According to Connor Casey, cofounder of Cellarmaker, “This West Coast hazy IPA is brewed with the best hop varieties America has to offer... [It’s] supremely drinkable due to the slender body, semidry finish, and avoidance of sweet esters.”
Perennial's Phil Wymore discusses the fundamentals of formulating an imperial stout grist that has plenty of body and color while avoiding too much roast.
With some thought and planning, big dessert stouts are well within reach of extract brewers. Here's a recipe featuring vanilla, pecan, cacao, and plenty of toasted coconut.
Don’t bother with a yeast starter, oxygenation, or cold crashing here. We want the yeast “struggling” to produce a nice, noticeable ester/phenol profile, and the cloudiness is no vice in a weiss.
This is a homebrew-scale recipe for the German-style Pils from Smith & Lentz Brewing in Nashville, Tennessee. Below, we explain how the recipe can be adjusted for a range of variations.
Courtesy of Perennial Artisan Ales in St. Louis, Missouri, here is a homebrew-sized version of a big-bodied imperial stout that gets a pile of coconut for a decadent, chocolate-macaroon-like character.
When formulating complex grists for imperial stouts and other big beers, intentionality is the key—everything there should have a purpose, according to Phil Wymore, cofounder and brewmaster of Perennial Artisan Ales.
Kristen England is head brewer at Bent Brewstillery in Roseville, Minnesota—and a longtime homebrewer and BJCP Grand Master Beer Judge. Here is his recipe for a rich-but-quaffable Czech-style dark lager, including a straightforward single-decoction mash.
As historical beers go, this is an odd one: an Austrian beer once described by Mozart (maybe), with a grist of 100 percent malted oats, and cream of tartar to lend a refreshing acidic touch.
You, too, can brew a quaffable, enjoyable, malt-forward lager beer—in relatively short order.