Sure, so basically my problem is this:
An Alt is a German beer with about 30-60IBU and a starting gravity between 44-54 made with noble German hops possibly using decoction mash with a yeast strain which will be an ale strain but most active in the 55-60 range. It is then cold conditioned or lagered for an extended period of time.
A steam ale is an American beer with 30-60IBU with a starting gravity between 44-54 made with noble clone hops from America and might also include a decoction mash (though that is a bit rare) and is made with an ale yeast strain most active between 55-60. Is it then cold conditioned?
Basically, I have only had Anchor Steam and I haven't made a California common. I haven't made an alt, and I haven't had one, do the two taste similar?
Also, can I use Munich and Vienna malt interchangeably? I haven't really seen a difference in things that I have read and I am wondering what the difference is between Munich and Vienna.
The only way you are going to know the difference between munich
and vienna is to brew two beers using only one of them each, lightly
hopped, and taste it. And then you would have to try different brands
of them to see what those differences are. It's not a huge difference,
but they are different.
Award winning recipes for alt and cali common are here:
http://www.beerdujour.com/JamilsRecipes.htm
They are quite different. For one thing, Anchor Steam in particular,
uses only one hop, Northern Brewer, for bittering and flavoring and
most of the characteristic flavor comes from that. You could do
everything else the same but change the hops and it will be completely
different. Jamil's recipe uses light chocolate malt at 200L as the darkest
grain, his Dusseldort alt uses 400L Carafa special. The alt is a much
darker beer, and has no flavoring hops, only bittering, and the Diebel's alt
that I had in Germany had a distinct caramel flavor.
Ray
