I don't know how many of y'all have had Widmer's BRRR (winter warmer), but to drink it is to love it. I was looking forward to it for months before it hit the shelves – so much so that I had to brew my own in the meantime. I did some research on the brewery's website, which gave most information needed, but it was incomplete. For instance, they list Simcoe and Cascade hops, plus their “alchemy” blend. Through research right here on the forum I found this solution:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/widmer-alchemy-hops-26396/. I based the amounts of grains and hops, as well as the additions, on other red/imperial red ale recipes that I found floating around the web.
In our first brewing of this, we extended the boil to 110 minutes to try to achieve that nice red color. Actual Brrr uses Simcoe, Warrior, and Cascade hops. We had a ****-ton of Nuggets on hand (we had just visited a friend's hop farm in Oregon and he gave us a bunch), so we substituted Nuggets for the Simcoe and Warrior, as they have more or less the same alpha acid rating.
The beer turned out very drinkable, but not quite Brrr. It's lacking that assertive hoppy flavor, and also doesn't have that rich dark red color we were hoping for (as I recall, anyway – it's been awhile since I've had one). Though ProMash said we would come close to the 50 IBUs Widmer's Brrr has, I suspect we should have shot for a higher number. I'm also reckoning our hops substitutions played a part in not achieving the hop flavor of real Brrr (duh). We were spot-on for the target gravity (actually, we got 1.072). I didn't note the yeast we used, but it was either White labs American or California Ale.
I'm posting the recipe here. Hopefully you guys can give me suggestions on things to tweak to get it closer to the real thing next time I make it.
Widmer Brrr Clone
5 gal batch
Malts
13 lb Pale 2-Row
1 lb Munich 2-row
.5 lb Carapils
.25 lb Crystal 10L
.25 lb Crystal 80L
.25 lb Chocolate malt
Hops
.5 oz Nugget (60 min)
1 oz Nugget (15 min)
1 oz Cascade (15 min)
1 oz Nugget (flameout)
1 oz Cascade (flameout)
This was one of our first all-grain-ers, so this recipe is based on an assumed 65% efficiency.
Single-infusion mash at 154F
46.6 IBUs
1.071 SG
17 SRM
Widmer Brrr Clone
Linear Mode
