Craft Breweries Impact On Homebrewing

[swenocha]

Nice! New Heights, one of our local micros, makes a cream ale called 'Nothing Fancy' that I would imagine is quite close in recipe to this.



Great pool/lake/mower/hike beer. I'm all over the map on styles... IPAs to sours to barrel aged stouts and everything in between, but I must say a plain ole' '70's style "beer" works in those kind of circumstances for me. I make one here and there, essentially the same recipe either as an ale and a lager, but really need to put one in more regular rotation. I used to buy the heck out of the new/old Schlitz when it was in our market... it was quite good for the style after they reverted to their '50's recipe. I now use Yazoo Daddy-O and Wild Heaven Emergency Drinking Beer for these occasions when I don't have one I've brewed myself.

[swenocha]

Here's the basic recipe I use for my light pale lager, though I change up the yeast and hops depending on what's on hand. I also occasionally exchange out some of the grain for DME (again, depending on what's on hand), and the one I have conditioning now had some wheat DME in the mix as well as blueberries in the secondary. So it's really just a "clear the brewing closet" beer, based on what I have on hand, hitting the IBU and gravity numbers below for the most part. Note that this cut was done Mr. B fermenter size.

Pale Lager
Standard American Lager
Type: All Grain
Batch Size: 2.40 gal
Brewer: Swenocha

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.00 lb 2-Row (2.0 SRM) Grain 42.64 %
1.69 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 36.03 %
1.00 lb Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 21.32 %
0.10 oz Mt. Hood [6.00 %] (60 min) Hops 4.5 IBU
0.10 oz Pearle [7.70 %] (60 min) Hops 5.7 IBU
0.25 oz Saaz [4.00 %] (5 min) Hops 1.5 IBU

1 Pkgs German Bock Lager (White Labs #WLP833) Yeast-Lager

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.053 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.014 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.09 %
Bitterness: 11.7 IBU
Est Color: 3.5 SRM

[brewnewb]

Rasberry CAB

[mashani]

My basic easy blonde recipe you may as well call Cheap Ass Belgian because that's what it is, and isn't that different then this.

It's simply (for 2.5 gallons)

3# Pilsner LME (or equivalent amount of Pilsner malt if you felt like mashing)
0.5# sugar of your choosing, anything from table sugar to fancy candi syrup
Some hops, can be a single addition, can be just like the CAB recipe above. You are going for 24-27 IBUs or so.
I really like French Aramis, that can be done as a single @20 addition similar to recipe above. The Meridian hops from CAB would be great I'm sure.
I used to use only 3787/WLP530 for this, but Abbaye dry yeast tastes great in it, so I use a lot of Abbaye now.

For whatever reason, the low gravity and simplicity amps up the fruity esters of the yeast, so you get a good amount of pear, apple, plums, etc, as long as you ferment it warmish. Not a banana bomb, these yeasts are not about lots of banana.

It is always delicious, simple as it sounds. I have this around all summer in various forms. Just don't do it with WLP500, that would probably not be so nice (either a clove bomb or a banana bomb or a dirt bomb depending on temperature... unless you are into that... me not so much).

[ScrewyBrewer]

The history of CAB:

CAB originated on the old Mr Beer Fans Forum. A couple years ago I had 3 kids in college. They'd come home and drink that god awful Natty Light. I refused to pay for that crap so I requested a simple CHEAP recipe for me to brew for them. Jon provided the original recipe.

We threw a summer party and I had a bunch of bottles of CAB. All the neighborhood guys liked it so we named it CAB and decided to make it on a regular basis. It's become a staple in our pipeline.

Lately, we've been adding berry extracts to the 5g batches to come up with little variations.

I'll post up a couple pics of CAB later. It's very light in color and has a nice lace head to it. Don't rely on me for taste - all I can say is it's better than Natty Light and just as good as any run of the mill light beer.

BACK on TOPIC - we have a nano brewery in our town and he makes excellent beer. We've been there a few times but 5 - 6 bucks a pint drains the wallet quickly. Then add the who's driving home factor leads my group of neighbors back to CAB. No one risks a DUI and we have a bunch of $$ in our wallet to order pizza and wings during the sporting events.

@brewnewb that is an awesome story, the history of CAB, the motivation for brewing it and pizza too. We all struggle paying more than we have to for something we know we can brew equally as good for so much less. But still, it's gotta feel good knowing you had a hand in creating a popular new beer style.