Improving my "Shandy"

[Rreagan]

My buddy and I recently brewed a beer that was intended to, and we hoped would, turn into somewhat of a lemon summer shandy. We weren't able to find any recipes online for anything like that so we went to the brew shop for advice and supplies. First off, the guys in the brew shop kind of laughed and told us to just go buy Shock Top, to which we both responded, if we wanted Shock Top we would buy it, but obviously we want to make something we can call our own, and isn't Shock Top.

So, after spending about an hour in the brew shop, they finally found a recipe that they thought would work good for what we wanted. The ingredients are as follows
6.6 lb 100% wheat syrup
1/2 lb wheat malt, steeped
1 1/2 oz Hallertauer hops to boil
1/2 oz Saaz hops for finish
1 #3068 Wyeast
3/4 cup corn sugar for priming
1/2 oz dried lemon peal
And 1 other 1 1/2 oz of hops during the boil that I cannot remember and I'm trying to figure that our right now.

For the boiling times we used a recipe that my buddy had used on the previously brewed American Cream Ale that he had brewed. So it was steep the wheat for 20 minutes between 150-165 degrees. Next was bring to a boil and add extract. Add the first 2 packets of hops (I am not sure what the second was at the moment), and boil for 45 minutes. Then we added the Saaz hops and lemon peal for the final 15 minutes of boiling. The original American Cream recipe only had this boil time for 5 minutes but we decided maybe a little more was better for the sake of our lemon peal.

After the boil we cooled the wort. I am not sure what temperature it was cooled to, and I am not even sure that the temperature was measured. Then we put the wort with an additional 2.5 gallons of water into the fermenter, added yeast, and let it set for 6 days. By the 6th day my buddy said it was good to bottle so we did.

Here is my issue with this whole situation. The beer actually turned out to pretty good, or at least not bad for some novice beer makers. It has good flavor, good carbonation, etc. My problem is that I was hoping for something that would be a little lighter, a little more summer-y. Its very hoppy, which i figured it would be given what we put in it, but very heavy as well. Its not light and refreshing like I had envisioned when we started on this endeavor.

What ideas can you guys give me for making it a lighter more flavorful beverage?

 

[Rreagan]

After writing this and speaking with my buddy we used only 1 1/2 oz of the Hallertauer hops in total. the first package was 1 oz and the second was what they called a finish hops. But we also added the Saaz as a finish hops. The entire 1 1/2 oz of Hallertauer was added to the wort at the same time.

 

[Natdavis777]

Ive only brewed a shandy once, and it was for a friend of mine's older brother for his Memorial Day party. I too, had issues finding recipes. What I ended up doing was brewing my Hefe recipe, which is basically 50/50 German pils/German wheat and 3068. When I kegged, I added 2 thawed lemonade concentrate to one keg, and 2 thawed orange juice concentrate to the other keg (10 gal total). So I had an orange shandy and a lemon shandy.

You could still taste beer, but the lemon and orange did come through. Overall, they were very satisfied. One thing to note though, I never let the kegs warm up after adding the concentrate or else refermentation would have occured.

 

[namepending]

I made the Sam Adams summer clone off of the recipe database here (w/o the grains of paradise) and it turned out kinda meh. So I made it into a shandy that was awesome, I've brewed it twice since just for that. I'm a dipa person, but I like having a lawnmower beer on tap.

it's so annoying to defend what I'm brewing at the lhbs, if I want to clone steel reserve then I'm gonna clone steel reserve. That's why I got into brewing, also why I drive 15 minutes further to another lhbs because they're pumped when I do dumb stuff and ask me to bring it in so they can try it.

 

[gromitdj]

I believe a shandy, by definition, is a wheat beer mixed with lemonade (or other juice). Which your beer wasn't. Have you tried mixing one 50/50 with some lemonade?

 

[Subdivisions]

^^^ This

I wouldn't even mix it 50/50. Do it so that the alcohol level is around 4%. If you make a 5% beer then mix it 80 beer/ 20 lemonade. If you mix 50/50 on a lower alcohol beer then you'll have a 'no' alcohol drink that would remind me of Leinenkugel's summer shandy.

 

[mongoose33]

Here's a recipe I ran across that I've bookmarked. My wife and others like a summer shandy, I'm holding on to this in anticipation of brewing something they really like:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?p=7364315#post7364315

 

[Rreagan]

^^^ This

I wouldn't even mix it 50/50. Do it so that the alcohol level is around 4%. If you make a 5% beer then mix it 80 beer/ 20 lemonade. If you mix 50/50 on a lower alcohol beer then you'll have a 'no' alcohol drink that would remind me of Leinenkugel's summer shandy.

I do like alcohol in my drinks!

Thanks a lot guys for the help. You can taste a bit of the lemon in our brew but like I said I believe it could be better. I hadn't thought of putting actual juice in until yesterday when my brewing buddy said one of his friends adds 10 mls of lemon juice to his. Now we have something to experiment with.
Thanks for the recipe as well! Definitely going to give it a try.

 

[Rreagan]

^^^ This

I wouldn't even mix it 50/50. Do it so that the alcohol level is around 4%. If you make a 5% beer then mix it 80 beer/ 20 lemonade. If you mix 50/50 on a lower alcohol beer then you'll have a 'no' alcohol drink that would remind me of Leinenkugel's summer shandy.

I do like alcohol in my drinks!

Thanks a lot guys for the help. You can taste a bit of the lemon in our brew but like I said I believe it could be better. I hadn't thought of putting actual juice in until yesterday when my brewing buddy said one of his friends adds 10 mls of lemon juice to his. Now we have something to experiment with.
Thanks for the recipe as well! Definitely going to give it a try.