What BJCP Category...

[AlDogWV]

...should this Cherrywood-smoked American Amber ale fall under? My brewing partner got some cherrywood a while back and I put this together and it is damn delicious.

Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: ????
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 6 gallons
Efficiency: 75% (brew house)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.056
Final Gravity: 1.012
ABV (standard): 5.73%
IBU (tinseth): 39.31


FERMENTABLES:
4 lb - Cherry Wood Smoked Malt (32.5%)
3 lb - Maris Otter Pale (24.4%)
2 lb - Pale Ale Malt 2-Row (16.2%)
1 lb - Caramel Malt - 40L (8.1%)
1 lb - Munich - Dark 15L (8.1%)
8 oz - Caramel Malt - 120L (4.1%)
8 oz - Victory (4.1%)
4 oz - Acidulated (2%)
1 oz - Chocolate (0.5%)

HOPS:
0.5 oz - Galena, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 21.83
0.5 oz - Galena, Type: Pellet, AA: 13, Use: Boil for 20 min, IBU: 13.22
0.5 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 4.26
1 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 7, Use: Boil for 0 min

MASH GUIDELINES:
Temp: 156 F, Time: 60 min

 

[dmtaylor]

32A. Classic Style Smoked Beer

 

[madscientist451]

.. My brewing partner got some cherrywood a while back and I put this together and it is damn delicious.

Your partner got smoked malt or you got cherry wood and did your own smoking?
Just asking because 4 lbs seems like a lot to me, Thanks for posting.

 

[AlDogWV]

Your partner got smoked malt or you got cherry wood and did your own smoking?
Just asking because 4 lbs seems like a lot to me, Thanks for posting.

He bought cherrywood-smoked malt. And yes, I can see where 4 lbs looks like a lot, but we don't think so. Especially after tasting it. I do understand your line of thought and I'll be honest, I wasn't sure about that much smoked malt since it is cherrywood. If it were Weyerman's beechwood malt, then it's definitely not too much, imo. It's not something most are accustomed to or even familiar with, much less really enjoy drinking.

We are used to the Schlenkerla level of smoke in a beer, though, and most rauchbiers or other smoke beers we try commercially don't have enough smoke. We brew four or five rauchbiers a year and this is the first time we have used cherrywood-smoked malt. The higher mash temp with this grain and the higher level of IBU for the style in this recipe really did compliment each other very well. There's a nice sweetness and then the hop level some through the smoke very well, imo. It is smokey, but that's what we were looking for.

Thanks for posting/asking!

 

[AlDogWV]

32A. Classic Style Smoked Beer

Thanks for the response. I guess I'm hung up on the "A Specialty Smoked Beer is either a smoked beer based on something other than a Classic Style..." from the definition of 32B. I suppose American Amber IS a classic style?

 

[rsquared]

Thanks for the response. I guess I'm hung up on the "A Specialty Smoked Beer is either a smoked beer based on something other than a Classic Style..." from the definition of 32B. I suppose American Amber IS a classic style?

Sometimes you have to go back to the Intro to a particular section... Or in this case the intro to the style guide itself:

"When specialty beer descriptions refer to a Classic Style, we mean a named style (subcategory name) in the BJCP Style Guidelines"

 

[AlDogWV]

Sometimes you have to go back to the Intro to a particular section... Or in this case the intro to the style guide itself:

"When specialty beer descriptions refer to a Classic Style, we mean a named style (subcategory name) in the BJCP Style Guidelines"

Awesome, thank you for the redirect!

 

[dmtaylor]

Thanks for the response. I guess I'm hung up on the "A Specialty Smoked Beer is either a smoked beer based on something other than a Classic Style..." from the definition of 32B. I suppose American Amber IS a classic style?

19A. American Amber Ale

When determining style, it does help to review the BJCP Guidelines, as others mentioned:

https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

 

[AlDogWV]

19A. American Amber Ale

When determining style, it does help to review the BJCP Guidelines, as others mentioned:

https://www.bjcp.org/docs/2015_Guidelines_Beer.pdf

Right. I'm having a hard time judging your intended tone here. So I'll err on he positove side and just say that I have reviewed the the guidelines several times and that I obviously missed the definition of "classic beer styles". I was thinking of it in terms of smoked beer, with rauchbier being the classic style there.

Thanks again for helping.

 

[dmtaylor]

Right. I'm having a hard time judging your intended tone here. So I'll err on he positove side and just say that I have reviewed the the guidelines several times and that I obviously missed the definition of "classic beer styles". I was thinking of it in terms of smoked beer, with rauchbier being the classic style there.

Thanks again for helping.

I don't always know what my intended tone is either. Best to err on the positive side! Seriously, I'm not too terrible of a guy.

The following excerpt might help. What certainly doesn't help is how much a trainwreck the 2015 guidelines are. They went from simple straight-forward to ungodly unnecessarily complicated. I'm a BJCP judge and I really miss the days before 2015.

 

[Qhrumphf]

While I very much appreciate the attempt to end the clusterf*** that was Specialty Beer in 2008, the way they broke them apart is indeed very confusing. Much of it is explained in the introductory sections. But those aren't on the apps where most everyone (judges included) view the guidelines.

(And as said, Classic Style Smoked is your style, listing American Amber as your base style with cherrywood smoked malt, as others have said. After all the classic Rauchbier is just a beechwood smoked Märzen. Along with other classic German styles Schlenkerla and the like also offered smoked versions of.)

 

[Chuckbergman]

I use 4lbs of smoked malt in a porter I brew every winter. I change up the type of smoke every year. Pretty smokey, but the darker malts help balance it out. My homebrew club enjoys it immensely.

 

[catalanotte]

Sounds like an interesting and tasty brew. Looking at your grain bill and mash temp, it seems like it would have a pretty high FG. If you don’t mind sharing, what yeast strain gave you that attenuation. Did you step the mash or was it a single infussion? Just curious.

And to answer your original question, I’d agree with the other suggestions of the smoked beer category. The strong smoke would be judged as a fault in other base beer categories.

 

[AlDogWV]

Sounds like an interesting and tasty brew. Looking at your grain bill and mash temp, it seems like it would have a pretty high FG. If you don’t mind sharing, what yeast strain gave you that attenuation. Did you step the mash or was it a single infussion? Just curious.

And to answer your original question, I’d agree with the other suggestions of the smoked beer category. The strong smoke would be judged as a fault in other base beer categories.

Thanks, man!

It did actually have a higher FG the first time we brewed it, finishing at 1.018 instead of the target. We did mash high purposely in an attempt to get some sweetness and 156 was our goal. We later found an issue with our thermometer and have since corrected it, but it was likely mashed at 161. We chalked that up as the reason for the "under" attenuation. That was only like 67%. If we would have hit our 155-156 goal, I think getting closer to 75% wouldn't be out of the question. I think the recipe calculator just uses 81% by default for S-05, which is what we used. I agree that getting 81% was likely not going to happen, but we got what we wanted out of it and have since brewed it again with a couple of grain and hop tweaks, and also brought the mash temp down to 152. We did not step mash - we do typical full volume, single infusion BIAB mashes.

And I definitely knew the smoked beer category was where this needed to be, but I was initially confused about 32A or 32B. Thanks again for help and if you have any questions about the recipe, I would be more than happy to share.

 

[catalanotte]

I was initially confused about 32A or 32B.

I'd go with 32A since you can characterize the base beer style as an American Amber and there are not "additional ingredients" to transform the beer beyond the classic style. This seems to be the distinction between 32A and 32B, since other than the smoked malt, nothing in your recipe or process stray from an American Amber Style.