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Recipe: Elder Piper Rustic Amber Lager

An important piece of this old-fashioned lager’s puzzle is the Swiss-style lager yeast, which Elder Piper cofounder and brewer Trace Redmond says provides floral notes that accentuate the hops.

Trace Redmond Dec 24, 2024 - 4 min read

Recipe: Elder Piper Rustic Amber Lager Primary Image

Photo: Courtesy Elder Piper

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From Elder Piper Beer & Cider in Petoskey, Michigan, here’s a recipe for an amber lager that they brewed in collaboration with their lager-centric friends at Silver Spruce Brewing in Traverse City.

“Even though this is a malty lager,” says Elder Piper cofounder and brewer Trace Redmond, “the bitterness, minerality, and yeast choice favor a floral hop aroma and crisp bitterness that nicely balance the malt.”

Also known as the Hürlimann strain, that yeast strain comes from Zurich’s Brauerei Hürlimann, original home of the Samichlaus strong lager (14 percent ABV). The strain is known among brewers for a couple of unusual traits: its ability to resist higher alcohol and its subtle floral-herbal notes. Yet its mysteries run deeper: White Labs reports that its version is STA1-positive—in other words, it’s a diastatic lager strain. Fermentis reports that its version—SafLager S-189—is not STA1-positive. (Notably, Hürlimann worked with multiple lager yeasts.)

ALL-GRAIN

Batch size: 5 gallons (19 liters)
Brewhouse efficiency: 72%
OG: 1.053 (13°P)
FG: 1.011 (2.9°P)
IBUs: 34
ABV: 5.4%

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