Cream Ale: Round 2 (help needed)

[jbauer1]

Okay, so I tried to make a cream ale a couple of brews ago and it didn't really turn out too well. I brew with organic ingredients, so here's what I made:

6 lbs. Organic light LME
2 lbs. Organic Brown rice syrup
1oz. Organic liberty hops pellets for 55 min
.5 oz. Liberty for 5 minutes.
3 weeks in primary
Bottle conditioned for a month

It definitely did not taste like a cream ale. I did not put any vanilla in, so I think that was partly why. It had a bit of a cardboardyish flavor on the nose with a light, sweet banana/apricot aftertaste. Otherwise, it tasted like a michelob. I realized after this beer that I wasn't controlling the fermentation temp. Closely enough (since remedied) and I think that was what was causing the off flavors. I made myself finish the whole batch as punishment.

Anyway, I want to try this brew again, but this time add some specialty grains and vanilla. Any recipe suggestions?

Much appreciated,

Jbauer1

 

[giraffe]

Cream ale isnt like cream soada, its not made with vanilla. Cream ale is a mid 1900s american style made by smaller regional brewers trying to compete with the huge adjunct macros coming out at the time; its basically an adjunct lager made with an ale yeast. Go to the corner store and get a 24 of genesee cream ale, its the only one commonly available, and it tastes like a rough michelob.

Id use a pilsner based extract, 10% corn or rice, and ferment with a cleanish yeast, such as us-05/cal ale, or a cleanish british yeast, ferment in the low to mid 60s, and use noblish hops (like liberty). If you want to make it fancy, you can add a touch of specialty malts but keep it very small. Like less than 5%.

 

[jiggs_casey]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/

 

[danath34]

exactly what giraffe had to say. cream ale is a sort of misnomer... it's really the ale equivalent of a light American lager. it should be clean and crisp, light body, light taste, just slightly more flavor than you would expect from BMC really. maybe a slight amount of sweetness, but more of a corn taste than malt.

if it tastes somewhat like michelob, you're probably CLOSE. cardboard MIGHT suggest oxidation, and banana/apricot probably mean you're too high on fermentation temps.

 

[KeninMN]

Northern Brewer has a great and simple kit: http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/cream-ale-extract-kit.html

My BMC-drinking family members loved it!