Black Doppelbock?

[AlexKay]

Spitballing this idea:

45% Munich
45% Pilsner
7% midnight wheat
3% DRC (double-roasted crystal)

Magnum @ 60
Tettnang @ 15 (0.2 oz/gal = 1.5 g/L)

W34/70

Aiming for ~1.090 OG, 40 SRM and 30 IBU

I know there are dark doppelbocks, but this would be black. Really bad for the eyes. You can hardly make out its shape... light just seems to fall into it. The blackness of it was so extreme that it was almost impossible to tell how close you were standing to it. Your eyes just slide off it.

 

[Miraculix]

It's called stout. Sounds good to me!

 

[AlexKay]

Sure, imperial stout. Imperial lager stout, with very little roast, and lots of melanoidins.

 

[Miraculix]

The crystal pretty much kicks it out of traditional bock territory. More so than the colour, if your ask me. Still sounds like a nice beer though!

I bet that this one would also work very well with Voss.

 

[AlexKay]

It wouldn't be the first time I'd snuck a small amount of DRC into a darker German lager.

Sure, English crystal in German beer, not so traditional. DRC is kind of a different beast, though, in my opinion: rum raisin, burnt sugar, and roast, but without the roast astringency. Much better than Special B.

The Voss is an interesting idea. I've never used it, but I have some sitting around, dry. Maybe I'll split into two fermenters...

 

[Miraculix]

It wouldn't be the first time I'd snuck a small amount of DRC into a darker German lager.

Sure, English crystal in German beer, not so traditional. DRC is kind of a different beast, though, in my opinion: rum raisin, burnt sugar, and roast, but without the roast astringency. Much better than Special B.

The Voss is an interesting idea. I've never used it, but I have some sitting around, dry. Maybe I'll split into two fermenters...

That was I was hoping you would say! Voss is imo only nice in beers that are specifically designed for it. And this basically means higher abv and less ibus. It will be not even close to a lager but it will be nice. Your beer fits perfectly. I have brewed something similar and it was marvelous.

Regarding traditional Bock, there was never a single person who snuck in crystal malt as this makes the beer not a traditional bock any more. The complexity and maltiness comes from the process and good base malt. That is German brewing I am afraid.

 

[AlexKay]

I think we’ve had this discussion before. I am not going to call it a Doppelbock. I am going to call it Imperial Lager Stout, with Very Little Roast and Lots of Melanoidins.

Or maybe just Disaster Area.

Or if I freeze-concentrate it, it can be Black Eis.

 

[Bobby_M]

Lager Stout is an abomination of a name. SchwarzBock maybe.

I'm not so keen on style policing like the "you can't brew a Lambic in the U.S." types. If the beer tastes like a Doppelbock, it a Doppelbock, but I'm just talking like a BJCP judge rather than a purist.

 

[Miraculix]

Lager Stout is an abomination of a name. SchwarzBock maybe.

I'm not so keen on style policing like the "you can't brew a Lambic in the U.S." types. If the beer tastes like a Doppelbock, it a Doppelbock, but I'm just talking like a BJCP judge rather than a purist.

That's exactly the point. With crystal malt, it doesn't taste like aboco anymore.

 

[Bobby_M]

That's exactly the point. With crystal malt, it doesn't taste like aboco anymore.

You didn't taste it yet.

 

[Miraculix]

I know what DRC tastes like and that this taste is not found in a bock.

I wouldn't expect beef in a chicken stew either.

 

[JohnDBrewer]

What IBUs you shooting for?

 

[AlexKay]

What IBUs you shooting for?

30 IBU. A little on the high side for a Doppelbock, but I like to have it there to balance the malt (and alcohol) sweetness.

 

[hottpeper13]

Love the SchwartzBock!

 

[Bobby_M]

I know what DRC tastes like and that this taste is not found in a bock.

I wouldn't expect beef in a chicken stew either.

You understand what I mean. There are techniques and recipe choices that produce a certain flavors, and then sometimes you're surprised. One thing that bugs me is when people insist on entering their beers in competitions in the style they really wanted to make rather than what it really tastes like.

If he wants to call it a Dark German Lager inspired by Doppelbocks or whatever, let him brew it and see how it lands.

You'd probably be horrified to find out how often beers brewed with crystal malts have taken best of show in German lager categories.

 

[Miraculix]

You understand what I mean. There are techniques and recipe choices that produce a certain flavors, and then sometimes you're surprised. One thing that bugs me is when people insist on entering their beers in competitions in the style they really wanted to make rather than what it really tastes like.

If he wants to call it a Dark German Lager inspired by Doppelbocks or whatever, let him brew it and see how it lands.

You'd probably be horrified to find out how often beers brewed with crystal malts have taken best of show in German lager categories.

I agree!

You would be horrified if you'd know how low I view the whole bjcp specification thing because of things like this.... Or wait.... You actually know .

Honestly, no personal offense mate.

 

[Bobby_M]

I agree!

You would be horrified if you'd know how low I view the whole bjcp specification thing because of things like this.... Or wait.... You actually know .

Honestly, no personal offense mate.

For all the flaws that BJCP might have, there's nothing better to replace it. The good thing about it is that it's based on sensory (like how real beer drinkers evaluate beer) rather than a recipe.

 

[AlexKay]

If I want to make a traditional beer the way it was made a couple of hundred years ago, then I must use traditional ingredients and traditional process.

If I have any other goal, it literally can only help if I use the widest range of ingredients and processes I have available. Some possible goals include:

1. making the best-tasting beer (defined as the beer that the most people in my target audience will like the most),
2. making an interesting beer (that my target audience appreciates because it isn't like something they've had before), and
3. making a beer that tastes most like some ideal held in the collective minds of whatever audience I've got (BJCP judges, Weihenstephan graduates, a group of old people all named either Fritz or Inga).

Consider as a thought experiment two brewers working towards goal #3; that is, they want a beer that expert, traditionalist German beer drinkers (whatever that means) will taste and say. "Ja, that is what a Pilsner should taste like."

• Brewer A uses Pilsner malt and noble hops, decoction mashing, lagers in a cave, whatever.
• Brewer B uses whatever they want: adjuncts, New World hops, genetically engineered yeast, and yes, even crystal malt.

Logically, "whatever they want" includes Pilsner malt and noble hops and decoction and caves, so if it turns out that that's the only thing that will make Fritz and Inga happy, Brewer B will eventually figure that out.

But I strongly suspect that Brewer B will find that there's room for improvement that Brewer A is missing out on, and B will make the better beer, even if better means "tastes more like a traditional Pilsner." I also suspect that Fritz and Inga won't be able to reliably pick out the "traditional" beer. People tend to think they can taste all sorts of subtle things that they really can't.

Anyway, given the recipe I put forward, I should hope it's clear I'm going for a goal that is some combination of (1) and (2).

 

[VTMongoose]

I would swap the Midnight Wheat out and use Briess Blackprinz instead. Midnight wheat gives me a really smooth, lovely but noticeable chocolate flavor - I use it in one of my dunkelweizen recipes specifically for that reason. I find Blackprinz is much better for imparting color without imparting flavor.

Basically what your beer will end up tasting like is chocolate bread. I do not think this would work very well as a doppelbock like Bobby suggested. It is very high in Munich and far too light on crystal malts for the style. I do not care what the BJCP says, this is a very carameley style and all of the commercial examples I have had are overtly loaded with crystal malts - that's where all the dark fruit flavors mentioned in the style guidelines are coming from, it's not like these guys are brewing with monastic Belgian yeasts. I would consider adding at least 7-8% of a medium to dark crystal and doubling your DRC. You will pick up a lot of color from adding these and then you can cut back the Blackprinz to hit your target SRM.

Then all you need to do is mash high to leave some residual sweetness appropriate for the style and you should have a still illegally-dark but close-enough tasting doppelbock. Something like this:

https://share.brewfather.app/t5fX7Ra2JnWrrY

 

[BrewMan13]

While I love the idea of a dark/black bock, this seems to me to be a Baltic Porter, style-wise.

 

[AmarikinBrew]

If I want to make a traditional beer the way it was made a couple of hundred years ago, then I must use traditional ingredients and traditional process.

If I have any other goal, it literally can only help if I use the widest range of ingredients and processes I have available. Some possible goals include:

1. making the best-tasting beer (defined as the beer that the most people in my target audience will like the most),
2. making an interesting beer (that my target audience appreciates because it isn't like something they've had before), and
3. making a beer that tastes most like some ideal held in the collective minds of whatever audience I've got (BJCP judges, Weihenstephan graduates, a group of old people all named either Fritz or Inga).

Consider as a thought experiment two brewers working towards goal #3; that is, they want a beer that expert, traditionalist German beer drinkers (whatever that means) will taste and say. "Ja, that is what a Pilsner should taste like."

• Brewer A uses Pilsner malt and noble hops, decoction mashing, lagers in a cave, whatever.
• Brewer B uses whatever they want: adjuncts, New World hops, genetically engineered yeast, and yes, even crystal malt.

Logically, "whatever they want" includes Pilsner malt and noble hops and decoction and caves, so if it turns out that that's the only thing that will make Fritz and Inga happy, Brewer B will eventually figure that out.

But I strongly suspect that Brewer B will find that there's room for improvement that Brewer A is missing out on, and B will make the better beer, even if better means "tastes more like a traditional Pilsner." I also suspect that Fritz and Inga won't be able to reliably pick out the "traditional" beer. People tend to think they can taste all sorts of subtle things that they really can't.

Anyway, given the recipe I put forward, I should hope it's clear I'm going for a goal that is some combination of (1) and (2).

If you really want to go off the deep end of Germaniac taste, use Fistbump yeast AKA Cry Havoc at high temp, like over 85F. The taste is old Bavaria in a nutshell! It really drives the dark lagers.