Help with Amber or Red Lager Recipe

[redshift]

Hi friends,
I finally picked up a chest freezer and temp controller so I will now have an opportunity to have the temperature control to make my first lager. I've considered many recipes and spent hours searching this forum, but I still haven't landed on exactly what I have in mind. The closest I've found is a vienna lager and maybe that's the right starting point. I can't think of any commercial examples of Vienna Lager that I could run out an buy to see if I'm thinking of this style correctly. I have in mind a well balanced design with a nice amber or red color in the 5.5-6% range with 20-30 IBUs. Based on several articles I put this together in BeerSmith and it looks about right (5.4% / 26 IBUs)

9 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM)
4.0 oz Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM)
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30 %] - Boil 15.0 min
1.00 oz Liberty [4.30 %] - Boil 5.0 min

I'm not at all attached to this recipe and would be very open to other ideas for grain bill or hops. I would love to see some recipes along this line that others have brewed. Thanks all!

 

[hercher]

I would consider substituting pale chocolate malt (usually around 375 SRM) and cutting it down to 2 oz. Also consider using Crystal 60 instead of 40. I think that will give you a redder color.

 

[motorneuron]

You should check out the Irish red ale recipes at https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f65/ for help on getting the color just right. Despite the "Irish red ale" name, those beers are sometimes brewed with lager yeast. I don't know if that is the exact flavor profile you want, but at least the color is right. For example, this one looks good to me: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f65/irish-red-1st-place-hbt-comp-141086/ (Although it also seems like it would produce a darker beer, but I guess not.)

 

[redshift]

Thanks very much for the replies! I really like the look of the "Raging Red Irish Ale" recipe motorneuron suggested in the first link. I might even brew that just as suggested since it sounds yummy!

So far I've gotten some great advice on my grain bill - what do folks think about my selection on hops? I have never brewed with Liberty, just saw them suggested in another Vienna recipe.

Since I'm speculating wildly, I also really liked description on the franco-belges vienna malt I saw on Northern Brewer, but I'm not sure how to put a recipe together with it. Searched the forums and found almost nothing on it...
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/franco-belges-vienna-malt.html