Smoky dark beer recommendation?

[BrewFinn]

Hi.
I want to make a porter or stout (or similar dark beer) with a heavy taste of smoke.
A couple of years ago i tried a beer called Dunkle Macht by Landgang Brauerei in Hamburg, and I really enjoyed the combination of a dark porter and lots of smoke. (1000 Getraenke | Biertest - Landgang Dunkle Macht 9 von 10 Punkten)
My goal is to make a similar beer, but with an ABV of about 9-12%, and with heavier notes of chocolate, coffee and smoke (specifically smoke, this beer should be like an ashtray soaked in guinness, cocoa and coffee)
However, I don't really know what kind of recipes to look at, even for inspiration.

So what i want to ask is if there are any recipes that fit this description you would recommend, or if you have any threads of similar recipes, or even if there are specific styles of beer you would recommend for this?

 

[day_trippr]

Welcome to the forums, @BrewFinn!

From your linked page:

"The last test beer here at the Dorint Hotel Hamburg Eppendorf wants to be tested, the "Landgang Dark Power" comes directly from the fridge here in the large room. A whopping 6.6% vol. Alcohol has this porter with the cool label. The smell is immediately reminiscent of vanilla, the first sip offers a light portion of carbon dioxide, then it starts right away. It tastes slightly spicy at first. And very complex. The sweetness is clearly pronounced, there is a lot of caramel. At the same time, the hops come through. Slowly at first, then every second the beer becomes spicier, later bitter and, above all, dry. A nice coffee note comes through from the middle, then the beer also tastes slightly smoky. There are a lot of roasted aromas. There is a nice balance between the sweetness and dry flavors. A great porter is offered here. The "Landgang Dark Power" is tasty, sweet, dry and spicy. All in all, the great nine points!"

That lengthy characterization does not match up with "ashtray". Indeed, the smoky character was saved 'til very late in the review and frankly minimalized.

Thus I would consider adding just a modest quantity of some nicely smoked malt and not do anything crazy that would leave one stuck with a volume of unpalatable beer...

Cheers!

 

[passedpawn]

Hi.
I want to make a porter or stout (or similar dark beer) with a heavy taste of smoke.
A couple of years ago i tried a beer called Dunkle Macht by Landgang Brauerei in Hamburg, and I really enjoyed the combination of a dark porter and lots of smoke. (1000 Getraenke | Biertest - Landgang Dunkle Macht 9 von 10 Punkten)
My goal is to make a similar beer, but with an ABV of about 9-12%, and with heavier notes of chocolate, coffee and smoke (specifically smoke, this beer should be like an ashtray soaked in guinness, cocoa and coffee)
However, I don't really know what kind of recipes to look at, even for inspiration.

So what i want to ask is if there are any recipes that fit this description you would recommend, or if you have any threads of similar recipes, or even if there are specific styles of beer you would recommend for this?

Based on your comments, I'd use at least 50% smoked malt. The smoke beer I make the most (gonna make it in a few months) is below, and it's about 50% smoked malt. Pretty awesome. Bud light drinkers aren't going to like it, and yes they will think it tastes like an ashtray, but I think you already know that.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/cherry-beech-smokebeer-many-awards.157818/

 

[NSMikeD]

fwiw, I have tried to make and I have sampled lots of smoked beers and this is by far the best I have tasted. Not English but those Germans know what they are doing

 

[passedpawn]

^^ such a treat. agree.

 

[AlexKay]

I don’t much like the Briess cherrywood. If it were me, I’d stick with the Weyermann beechwood, at 40-60%, and then be sure to add something toasty in there on top, like Munich. Then figure out your dark malts. (My vote would be chocolate rye!)

I find that oak smoke works really well in dark beers, but if all you can get is Weyermann, it’s not strong enough to make a difference.

Look around for local maltsters. You might be able to get some really special smoked malt in Norway.

 

[mashpaddled]

Based on what you said you want the beer to be, I'd look at robust porter recipes and sub out some of the base malt for smoked malt. If a recipe calls for lager yeast you could get away with an ale yeast. If you really want smoke, give it a go at 50% smoked malt and adjust up or down as you want. If you feel like the beer needs cocoa or coffee you can add either or both as adjuncts after fermentation.

 

[BrewFinn]

Welcome to the forums, @BrewFinn!

From your linked page:

"The last test beer here at the Dorint Hotel Hamburg Eppendorf wants to be tested, the "Landgang Dark Power" comes directly from the fridge here in the large room. A whopping 6.6% vol. Alcohol has this porter with the cool label. The smell is immediately reminiscent of vanilla, the first sip offers a light portion of carbon dioxide, then it starts right away. It tastes slightly spicy at first. And very complex. The sweetness is clearly pronounced, there is a lot of caramel. At the same time, the hops come through. Slowly at first, then every second the beer becomes spicier, later bitter and, above all, dry. A nice coffee note comes through from the middle, then the beer also tastes slightly smoky. There are a lot of roasted aromas. There is a nice balance between the sweetness and dry flavors. A great porter is offered here. The "Landgang Dark Power" is tasty, sweet, dry and spicy. All in all, the great nine points!"

That lengthy characterization does not match up with "ashtray". Indeed, the smoky character was saved 'til very late in the review and frankly minimalized.

Thus I would consider adding just a modest quantity of some nicely smoked malt and not do anything crazy that would leave one stuck with a volume of unpalatable beer...

Cheers!

Oh ok, it's been some years since then, and I was quite new to dark beer, so I guess my mind must have played some tricks on me.

fwiw, I have tried to make and I have sampled lots of smoked beers and this is by far the best I have tasted. Not English but those Germans know what they are doing

I had one of these about two weeks ago, and feel like this had the right amount of smoke (would be ok with higher, but not much lower), But as mentioned I would prefer it in a porter or similarly dark beer.
Do you think the other comments about 40-60% smoke in some sort of robust porter would match that level of smoke, or should I tone up/down?

 

[Jack Arandir]

My Rauchbier recipe won 1st place in the smoked beer category:

25% Pilsner
25% Vienna
25% Munich
20% Cherrywood smoked malt
4% Carafa II
21 IBUs Warrior
W34/70

152F single infusion, lager fermentation

Reviewers said it had an excellent balance of smoke and malt flavors and stood significantly above the other smoked beers in the group. They said the smoke was integrated well and did not feel like a bolt-on addition. Score was 42/50.

Good luck!

 

[G_robertus]

I've been wanting to create a smoked imperial stout myself. I've only ever used oak smoked wheat and beechwood smoked barley (Weyermann and Steinbach) and I'd recommend beechwood. I tried to smoke malt with cherry wood once, but I'm not sure whether I'm bad at smoking or cherry wood just isn't my thing. It wasn't as smooth. The thing with Weyermann is that the taste is very good, but as of late the quality I can get is a bit off due to the age of the malt (and I live next to Germany). Make sure it is the freshest you can get to maximise the smoke flavour. I would also just replace all of your base malt with smoked malt as I find the flavour quite mild otherwise. If you buy a 5 kg bag and you need just 5.5 kg of base malt you can probably just fill it up with something else because it the leftover malt won't age well. That would get you around the level of a Schlenkerla beer I think. Schlenkerla makes their own malt and it's all smoked. I found it necessary for all my other smoked beers to go as far as you can with the smoke similar to Schlenkerla. I also made a smoked strong ale SMaSH once and I would not decrease the smoke their either. I tried a porter, stout and red ale with smoke varying from 5-25% and they were all disappointing. Above 25% you get a hint in lighter beers, but ideally just go above and beyond. 10% does work in a pilsner, but that's it. The roast covers the The smoke also helps with balancing the beer's strength. So imo anything that isn't a specialty malt (or Munich) should be smoked.
Since smoke carries its own flavour profile you might want to decrease the hop bitterness a bit to avoid clashes, but you don't have to. Same with the roast astringency.

I can have a look at what I've written down for my own recipe, but it's probably close to this:

OG: 1.110
66% Smoked Malt
10% Munich
5% Amber malt
5% chocolate malt
5% black barley
5% pale chocolate malt
2.5 % dark crystal
1.5% medium crystal

Boil 90 min+
70 IBU fwh

Neutral yeast

I like strong roast flavours in my big stouts, so you can tone down the roast a bit or replace some of the chocolate malt with chocolate wheat/carafa special. If you want to get closer to an imperial porter you can also swap the pale chocolate for chocolate rye and scale down the roasted barley a bit and swap it for black malt.
I have little experience with robust porters, but I would follow the same guidelines. A lot of smoke, tone down on the bitterness a bit and perhaps limit astringency from the grain.