Low alchohol, yet flavourful beers?

[lostmind]

I've had decent results brewing a normal-gravity beer and then heating a portion of it just above the boiling point of ethanol (~175°F) and holding it there until the steam coming off no longer smells boozy. I wouldn't try it with anything hoppy since the flavor/bitterness would change, but I boiled a black lager from 5.8% to 2.1% and it still tasted decent.

That's interesting. One of these days I may actually try that.

 

[Clayton]

no problem ,, yeah the sour mash is easy,, also most HBS have 88% lactic acid consentrate

 

[CortexBomb]

If you like maltier beer in general, then you should definitely look into English styles of beer. I'm a malthead myself (though I have gotten more into hops as the years have gone by) and I find that in many cases my favourite takes on a given type of beer come from English sources. English IPA, Old Ale, Barley Wine and the like all have a much different flavour profile than their North American counterparts.

One style that is commonly consumed in England that you can make both low ABV and tasty is bitter. It's fairly uncommon in the States, but there's a local brewery here down in Battle Creek (MI) (Arcadia) that brews English style beers and they often have a bitter or two on tap. I find that the flavour of the style is often very solid even when the beer is brewed to only 3-4% ABV, so I've started experimenting with it myself for a session beer.

 

[Roatan_Mark]

So you get a sweeter beer? Interesting. Does that produce any different flavours or alchohols than lower temperature fermentation?

Yes! I once made the mistake of using 3# DME with 3/4 cup corn sugar and 3/4 cup of raw honey and then after boiling and cooling tossed the Wyeast London ESB porpogator stright into the wort without the propogating part! It was a wonderfull tasting, slightly nutty after tasting beer! Will do that again intentionally! All kinds of tasts were made in that batch.

our latest is 6# DME (breis) 1/2# raw cane sugar and our repitched yeast from last batch. Lots of full malty flavour and only .298 % ABV and it isnt even done siting in the bottle yet, another 8 days and it should be even better.

so in a nutshell my problem is temperature for the fermenting which is stalling the process but as long as you don't have too much sugars in the wort you shouldn't end up with cider beer (hopefully anyway as that is the #1 result of incomplete fermentation as far as I can tell).

But I am a beginner and only have about 30 batches experience here on island and high temp fermentation.

 

[a10t2]

our latest is 6# DME (breis) 1/2# raw cane sugar and our repitched yeast from last batch. Lots of full malty flavour and only .298 % ABV and it isnt even done siting in the bottle yet, another 8 days and it should be even better.

I think your measurements must be wrong. That would be roughly a 1.056 OG (for 5 gallons) and a 1.054 FG. Do you sorbate? Are they carbonated? If you put a 1.054 beer in bottles and they carbonated they would explode, guaranteed. 1.054 wort would be very sweet too; it wouldn't taste anything like beer.

Should that be 2.98%? Even that would be a 1.033 FG, and again I would expect those bottles to explode.

 

[PintOfBitter]

I agree. something seems completely off base here. how are you calculating? if it really only attenuated that much, you'd be drinking malt syrup, not beer.

 

[Roatan_Mark]

No, the measurements are correct. As I said the fermentation stalled. I did not end up with anything other than 1.044 initial and 1.043 as final. I don't think my hydrometer has lied to me before so I trust it this time and yes these are temperature corrected. I did expect a higher SG intially. Maybe my eyes lied to me? Not sure but so far no bottles have exploded and I did let it ferment for 15 days total in 87F heat, no where to hide from those temps here. I hope your right baout my initial SG being wrong but it didnt seem so and yes after a 6 day rack it is slightly sweet. Wife loves dark malty beer so I do hope the entire batch isn't ruined and too sweet. our yeast seems to have given out on this one, it was a re pitch but clean goof fermentation start and then quick taper off.

Mark