Cloning Licher Bier (German Pils)

[GCGBrewing]

A little over 2 years ago, I wrote an email to the Licher Brewery to try to get their input on brewing a Pils similar to Licher Pils. For anyone who has been stationed in Germany, or just visited you might have had this tasty beer! This is the response I got from them:

"thank you for your interest in Licher beer and even your plan to brew a replication of it! Perhaps you know that brewing is a kind of alchemistic art ( J ) so it is not so easy to get the same result. We use standard Pilsener malt and hop pellets type 90 from the varieties Perle, Select, Herkules and Taurus. OG is 11.5 %. We want to have a beer with a significant but smooth bitterness (29 BU), full body and a good relation of estery, fruity and slight hoppy aroma. Therefore we use a special yeast strain from Hebru which is not very common. Fermentation temperature is medium. Of course it is filtered before filling. Please be aware that if you don’t filter it is recommended to reduce the hop bitterness slightly."

I'm struggling a bit with using all 4 of these hops though, and figuring out where to add to them. Here is what I have come up with (10 gallon batch):

20lbs Weyermans Pilsner Malt
.6oz Herkules (15.1%) 60 min
.6oz Perle (7.1%) 60 min
.6oz Taurus (15.3%) 10 min
.6oz Taurus (15.3%) 5 min
.6oz Spalter Select (4.3%) 0 min/flameout

1.048 OG, 32.4BU

Any input you have would be great! Any experience with any of these hops? I have about 24 IBUs coming from the 60 minute additions, and only 9IBUs from the later additions. Should I adjust that to be get more from the later additions, or will that really matter?

 

[ebbelwoi]

Congrats on getting a reply. It's always nice to hear about a brewery sharing their recipe.

My only thought would be to move the Perle to around 20 minutes. Licher is likely using it for both bitterness and aroma to take advantage of its dual-purpose nature.

 

[Bassman2003]

Is this the beer with the Bluebird on the label? I liked it when I had it in Germany. It is "macro" as they come. Straight, clean flavor. I do not remember much of a late hop flavor but it was a while ago. Keep us posted. Sounds interesting.

 

[GCGBrewing]

Congrats on getting a reply. It's always nice to hear about a brewery sharing their recipe.

My only thought would be to move the Perle to around 20 minutes. Licher is likely using it for both bitterness and aroma to take advantage of its dual-purpose nature.

Thanks! Looking again, they only have it listed as an aroma hop in BeerSmith, though a quick google search shows it to be dual purpose, as you said. I'll adjust the recipe to have them added at 20 min.

 

[GCGBrewing]

Is this the beer with the Bluebird on the label? I liked it when I had it in Germany. It is "macro" as they come. Straight, clean flavor. I do not remember much of a late hop flavor but it was a while ago. Keep us posted. Sounds interesting.

I actually didn't remember the blue bird, but apparently it is! Our Products

Overall, I don't really like domestic macros, but this beer I could drink cases of. Could just be my bias against BMC to be honest.

 

[Bassman2003]

Well, I meant German macro which is on another level in my mind.

 

[Jack Arandir]

I'm no expert, but a couple suggestions:
* Weyermann pilsner malt tends to be a bit simplistic. Great as a base malt in a blend but needs another malt to prop it up. My personal favorite is Weyermann Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner. Bestmalz Pilsner is also fantastic. My last pils I blended the two for extra malty complexity. It's still lagering so I can't say how it turned out, but the wort tasted phenomenal.
* German brewers seem to love Perle for their bittering addition. I see it a lot over here. Your hop bill seems solid with that respect. The aroma and flavor additions seem sensible.
* I've never used Taurus, so I have no idea what it contributes. Spalt has a nice wildflower spice flavor that would be good as a late addition.
* For yeast, I would suggest 34/70 because it's so clean and easy to use. You can get better results with another strain, but 34/70 will take backstage and let the malt and hops shine through. Another excellent strain for that style is WLP860/WY2352, the Augustiner strain. It has a crisp, creamy flavor that works well in light beers.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

 

[GCGBrewing]

I'm no expert, but a couple suggestions:
* Weyermann pilsner malt tends to be a bit simplistic. Great as a base malt in a blend but needs another malt to prop it up. My personal favorite is Weyermann Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner. Bestmalz Pilsner is also fantastic. My last pils I blended the two for extra malty complexity. It's still lagering so I can't say how it turned out, but the wort tasted phenomenal.
* German brewers seem to love Perle for their bittering addition. I see it a lot over here. Your hop bill seems solid with that respect. The aroma and flavor additions seem sensible.
* I've never used Taurus, so I have no idea what it contributes. Spalt has a nice wildflower spice flavor that would be good as a late addition.
* For yeast, I would suggest 34/70 because it's so clean and easy to use. You can get better results with another strain, but 34/70 will take backstage and let the malt and hops shine through. Another excellent strain for that style is WLP860/WY2352, the Augustiner strain. It has a crisp, creamy flavor that works well in light beers.

Good luck, and let us know how it turns out.

I am somewhat locked in on using Weyermann since I have so much of it on hand. I won an auction of some grain from a brewery that went out of business, so I have 3 sacks of Weyermann Pilsner on hand. (Along with several sacks of Pale and Wheat Malt, too).

As far as the hops go, I've never used any of them (except Perle, maybe once?) so it will definitely be learning experience with those. I anticipate I'll make a few variations of the recipe to get it honed in. The first brew will be done with Imperial Yeast's Harvest, since I already have it on hand.

 

[Jack Arandir]

No problem, do what your ingredients can handle. If you can, I would add a portion of another malt, maybe a different pilsner, Vienna, Maris Otter, or melanoidin, just to give some malt character. You can go 100% Weyermann pilsner, but the malt character may be one-dimensional.

Alternatively, you could develop malt character with one or more decoctions. Many German breweries use 100% pilsner and develop the malt flavor in the mash.

Imperial Yeast Harvest is reportedly the Augustiner strain, so that should be perfect.

Good luck!