drengel
Well-Known Member
has anyone else brewed this. transferred my buddys batch yesterday and the taster was nothing like i expected. of course i've never had the commercial version either, so i don't know what to expect. The Cali ale yeast fermented it super clean, really accentuated the 2 oz. of saaz hops used for flavoring/aroma, and even though its at 1.012, theres not a hint of sweetness, it's bone dry. It's got a nice malt profile, but not sweet at all. the color is somewhat in between a blonde and a amber ale, not as dark as we thought. the smoke taste shows up as a barely perceptible bitter finish, not really what we expected or wanted, as a fan of smoked foods i like a good dose of smoke flavor which this beer really lacks. the problem with that might be the rauch malt we got from AHS, it really didn't have a very strong smoky smell, you could mainly just smell the wood on the bag rather than the malt. the hops are much more present than anticipated, this is actually a pretty hoppy beer with all saaz hop aroma, but no smoke. it actually tastes like a highly hopped lighter version of shiner bock. it doesn't taste bad, completely different than anything we've brewed before, but still good. just not what was expected. we used the all grain recipe out of 'Clone Brews'. We're about to throw the carboy in the kegerator at about 45 degrees. It tastes like a bock type beer, so it seems like it should be cold-conditioned.
Has anyone had this experience with this recipe? Or had the real version? Is my description at all similar to the actual beer.
Has anyone had this experience with this recipe? Or had the real version? Is my description at all similar to the actual beer.