shot,” Symonds says. The result was a pleasing rust-colored brew.

“Rye is a grain that is not used for much of anything anymore, although it was a big part of Colonial life. It’s really neat to brew with and adds a hint of spiciness and a little bit of nuttiness. The downside is that rye is really gummy. It’s high in beta glucans,” he says. Beta glucans are long strings of glucose molecules. They are present in undermodified malts such as rye, and they have a tendency to be gummy and increase the viscosity of wort.   

The subtle flavor of the rye malt acts as the perfect foil to the sweetness of the barley malt. It also complements a lower hopping rate.    

Symonds cautions all-grain homebrewers to use rye in moderation, no more than 5 percent to 10 percent of the total grain bill by weight. He recommends using a step mash to minimize the stickiness. A beta-glucan rest at 118° to 120° F will activate the beta glucanase enzyme, which breaks down gummy beta glucans, and reduces lautering problems.

Greg Zaccardi, High Point Wheat Beer Co., Butler, N.J.
Ramstein Blonde Wheat Beer   

Ingredients:
• 7 lbs. German pilsner malt
• 1.5 lbs. Vienna malt
• 8.5 lbs. German malted wheat
• 1.8 oz. Tettnanger hops (3.5% alpha acid, 6.3 AAUs): 1.3 oz. for 60 min., 0.25 oz. for 10 min., 0.25 oz. end of boil
• 1 pt. starter of liquid wheat yeast
• 11/3 to 11/2 cup corn sugar for priming

Step by Step:   

Add grain to 2 to 3 gal. of 104° F water. Hold for 10 min. Raise temperature to 122° F and hold for 15 min. Raise temperature to 154° F and hold for 15 min. Remove one-third of mash (thick portion) and boil for 15 min. Slowly return decoction to main mash. (Do not exceed 172° F in main mash.) Sparge with 5 to 6 gal. of water to reach approximately 11 gal. Total boil is 90 min. Boil for 30 min., add 1.3 oz. Tettnanger hops. Boil 50 min. more, add 0.25 oz. Tettnanger. Boil 10 min. more, turn off heat, and add 0.25 oz. Tettnanger. Cover and steep for 20 min. Cool to 60° F and pitch yeast.    

Ferment at 65° F for three to four days. Transfer to secondary and condition at 40° F for three weeks. Prime, bottle, and carbonate for one to two weeks.

Extract:
    Substitute 14 lbs. wheat dry malt extract (65% wheat to 35% barley malt). Combine 1 lb. pilsner malt and 1 lb. Vienna malt in 2.5 gal. 160° F water and steep 15 min. Remove grains and bring to a boil. Follow all-grain boiling and fermentation instructions.   

OG = 1.052, FG = 1.012, Bitterness = 14 IBUs

--

Greg Zaccardi learned to appreciate wheat beer when he met a German exchange student whose family had been in the brewing business for 300 years.     

The woman, who later became his wife, invited him to visit her family in Germany. That’s where Zaccardi, an avid homebrewer and malt-beverage aficionado, “discovered” wheat beer.   

“I saw a wonderful country and tasted good beer. I had never tasted anything of that quality before. Thirty percent of all German beers are wheat beers. Here, they’re virtually invisible,” Zaccardi says.   

Several years later, after a three-month stint working at a brewery in Germany that made wheat beer, Zaccardi opened
High Point Wheat Beer Co., a microbrewery specializing in German wheat beers.   

The 15-barrel (465 gallons) brewery produces four different beers, including Ramstein Blonde Wheat, its biggest seller. The recipe was derived from Zaccardi’s experiences as a homebrewer, his experience in Europe, and his professional experience at High Point.   

Unlike at brewpubs, where the clientele allows the brewer to substantially tweak the beer, Zaccardi’s efforts to make his brew more mainstream drew protests from customers. “In about six months it went from a malty, flavorful orangey-gold beer to a much lighter, bright gold beer. It was a mistake,” he acknowledges. So he went back to his original recipe, which he feels holds its own against top German brands.   

The biggest difference between Zaccardi’s beer and more established brands is that he uses a little more Vienna malt (which lends a maltier flavor and an orange-gold color).   

When making a hefeweizen, which is an unfiltered wheat beer, homebrewers should pay special attention to the yeast, he says. “Just look at a (cloudy) hefeweizen. The amount of yeast in it should give you an indication of how important a role the yeast plays. You need to use a very good yeast propagated and pitched at the right time,” Zaccardi says. Also, use good malt, noble hops, and soft water.   

He says it’s hard, if not impossible, to make a decent wheat beer unless an all-grain recipe is used. Ideally, the mash should be
decocted, according to Zaccardi. This is a technique homebrewers can try. After conversion, scoop out about one-third of the mash, which should have a porridge-like consistency. Then boil that portion on the stovetop for 15 to 20 minutes. When the time is up, return the portion gradually to the main mash and slowly begin lautering.      

High Point uses a proprietary yeast strain, but you can do well with a liquid wheat yeast.