All Grain

Bock This! helles bock homebrew recipe

This is another favorite homebrew recipe of mine – a good helles bock.. This is great beer for fall evenings after a day of hard work. Helles bock

Helles means pale, and unlike traditional bock, this bock takes more of its flavor profile from pale malt instead of Vienna or Munich malt.

Bock is also a tax category in many countries to distinguish “high alcohol” beers from the more common beer most people drink.

Simple Helles

German Helles is a simple, but very difficult style to make. If you don’t have a way to keep your fermentation temperatures in the low 50’s, your beer will simply not taste good. Too hot, and you will get medicine and plastic phenols. To cold, and the beer will not ferment out completely. This is really a beer for advanced brewers, but if you have the equipment (or a cave that is the right temp), try this beer. You will love it.

Christmas ale

Christmas ales are a tradition in many parts of Europe and this Christmas ale is based on an English bitter. It is a fairly easy homebrew recipe, although it does take a little bit of experience. It is a spicy, fruity moderate strength English Style Christmas Ale.

Chocolate porter recipe – all grain version

This is the all-grain version of my award winning chocolate porter recipe. This is not a difficult recipe for anyone doing all-grain brewing, but it does take some care when choosing the proper chocolate.

I used bakers chocolate for this since I didn’t really want the extra sugar. Just be careful that the chocolate doesn’t have wax or other fillers. You can also use cocoa powder that is unsweetened, but again, make sure of your ingredients.

This is a robust porter that I added chocolate to. If you love chocolate flavors in your beer, this is a great beer for you.

Schwarzbier (Black Beer)

I love making beers that are hard to get in Las Vegas. This Schwarzbier recipe (Black Beer), falls into category 4C of the BJCP. This Schwarzbier recipe is an awesome example of this style. Plenty of roasted malt aroma, beautiful ruby highlights and a nice dry finish. It also has good hints of unsweetened chocolate, a subtle hint of noble hop flavor from the Hallertauer hops and of course the clean palette of a German Lager.

Gordon Biersch Dunkles clone

This is a clone of less well known Gordon Biersch Dunkles. I have made this as close to the original as I could, but most homebrewers aren’t going to do all the required decoction steps; even if they have the equipment. Some things are much easier on a larger scale. In case you do want to follow the complicated mash procedure, I will detail it below.

For yeast, Weihenstephaner 34/70 lager yeast is traditionally used, and is available dry from DCL/Fermentis as W-34/70. You can also get any neutral German lager yeast.

Jon’s Vienna lager

I love to make lagers and had a ton of Munich and Vienna malts in the garage. So in good German tradition, I brewed up 5 gallons of Vienna lager. I don’t use an light malts in my versions, preferring the nutty flavor that I get with using just Vienna and Munich malts. This is the way Vienna lager was traditionally made, although nowadays, most brewers substitute lager malt for some of the Vienna or Munich to save money.

It would be hard to get this flavor from an extract version since you can’t really find malt extract that has the required base.

Bitty Pils - German Pilsner Homebrew Recipe

German Pilsener

This lager is similar to Bitburger Pilsner. Bitburger was created in the town of Bitburg in 1883.

It is an advanced homebrew recipe, not so much because the techniques are that hard, but because you need to have a way to regulate your fermentation temperature. Lagers are temperamental beers and you need a constant cold temperature, just like the caves they were originally fermented in.

German pilsner, which emerged in the 1840’s, is differentiated from its Czech pilsner counterpart, and forerunner, in a couple of ways.

German Fest Bier (Helles) - Homebrew recipe

In Munich, the beer styles are very controlled by law. This beer is higher in alcohol than a standard helles, but not quite at Oktoberfest alcohol levels. It is a great homebrew beer recipe for those who want a little more kick in their beer. Great for summer, but made for the fall festival season, it is really great homebrew anytime.

Pumpkin Ale

A refreshing pumpkin ale based on an English pale ale beer recipe for your fall festivities. You can use fresh pumpkin or if you must, canned, just get it without anything added like spices or sugar.

One thing you should be aware of is not thinking that you want to add more spices. The beer will turn out very astringent (at best) if you add more than the suggested amount of spices.