I love the taste of sweet wort when I brew, but not the thought of drinking a whole glass of it. So I wondered if I could create a beer that captures that flavor without any offsetting bitterness while not being so sweet as to be undrinkable. People make sweet wine and mead without hops, so why not beer?
Based on my limited research, it seems that few people have tried brewing beer without hops or some other bittering agent. The ones I ran across who did so reported that the results were not good -- way too sweet. To try to avoid this, I used a cream ale grain bill, with 20% flaked corn to increase the attenuation. OTOH, I wanted some residual malt sweetness, so I mashed at 154 F rather than a lower temperature.
Finally, I wanted to see how yeast-derived flavors interacted with those from the grain. So I did a 3-way split batch with WLP001, WLP500, and WLP550. The OG was 1.057 and the FG ended up at 1.006 to 1.008 for 86% to 89% apparent attenuation.
I brewed on May 22, bottled on June 4, and did a taste test yesterday. Tasting notes from my admittedly uneducated palate:
WLP001: Tastes like a basic cream ale, maybe a small bit sweeter.
WLP500: Noticeable Chimay-ish flavors.
WLP550: Subtle Belgian abbey-ish flavors.
In summary, I would call the experiment a limited success. The results for all three yeasts are drinkable without being overly sweet. On the other hand, I didn't get that malty flavor I was hoping for, perhaps because it was suppressed by the corn. I might try this experiment again with an all-barley grain bill.
Based on my limited research, it seems that few people have tried brewing beer without hops or some other bittering agent. The ones I ran across who did so reported that the results were not good -- way too sweet. To try to avoid this, I used a cream ale grain bill, with 20% flaked corn to increase the attenuation. OTOH, I wanted some residual malt sweetness, so I mashed at 154 F rather than a lower temperature.
Finally, I wanted to see how yeast-derived flavors interacted with those from the grain. So I did a 3-way split batch with WLP001, WLP500, and WLP550. The OG was 1.057 and the FG ended up at 1.006 to 1.008 for 86% to 89% apparent attenuation.
I brewed on May 22, bottled on June 4, and did a taste test yesterday. Tasting notes from my admittedly uneducated palate:
WLP001: Tastes like a basic cream ale, maybe a small bit sweeter.
WLP500: Noticeable Chimay-ish flavors.
WLP550: Subtle Belgian abbey-ish flavors.
In summary, I would call the experiment a limited success. The results for all three yeasts are drinkable without being overly sweet. On the other hand, I didn't get that malty flavor I was hoping for, perhaps because it was suppressed by the corn. I might try this experiment again with an all-barley grain bill.
