Heineken Dark Lager - Ale Clone

I have brewed a ton of heavy, hoppy and just plain strong beers. Well about 10 batches over 1.060 in the last two months. Needless to say I have some heavy beers to consume over the next year. I am now starting to brew lighter, more sessionable beers.

I am really a fan of kolsch, so I have 6 gallons of that currently lagering.

I am also a huge fan of darker lagers, like heiny dark.

does anybody have any experience making a darker lager hybrid beer. I can ferement at 55-60 degrees in my basement and lager at or below freezing in my garage for the next two months. I have kolsch, US-05 and nottingham yeast at my disposal. I have a ton of summit hops I would like to bitter with as well.

I was thinking about something like this for a darker sessionable beer.

7 pounds pilsen malt
1 pound munich
1/2 pound caramel 60

.25 oz summit bittering at 60
.5 oz summit at flamout

mash at 150 for 60 and ferment with kolsch yeast at 60 degrees for 14 days, rack to secondary and lager this puppy for 3 weeks.

I don't have beersmith at my disposal but this sounds about right....thoughts?

Look up Schwarzbier.

brrman said:

Look up Schwarzbier.

Click to expand...

Whoa..! That looks delicious. I found Jamil's recipe online. I am not going to use a lager yeast but either pacman or nottingham at 55-60 degrees, and then give the beer a nice cold long lagering period. I bet it will be good.


56.0 7.00 lbs. Munich Malt Germany
32.0 4.00 lbs. Pilsen (2 Row) France
4.0 0.50 lbs. Crystal 40L America
4.0 0.50 lbs. Chocolate Malt America
2.0 0.25 lbs. Roasted Barley America
2.0 0.25 lbs. Carafa Germany



Hops
Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
1.90 oz. Hallertauer Mittelfruh Pellet 3.50 26.8 60 min
0.50 oz. Hallertauer Mittelfruh Pellet 3.50 2.4 20 min
0.50 oz. Hallertauer Mittelfruh Pellet 3.50 1.2 1 min

permo said:

I was thinking about something like this for a darker sessionable beer.

7 pounds pilsen malt
1 pound munich
1/2 pound caramel 60

.25 oz summit bittering at 60
.5 oz summit at flamout

mash at 150 for 60 and ferment with kolsch yeast at 60 degrees for 14 days, rack to secondary and lager this puppy for 3 weeks.

I don't have beersmith at my disposal but this sounds about right....thoughts?

Click to expand...

That is pretty close to my current House Amber recipe. I am still tweeking the recipe, the current batch (now fermenting) has a pound of Munich Dark and a pound of Vienna. Also, I like Noble Hops, so I use Magnum and Hallertau. US-05 does seem to respond to "lagering". It tends to stay active at low temps, for an ale yeast.

I have narrowed my yeast choices down to nottingham or kolsch. I am leaning heavily towards the kolsch yeast. What are your opinions on this?

The kolsch yeast should do just fine. US-05 is also a very good choice for this. I have an Irish Red slowly fermenting with US-05 at 58F right now.