How Low Can You Go

[MrC]

... ABV% that is.

A colleague of mine asked me recently whether it is possible to brew a low alcohol beer without sacrificing all body, flavour & aroma. I've thinking about it and now I'm curious. I've brewed an American Wheat Beer that came in at 3.6% ABV due to 50% extraction efficiency, and the beer was really nice. The body was definitely on the lite side but the hops were nice and the beer was a nice easy quaffer.

I know some people may find this kind of talk offensive but wouldn't it be nice to have good beer you can drink all day and still be standing at the end of it.

So my topics for discussion are:

- What's the lowest ABV% beer you've ever brewed and what was it like?
- How low can you go and still have a nice beer? Can you go as low as 2% ?

[MrC]

Jesus. Do you ever brew anything normal?
I hope I'm not getting a reputation as a brewing weirdo. I thought that was Mike ;-)

'southern hemisphere prawns on the bbq poofter' Xmas
You guys need to embrace the Kiwi culture where Santa wears shorts & jandles, Xmas day weather is hot and the beer is cold.

[jt]

Sounds damned fine Mr C

[Nolen Smith]

I've won a silver and bronze medals 08/09 with something very similar using:

1 x can extract
1kg Marris Otter
230g Crystal 60L
a sprinkle of black patent for colour
1kg Honey
Ginger, cinnamon and orange zest.
34 IBU with Saaz and Cascade
Yeast: Wyeast 1028

19L batch

It came out at about 5abv, but cut the honey in half and drop the MO and you'd be down near 3%. I think with your grain bill you'd be fine.

My advice on the spices: use cinnamon quills and grated fresh ginger. I've tried with powder (cinnamon and ginger) and didn't get as nice a result.

I agree with Glynn's comment that spiced ales shouldn't be mid-strength... just like Christmas shouldn't be in the summer.

[MrC]

Thanks Nolen. I was planning on using ground dried spices but I'll get some fresh stuff now. Cheers.

[Kempicus]

If you brew using all specialty malts only you can get some really low % beers but retain a hell of a lot of body...

[Barry]

Whats the level of specialties before it just won't convert - from a lack of diastatic enzymes?
What specialties and percentages Kempicus?

[MrC]

I guess if you used steepable specialty malts only you wouldn't need to worry about mash enzymes at all. An extract & speciality batch with out the extract. Could end up at 1 - 1.5% ABV. I feel an experiment coming on...

[Soren]

i've often thought about doing a 100% crystal malt beer, I don't expect that to be drinkable but I am curious to see excactly how fermentable crystal malt is. I'm guessing it'll be around 50% fermentable but does anyone know the answer?

[Reviled]

Hmmm. If you hopped it to hell and back it could still be drinkable maybe???

[MrC]

The idea of a crystal malt only beer has been playing on my mind so I've decided to give it a crack!

I'm going for an "All Grain No Mash" approach with a 30min steep and a 15min boil. The recipe is loosely based on a silver medal winning Brown Porter that I brewed last year. I have removed the base malt and added the Carapils and rolled oats for body and mouthfeel.

Any thoughts or advice?
Is this just a big waste of time and ingredients?

METRIC BROWN PORTER
Why metric? Because it's the opposite to Imperial!

STATS (not sure I trust these values):
OG: 1.009
ABV(%): 1.4
IBU: 24
Batch Size: 8L
Boil time: 15min

GRAIN:
100g Crystal 20L
100g Crystal 60L
50g Crystal 120L
200g Cara-Pils
100g Chocolate Malt
100g Rolled Oats (toasted & ground)
150g Brown Malt

HOPS:
5g Sauvin, 5g Stryrian @ 15min
10g Stryrian @ 5min
10g Stryrian @ 0min
10g Stryrian @ Dry (only if I think it needs it and haven't tipped it out)

YEAST:
S-33

[Reviled]

I reckon its a good experiment Mr Cherry and one well worth giving a go!

[MrC]

Minor, last minute change with this beer. The decided I didn't trust the S-33 that I had and switched to S-04 (half a packet). Not a lot of action from the airlock but I can't say I was expecting much. I don't think I'll be getting much yeast character.

OG came out at 1.012 with 7L in the fermenter. Seems weird brewing beer with an OG roughly the same as my usual FGs.