Classless "rye" beer

**pjj2ba** · 03-14-2008, 04:43 PM

OK, it's another one of those what did I make questions. I'd like to enter this beer into some competitions but I can't decide what category. This beer is very interesting, like nothing I've brewed or had. I call it my Half-baked Swedish Rye Beer. It is quite spicy. I used 1.5 loaves of a Swedish rye bread I baked (3:1 wheat to rye flour + some molasses) in the mash. In addition to Pils and 6-row base malts, I added 1 lb of rye malt and 6 oz Special B. Having read that molasses can give a rum note, I thought I'd play that up with the raisoney Special B and also went with White labs Trappist yeast. Spalt hops for flavor, I'm blanking on the bittering, Cluster or maybe Pacific Gem. IBUs about 25. OG was 1.052 and it finished at 1.012. I've been drinking this beer for a couple of months now. It is a gorgeous red color and quite spicy (not clove spicy) with a definite trappist yeast flavor in the background. My first thought was just to put it as a Belgian Specialty ale, but I wonder about Amercian or German wheat/rye, but I think the yeast is wrong for that. Maybe a Belgian Pale Ale? I'll have to double check the SRM to make sure it is not too high

Actually, in retrospect, I think the yeast I used was not the best. It seems to fight with the spiciness Next time I brew this I really want to play up the spiciness and will go with something that gives me a really clean ferment, like a Cali ale yeast, might even go with a lager. I'm also thinking about turning it into a Alt, maybe adding a touch of debittered carafa and substituting a little of the Pils malt with some Munich

**DeathBrewer** · 03-14-2008, 07:05 PM

Belgian Specialty Ale?

that sounds really tasty.