Making Pabst Blue Ribbon

[roymullins]

love quality beer... well-made homebrew, Deschutes, Sierra Nevada, New Belgium, Ninkasi, and PB f-ing R! There is a time and place for a good, ice-cold, light tasting beer... after a round of golf on a 90 degree day... fishing... around the campfire on a hot summer night... watching a minor league ball game on a warm evening... always would rather sip a nice stout or porter but there are times when a PBR dead-bulls-eye on...

 

[PatDunkel]

Some two-row and some rice solids. As for hops, show the wort a picture of Hallertau for about 20 seconds. Then lager.

Best reply ever....

 

[hopstupid]

"If Bud, Miller, and Coors are plain old horse piss, Pabst is what I imagine unicorn piss must taste like."

that's poetry

 

[z-bob]

I like the unicorn piss comment.

I think this would be pretty close to PBR if you reduced the hops by about 50%: http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.3/fix.html

 

[ericbw]

Thread revival. I think the key is literal triple hopping - additions at 60, 15, and 0. That gives it a full rounded flavor.

 

[DeathBrewer]

Ha! After all these years and many strange brews, my coworker and I won second place for our American Light Lager. We have brewed it four times since and it is always the most popular beer we make. A local brewery is having us join them for a brew and using the recipe to make a beer for SF Beer Week events. I have 20 gallons in the tank right now and I decided to make 10 gallons of an extract version, as well. The old me would have turned his nose at the new me.

I wouldn't say that making light lagers is really more "difficult", but it will show any flaw in your system and it does take a lot longer to properly ferment. Your pitch rate needs to be high and you need temperature control, but as long as you follow certain guidelines, you can make great beer.

It takes us about 2 months to make, and then you have to drink it FAST! I'd imagine most BMC would taste pretty good when it's really fresh; it just loses a lot with transport, temperature and time.

 

[GonZolaB]

Deathbrewer, care to post the recipe?

 

[DeathBrewer]

Sure!

20 Gallon All-grain (75% Efficiency - 1.036 - 9 IBU):

20 lbs Belgian Pilsner
4.5 lbs Rice (cereal mashed - I use Kokohu because it's cheap and tasty)
2.25 lbs Pre-gelatinized Flaked Maize

90 min - 0.55 oz Styrian Aurora 8.5% AA (~5 IBU)
15 min - 0.75 oz Styrian Aurora 8.5% AA (~4 IBU)
You can really use any noble hops. Tettnanger is probably my favorite, but the AA% has been far too low for bittering lately.

WLP800 Pilsner Lager Yeast (Step up a starter to over 1000 billion cells)

5.5 gallon Extract (1.039 - 9 IBU):

4 lbs Briess Dry Pilsner Malt Extract
1 lbs Dry Rice Solids

Partial Boil at 3.5 gallons. For a full boil, reduce 90 minute hops by 25-30%

90 min - 1.5 oz Hersbrucker 1.5% AA (7.5 IBU)
15 min - 0.5 oz Hersbrucker 1.5% AA (1.5 IBU)

WLP800 Pilsner Lager Yeast (3 vials or an appropriate starter)
or WLP080 Cream Ale Yeast blend for a "pseudo-lager" without temp control (1 vial)

I always use the appropriate amount of Whirlfloc and Yeast Nutrient at 15 minutes.

 

[DeathBrewer]

Process for fermenting a low alcohol lager:
Ferment 2 weeks at 52°F
Let rise to 65°F For 1 week
Crash cool at 38°F for several days
Rack to secondary
Let rise to 65°F for 1 week
Crash cool at 38°F for 3 weeks

The rule for a lager, is it needs to be aged for several months, including fermentation, but then you need to drink quick! Several weeks in the bottle it's perfect, then it starts to fall off.

If you are using the Cream Ale Yeast Blend, you can ferment in the low to mid 60s (I prefer around 58-62°F) until fermentation starts to slow, then raise to the high 60S (68°F) for about a week. Leave it in the primary a total of about 4 weeks, to ensure all the sulfur has driven off (for single stage, or rack to secondary after 3 weeks for lagering.) Crash cool and keg or go straight to bottles.

 

[DeathBrewer]

I've made a few different variations on this...the first (that won the award) was with all corn and Tettnanger hops. The second was my favorite...it was 100% rice for the adjunct. It tasted more like a Japanese Rice Lager than a true Lite American Lager, though, so we split the corn and rice for the last two batches to make it distinctly 'Merica!

 

[GonZolaB]

Thanks for the info Deathbrewer!
I'll try this one soon.
Cheers!