Taste of Altbier

[Skinner]

My favorite beer style is Octoberfest/Marzen. I love a malty brew with some bitterness. Having said that, I'm not yet equipped to brew lagers. But I'd still love to brew something of similar taste in an ale. Will an Alt do this for me? Commercial examples are non-existent in my neck of the woods so I can't really find out for myself.

Can anyone offer some insight and/or recipe advice?

Thanks!
Skinner

 

[BigEd]

Typically an altbier would be darker and hoppier than a Marzen. If you prefer the Marzen style just brew a recipe as an ale, using a clean ale yeast and temperatures at the low end of the yeast's range. There are hundreds of posts on this topic here and on all of the other homebrewing forums.

 

[JoeBuch]

I brewed my pumpkin as an alt reusing the yeast. Both were very malty, but as WLP and wyeast say, it will hide the presence of hops so bitter accordingly.

I also feel you can get a lot of the malt of Oktoberfest/Marzen with cleaner attenuating yeasts.

 

[ksbrain]

You could always do an Oktoberfest recipe with ale yeast like US-05.

 

[jezter6]

I do alt's a lot as ales and they work out well. See recipes in the database.

 

[ghpeel]

WLP029 can be used to make Altbier (got one fermenting right now) and it doesn't mask the flavor of the hops.