Oops!

I kinda thought I had already done this. When I started planning my next post (which is coming shortly), I realized I had never mentioned St Patrick's Day.

Well, I won, again. We had what I thought was the biggest challenge, a lager. And, not just any lager. Our drawn beer this time was schwarzbier, a German black lager.

As I read the style guidelines, I thought that it looked very much like a porter, but with lager yeast. So, I thought I would simply use my favorite porter recipe, and change the yeast and hops.

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Spaceballs: The Beer
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Brewer: Joe Labeck
Style: Schwarzbier
Batch: 2.00 galExtract

Characteristics
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Recipe Gravity: 1.049 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 41 IBU
Recipe Color: 45° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.012
Alcohol by Volume: 4.8%
Alcohol by Weight: 3.8%

Ingredients
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Amber malt extract            2.00 lb, Extract, Extract
American chocolate malt       0.50 lb, Grain, Steeped
Crystal 120L                  0.50 lb, Grain, Steeped
Molasses                      0.33 lb, Sugar, Extract

Tettnanger                    1.00 oz, Pellet, 0 minutes
Tettnanger                    1.00 oz, Pellet, 60 minutes

Lager yeast                   1.00 unit, Yeast,


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For me, the greatest difficulty was how to produce a lager without a temperature controlled cooler, or a cave.

A Mr. Beer keg, a roasting pan, water, a towel, and a small fan, and I was in business. Fermentation took about a month.

The final product was exactly what I had hoped for, a nice, clean lager, with just a hint of the roasted malts and molasses.

Winning was nice. But, as always, making and sharing the beer was the best.