Fermenting a lager as an ale?

I want to try a Brooklyn Lager clone recipe (great beer) but I don't really have the means to cold ferment (plus I'm impatient). I'm wondering what kind of difference to flavor, alcohol content, etc. there will be if I just ferment it like an ale (~70 degrees).

Thanks!

If you want to do this I would recommend using a very clean ale yeast and fermenting on the cool side 64F or so. THis will ensure a healthy ferment but will ferment cleaner than if the temp was higher. Safale 05 is a good one to do this with, the only problem is that you should use finings such as isinglass or gelatin to get the yeast to settle out properly. You could also try a Kolsh yeast or even a San Francisco lager yeast which is lager like but ferments at warmer temps. I have never tried fermenting a standard lager yeast at high temps.

From what I have read you just need to use a different yeast, ale yeast, not lager yeast.

Stick with an ale yeast. The lager yeast at warmer temps will not attenuate properly.

The lager yeast will also likely throw alot of off flavors, wont be very good. Go with a clean ale yeast.

Thanks for the feedback, I will go with ale yeast.

But how will this change the flavor? I'm not sure how much flavor the yeasts add and if ale yeast is so much different than lager, and I also wasn't sure if the fermenting changes the flavor.

I guess my question is if I took a Brooklyn Lager recipe that uses lager yeast and just replace that with ale yeast, will it taste roughly the same?

It'll be close but not quite as clean. Ale yeast will give you more fruity esters, this is why it is important to ferment it on the cool side. Lower temp = less esters

Do a little research on 'steam beers'. Anchor Steam is the default commercial example. Lagers done at coolish ale temps... Not as clean as a true lager, but the esters won't be the same as if you just used an ale yeast either. You'll have more sulphur too which changes things up.

You can definitely do it, and it would be a steam beer. White labs and Wyeast make a specific 'california lager' strain for this type of brew, and BYO talks about it in this month's issue.