Beach Body Beers

[madscientist451]

Since Thanksgiving I've splurged, eating junk, drinking high calorie/high ABV beers and not getting very much exercise. First day of spring is today, so its time to cut back. I've brewed some low-cal/low-carb/low ABV beers before, but most I didn't really like that much. I know, if I want to loose a few pounds I should quit drinking altogether, but that's just not realistic. I'm leaning toward the low starting gravity/high attenuation technique using enzyme additions, but am open too other ideas. So if you've got any low calorie beer recipes that you actually like to drink, post them here:
I'll go first, this is from Drew Beechum, I've made it a few times and definitely recommend it. If you start with an OG is 1.038 and you can get it down to 1.012, the beer will have about 125 calories for 12 oz.
Pale Oat Mild
A silky smooth and toasty malt forward mild with toffee notes and that richness of oats without a ton of hop character. Yes, if you overloaded the hopping this thing would be a light weight NE Session IPA.
Recipe Author:
Drew
Beer Style:
Pale Mild
Batch Size:
5.50 gallons
Boil Time:
90 minutes
Original Gravity:
1.038
IBUs:
10.00
SRM:
6.70
Malt/Grain/Sugar/Extract:
6.0 lbs Maris Otter
2.0 lbs Thomas Fawcett Malted Oats
0.5 lbs Simpsons Medium Crystal

Mashing Instructions:
Single Infusion at 152°F for 60 minutes
Hops:
0.13 oz Target | 11%AA | 60 minutes
0.25oz Challenger | 6.5%AA | 30 minutes
Yeast:
Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley, White Labs Essex Ale, WLP001 Cal Ale, Wyeast 1056, Wyeast 1318 London Ale

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[monkeymath]

I'm not one to count calories, but I have developed a strong dislike for sweetness and the taste of alcohol, so I'll be experimenting in a similar direction.
I'm currently planning a sequence of English style ales (bitter, mild, stout) in the 3.5-4.2% range.

I recently made a grodziskie which clocked in at only ~3% abv and was really delicious.

 

[RM-MN]

Cutting out one or 2 beers a week would probably be more effective for calorie reduction than brewing a lower calorie beer. One could also reduce carbohydrate intake with each meal too.

 

[madscientist451]

[QUOTE="monkeymath, post: 9253747, member: 262599"
I recently made a grodziskie which clocked in at only ~3% abv and was really delicious.
[/QUOTE]
OK, great, I was trying to make this tread about lower calorie/carb recipes that don't suck, can you post your recipe? Thanks!

 

[madscientist451]

Cutting out one or 2 beers a week would probably be more effective for calorie reduction than brewing a lower calorie beer. One could also reduce carbohydrate intake with each meal too.

Yeah I've done the no carb/low carb thing 3-4 times in the past and can drop 20 lbs or more, but then get tired of it and eat junk and drink too much and gain it back, its just the way I am and I've accepted it. So yeah I'm cutting back on drinking, no bread, crackers, rice, potatoes, soft drinks fast food and most restaurant food and stay away from sugar and will be getting more exercise now that spring has sprung.

 

[RM-MN]

Yeah I've done the no carb/low carb thing 3-4 times in the past and can drop 20 lbs or more, but then get tired of it and eat junk and drink too much and gain it back, its just the way I am and I've accepted it. So yeah I'm cutting back on drinking, no bread, crackers, rice, potatoes, soft drinks fast food and most restaurant food and stay away from sugar and will be getting more exercise now that spring has sprung.

Beach bodies are overrated anyway.

 

[DBhomebrew]

Beached whale is a beach body, too.

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

If you want to get in shape, remember that round is also a shape.

 

[brewbama]

ref: Low Calorie Beer Brewing Recipes at Home

http://barclayperkins.blogspot.com/2016/02/lets-brew-wednesday-1957-whitbread-ipa.html
https://www.olybrew.com/recipes/cascadepale.pdf
Denny Conn says, “I keep a keg of carbed water on hand and alternate it with beer. That way I can brew full strength, flavorful beers but only drink half as much.”

my story:

May last year, my wife had a medical issue and during her hospital stay the nurse asked her about her diabetes. She replied that she doesn’t have diabetes. …but her blood work told a different story. So, then and there we decided to reduce our weight.

I found the book ‘Drink Beer Get Thin’ and used the concepts outlined to help. We cut out potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, etc along with sugar. Basically, replacing carbs with higher protein and fat. We targeted less than 50 carbs per day.

I also began to look at my brewing. Starting lower and ending drier was the goal along with limited consumption. I still wanted to brew but now I didn’t need five gallon batches so I recently lowered my batch sizes to 3 gallon. I can recommend Brutzyme from MoreBeer. It gets the beers to dry out without leaving them thin.

At this AM‘s weigh in, I am down 51 lbs from the day we came home from the hospital last May. My wife’s blood work is now normal and even my Dr was happy as a pig in slop.

I am in the maintenance phase now so I have started allowing a few complex carbs that the body has to convert from starch to sugar but I still don’t allow simple sugar at all in my diet. Some days I don’t drink but when I do I usually have one beer. Two some times. I haven’t used Brutzyme in the last few batches to see how it goes and I am targeting ~100 carbs now. If I begin to gain I can simply back off again and figure out the balance point for my body.

good luck.

 

[madscientist451]

ref: Low Calorie Beer Brewing Recipes at Home

I found the book ‘Drink Beer Get Thin’ and used the concepts outlined to help. We cut out potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, etc along with sugar. Basically, replacing carbs with higher protein and fat. We targeted less than 50 carbs per day.

I also began to look at my brewing. Starting lower and ending drier was the goal along with limited consumption.

Thanks for posting, I'm only trying to shed about 20 lbs, so your story is encouraging. I usually target 20g carbs, which gets old fast, but I think I'll use your target of 50g and see how it goes. I bought the monkfruit extract and was going to try the above recipe, but with everything going on, I forgot about it.

 

[monkeymath]

OK, great, I was trying to make this tread about lower calorie/carb recipes that don't suck, can you post your recipe? Thanks!

Yeah, sure! I've only made that style once, and I've never had a commercial example, so I can't say if it makes a "good" grodziskie. But the recipes I've seen are all largely similar.

8.5° plato original gravity
25 IBUs
Basically 100% Weyermann Eichenrauchweizenmalz (oak smoked wheat malt); I added some acidulated malt to adjust mash pH, but you can do that any way you like, of course. Some oat or rice hulls for sparging.
The mash featured a prolonged protein rest:
30 Min at 52C, 30 Min at 64C, 30 Min at 70C. Mash-out at 76C. Boil for 75 mins.

15g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh for 15 min and in the whirlpool, bittering hops (I used Opal) at 60 min to hit target IBUs. I also added some Irish moss to aid clarity.
Ferment cool-ish with a neutral ale yeast. Here our paths may differ: I used Gozdawa Old German Altbier, which has a relatively low attenuation. In fact, mine ended at 3.5°P (for 2.6%abv), but I always get a bit less attenuation than others. If you want it to be low-carb, you'll probably want to use a more attenuative yeast strain. WLP029 should do great here. I cold-crashed it for a couple of days before bottling.

So that was the beer I brewed. It's a bit odd at first, with the Mittelfrüh 's floral aroma mixing with the smoke from the malt, but it's actually really nice. After the first sip I thought "ok, interesting, but do I really want 3 gallons of this?", but then I got kind of addicted to it. It's not for everyone, though, I suppose. Even though it's 100% wheat, the clarity was really good, but head retention was only average. I had hoped for more in that regard.

Next time, I'll probably cut back the late hops a tad, and maybe swap the Mittelfrüh for Saaz or something. I'll also shorten the mash rests (20 instead of 30 minutes for each rest).

I've had a chat with @Knox about grodziskie, maybe he can chime in and correct my rookie mistakes

 

[Miraculix]

Since Thanksgiving I've bee pigging out eating junk, drinking high calorie/high ABV beers and not getting very much exercise. First day of spring is today, so its time to cut back. I've brewed some low-cal/low-carb/low ABV beers before, but most I didn't really like that much. I know, if I want to loose a few pounds I should quit drinking altogether, but that's just not realistic. I'm leaning toward the low starting gravity/high attenuation technique using enzyme additions, but am open too other ideas. So if you've got any low calorie beer recipes that you actually like to drink, post them here:
I'll go first, this is from Drew Beechum, I've made it a few times and definitely recommend it. If you start with an OG is 1.038 and you can get it down to 1.012, the beer will have about 125 calories for 12 oz.
Pale Oat Mild
A silky smooth and toasty malt forward mild with toffee notes and that richness of oats without a ton of hop character. Yes, if you overloaded the hopping this thing would be a light weight NE Session IPA.
Recipe Author:
Drew
Beer Style:
Pale Mild
Batch Size:
5.50 gallons
Boil Time:
90 minutes
Original Gravity:
1.038
IBUs:
10.00
SRM:
6.70
Malt/Grain/Sugar/Extract:
6.0 lbs Maris Otter
2.0 lbs Thomas Fawcett Malted Oats
0.5 lbs Simpsons Medium Crystal

Mashing Instructions:
Single Infusion at 152°F for 60 minutes
Hops:
0.13 oz Target | 11%AA | 60 minutes
0.25oz Challenger | 6.5%AA | 30 minutes
Yeast:
Wyeast 1275 Thames Valley, White Labs Essex Ale, WLP001 Cal Ale, Wyeast 1056, Wyeast 1318 London Ale

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My latest saison fits the bill. It's also dirt cheap and it's ridiculously easy to brew.

Half pilsner, half spelt (or wheat) flour. Non-biab, good luck . Mash at 63c for 75 minutes, any bittering hop will do, get it to 30 ibus no late additions, nothing dry.

Pitch imperial rustic at 25c and let it go at room temperature without any temperature control. Ferment open for the first 2 days after fermentation started visibly. Afterwards air lock. It's done after nine days and should be at 1.005 or lower.

It's really really nice. The yeast is the key!

 

[lightningbug]

I’m sure this is just an excuse to test your brewing skills, but as others have said it’s
more-effective to just drink fewer beers.

 

[bwible]

Yeah I've done the no carb/low carb thing 3-4 times in the past and can drop 20 lbs or more, but then get tired of it and eat junk and drink too much and gain it back, its just the way I am and I've accepted it. So yeah I'm cutting back on drinking, no bread, crackers, rice, potatoes, soft drinks fast food and most restaurant food and stay away from sugar and will be getting more exercise now that spring has sprung.

Tried the low carb thing for awhile. As you said, it gets very old very fast. Very, very hard to stay on it.

In addition to what you already listed, no bread means no sandwiches of any kind and no, lettuce wraps are not the same thing. No pizza. No toast with my eggs. Things you don’t even think of have carbs. That diet is just not realistic. Anybody who can stay on that is better than me and has more will power than I do to be able to deprive themselves.

i found out real fast all the good stuff I like has carbs and that diet was not for me. Bread, rice and potatoes have been the staples of life on every continent around the world for thousands of years and all of a sudden today everybody thinks they are bad.

There’s Weight Watchers too, which to me is a better system and is much more realistic.

 

[brewbama]

 

[Knox]

Yeah, sure! I've only made that style once, and I've never had a commercial example, so I can't say if it makes a "good" grodziskie. But the recipes I've seen are all largely similar.

8.5° plato original gravity
25 IBUs
Basically 100% Weyermann Eichenrauchweizenmalz (oak smoked wheat malt); I added some acidulated malt to adjust mash pH, but you can do that any way you like, of course. Some oat or rice hulls for sparging.
The mash featured a prolonged protein rest:
30 Min at 52C, 30 Min at 64C, 30 Min at 70C. Mash-out at 76C. Boil for 75 mins.

15g Hallertauer Mittelfrüh for 15 min and in the whirlpool, bittering hops (I used Opal) at 60 min to hit target IBUs. I also added some Irish moss to aid clarity.
Ferment cool-ish with a neutral ale yeast. Here our paths may differ: I used Gozdawa Old German Altbier, which has a relatively low attenuation. In fact, mine ended at 3.5°P (for 2.6%abv), but I always get a bit less attenuation than others. If you want it to be low-carb, you'll probably want to use a more attenuative yeast strain. WLP029 should do great here. I cold-crashed it for a couple of days before bottling.

So that was the beer I brewed. It's a bit odd at first, with the Mittelfrüh 's floral aroma mixing with the smoke from the malt, but it's actually really nice. After the first sip I thought "ok, interesting, but do I really want 3 gallons of this?", but then I got kind of addicted to it. It's not for everyone, though, I suppose. Even though it's 100% wheat, the clarity was really good, but head retention was only average. I had hoped for more in that regard.

Next time, I'll probably cut back the late hops a tad, and maybe swap the Mittelfrüh for Saaz or something. I'll also shorten the mash rests (20 instead of 30 minutes for each rest).

I've had a chat with @Knox about grodziskie, maybe he can chime in and correct my rookie mistakes

Hey, sorry for the late reply. I haven't had the time to check the forums. I am doing a few different projects with a museum and work is ramping up for the summer.

Back to the reply at hand. Your recipe is pretty spot on for a Grodziskie and your process seems fine as well. My only two comments are, that you might be seeing average head retention because of the prolonged protein break, try and experiment with it, I usually just keep it to 15 mins and everything runs smoothly. I would also skip the mash out at 76C, as you are already sitting quite high for the last portion of the mash.

My personal time saving tip is to just boil for 30 mins unless you are trying to boil off some of the liquid.

As for a good easy drinking beer with low alcohol goes, I can recommend a Cream Ale, easily scalable to lower gravities without having to change a lot in the recipe. Here is my current recipe for a 5% version. But I have made it as a 4% and 3.5%, both delicious, the lower I went in gravity the more hoppier it got as I was lazy and didn't change the hop amount. But it never gets so hoppy that it is unpleasant. I can recommend it, especially for the coming summer.

 

[monkeymath]

The "Pale Oat Mild" in the original post piqued curiosity and I've been toying with the idea of making a similar beer, but with a significant dry-hop. I have a bag of Simpson's Golden Naked Oats that I haven't really used much yet, for fear it might be too strong - but in a session beer, that might actually be a good thing?
My vague idea is

9 plato (1.036 OG), around 3.5% abv
10-15% Golden Naked Oats
10-15% Wheat Malt or Flaked Oats
rest pilsner or pale malt or a mix of the two
Single infusion mash at 68C for an hour, 60-75 minute boil
25ish IBU bittering addition at the start of the boil with some noble hop (or some other low-cohumulone variety)
2g/l hops in the whirlpool and another 3-4g/l as a dry hop
Ferment with WY1318 LA3 or Verdant IPA at 20C

For the whirlpool and dry hop I'm thinking of mixing Huell Melon and Triskel at a 2:1 ratio. They should provide mellow fruity and floral aromatics that I hope will play well with the silky, slightly nutty base.
I'm rather insecure when it comes to the quantities, both for the malt bill as well as the hopping schedule. I don't usually drink or brew a lot of hoppy beers, so I'd be happy to hear everyone's thoughts (and prayers ).

@madscientist451 I hope this is not a hijack of your thread - I know you were asking for tried and true recipes, not for a recipe workshop.

 

[madscientist451]

I hope this is not a hijack of your thread - I know you were asking for tried and true recipes, not for a recipe workshop.

No worries, thanks for posting! I'd say try it and let us know how it comes out!