Harsh taste
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How to make a Stella Artois homebrew clone
by DJ Spiess | Brewing beer, Featured
A friend of mine was planning a big celebration for her daughter’s one year birthday and she wanted me to make the beer for the party. If you’ve been to a birthday party for a one year old, you’ll understand why you need the beer. Of course I said yes because I like making beer for large groups.
“What kind of beer would you like,” I asked with thoughts of flavorful Belgian beers, rich porters, or maybe a strong IPA.
“My favorite beer is Stella Artois. Can you make Stella?” she asked. That wasn’t the Belgian beer I was expecting.
Stella Artois is a lager you can find in most stores.
If you haven’t had a Stella Artois, you probably haven’t tried looking. It’s a very common plain lager ironically from Belgium. Well it’s originally from Belgium, but most of it is made in the U.K. Either way, it’s a mass produced beer from Anheuser-Busch InBev. Basically it’s Belgian Budweiser, even though Budweiser is technically Belgian and Stella is made in the U.K. I’m sure I’ll get some argument on that… but I digress. You can find it in every liquor store and many pubs.
“Sure,” I gulped wondering how I’d make it. While Budweiser, Stella Artois, Heineken, and other similar beers get a bad reputation for being bland, it really is difficult to make a beer taste that… well… bland. Bland really isn’t fair for these beers. They produce a very crisp and clean lager, which can be very difficult to reproduce at the homebrew level. While the style may not be every homebrewer’s favorite, it’s a very popular style for everyone else. I was up for the challenge.
The first thing I did was look to see what others have used for a recipe. I was shocked to see the number of recipes I came across which added wheat malt to the beer. The beer has a very clean profile, and wheat malt just seemed a bit too Hefeweisen to be a part of Stella Artois. Others added a touch of Munich malt, dextrin malt, Vienna malt, Cara Pils, corn sugar and a bazillion other variations. Nothing sounded right. I decided to do more research.
Then I stumbled upon a post from a brewer in Melbourne who claimed he worked at the Stella Artois brewery in Australia (can’t find the original post, but if you know the post I’m talking about, let me know and I’ll link it here). His recipe was exactly what I suspected. He said it was just pilsner malt and Saaz hops. That’s it! He didn’t know the yeast used, but I doubt the yeast used would be commercially available. Stella Artois uses a house yeast like most other major brewers.
Since the beer is 5% ABV, it was very easy to determine the malt bill. Using 9 lbs, 8 ounces of pilsner malt gives you an ABV of about ~5.1%. That’s close enough for me but if you want to shave an ounce or two, go for it. There are no other grains in the beer.
I used a single infusion mash at 150 F and let it go for 60 minutes. You want a very fermentable wort, since this beer is really crisp. Any warmer and you’ll get a beer which is maltier that Stella Artois.
The hop flavor and nose are very subtile, so there shouldn’t be too much hop to the beer. Most reviews I found put the beer in the low 20s for IBUs. I went with 22 IBUs. I’m adding 1.5 ounces of hops at the beginning of the boil, and then another 0.5 ounces 5 minutes before the end of the boil.
You'll want to make a good starter for this beer.
Yeast is the “trickiest” part of this beer. As I mentioned before, their yeast isn’t likely to commercially available. I made a guess and went with your basic German lager yeast (White Labs WPL 830 German Lager Yeast). You might try the WPL 850 Copenhagen Lager yeast if you can find it. Either way I’d ferment on the lower end of the yeast’s temperature range, about 50F – 52F. This will give you a cleaner flavor.
You will also want to make a good starter for this beer. While the beer isn’t high in alcohol, you don’t want any off-flavors creeping into your beer. A good healthy starter for this lager will go a long way to perfecting your Stella Artois.
The final recipe was
9 lbs 8 ounces German Pilsner
1.5 oz Saaz (@60 min)
0.5 Saaz (@5 min)
Irish Moss
WPL 830 German Lager Yeast
7.0 gal pre boil, 5 gal
Since this beer is so light in color, you’ll want to make sure you use finings to help the beer clear. I always use Irish Moss when making this beer, and I add it for the last 10 minutes of the boil. After fermentation, I also let this beer lager for a month. This helps the beer clear even more.
Ultimately I ended up with a good approximation of Stella Artois. The keg didn’t last very long, and everyone agreed it tasted like Stella Artois. Mission accomplished!
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4 comments
DJ Spiess
Beer buddy
I live in Denver, Colorado. This blog is everything about beer, wine, cider, mead and other spirits.
I am a avid homebrewer and winemaker. I’ve been making my own beer and wine for many years. I started making beer when I was in college (mostly because the drinking age in the United States is 21). My first few beers were horrible. The beers are much better now, and I often supply my neighborhood with free beer! It is a great hobby!
Did you follow that recipe to a "T"?
What temp did you ferment at?
Did you perform a diacetyl test?
The recipe was all pilsner, did you do a 90 min boil?
Need some more specifics on how you did things and if you did anything different from the recipe.
You said you left it in your basement for a mont . What temp is your basement? Is that temp suitable for that yeast?
The author of that recipe stated he lagered for a month. Did you do that?
Also how big of a starter did you do? Lagers need a lot of yeas .
What temp did you ferment at?
Did you perform a diacetyl test?
The recipe was all pilsner, did you do a 90 min boil?
Need some more specifics on how you did things and if you did anything different from the recipe.
You said you left it in your basement for a mont . What temp is your basement? Is that temp suitable for that yeast?
The author of that recipe stated he lagered for a month. Did you do that?
Also how big of a starter did you do? Lagers need a lot of yeas .
And... what kind of water did you use?
If tap water, did you dechlorinate it?
Do you know its mineral profile?
If tap water, did you dechlorinate it?
Do you know its mineral profile?
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18-20*C is 64-68*F. That seems a bit warm for lager yeast if you ask me. We'd have to know the specific yeast to know what the optimal temp range is for that yeast. Any chance you know what the name of that yeast was?
Warm fermented lagers are a thing and while you COULD get off flavors depending on what yeast you used, I'd be more inclined to think it's coming from something else.
I'm guessing you didn't do a diacetyl rest?
I'm guessing you didn't lager for a month as recipe creator stated?
What kind of water did you use for this?
When you say "harsh", can you describe the flavor a bit?
Need a bit more info to help you dig in and figure it out...
There is a huge difference between 11C and 20C! While that could have been your problem, I still wouldn't rule out your water or not chilling fast enough.
So you changed the pH. Think we might be on to something here...
1. What kind of water was it? Spring/Drinking? Distilled? RO?
2. You say you adjusted pH. What did you use to adjust ph?
a. At what point in your process did you adjust pH?
b. What did you adjust pH with?
c. Did you use any kind of program to figure out what you were doing with your water,like Brun Water?
d. Did you actually measure your pH after adjustment? What was the measurement you got?
We'll get there eventually!
1. What kind of water was it? Spring/Drinking? Distilled? RO?
2. You say you adjusted pH. What did you use to adjust ph?
a. At what point in your process did you adjust pH?
b. What did you adjust pH with?
c. Did you use any kind of program to figure out what you were doing with your water,like Brun Water?
d. Did you actually measure your pH after adjustment? What was the measurement you got?
We'll get there eventually!
Gnomebrewer
Well-Known Member
Baking powder will raise the pH, not lower it. You don't want to be adding baking powder to brew a pale lager, you need to add acid. Your pH throughout the brewing process was probably way off ideal. High boil pH can lead to unpleasant bitterness.
18-20C is well above what's recommended for S-23 yeast (12-15C). This yeast strain is known for throwing some off flavours at high temps (I haven't tried it personally above 14C). W34/70 is a better option for a warm ferment, but even then 18-20C ambient might be a bit high.
Also, any process issues leading to oxidation are a problem with pale lagers - it's easier to hide in other beers with strong flavours, but show up in pale lagers because there's nothing to hide them. A month in primary at warm temperatures is enough time for an infection/contamination to take hold as well, if your sanitation wasn't good.
I'm willing to bet @Gnomebrewer hit it on the head. Too hot for the yeast which threw off flavors, in combination with pH that was probably too high causing unpleasant bitterness.
Once this craziness is over, it can really help to have knowledgeable brewing friends who can taste and troubleshoot your beer.
When I think of "harshness" and lagers, I think of water that has a high alkalinity. That's what happened to me- noble hops get a harshness that really stands out and is unpleasant in a higher mash pH lager.
Your experience in combination with the fact that OP used Baking Soda to adjust his water seems to point to the culprit here - high pH. Took a few posts and some digging but we all got there! Haha.
Oh, I missed that. Well, that's definitely the cause. I spent way too much time on figuring this out, as I missed the baking soda addition.
Is the beer in a keg? I had an unpleasant bitter aftertaste in my beers for a while I couldn't figure out. It turned out to be the keg lines. Even though I cleaned them regularly, after about a year and a half using the same lines, they went bad. I replaced the lines and the off-taste went away.
