Just for fun...

[Swift Pint]

So recently (well within the last year or 2...) the government has reduced tax on beers under 2.8%
I cant imagine there being many breweries coming out with beer this weak. I think the only thing I've seen is Nanny State, which I think was 2.5%, but tasted like weak hoppy tea.

Hanyone tried brewing a beer this weak? Im tempted to give it a shot, as it sounds like a bit of a challange coming up with a nice drinkable beer with that low amount of alcohol.

What sort of things should I be looking at to lower the amount of alcohol without losing body and flavour?
Up the % of crystal malt in the grain bill?
Mash at a higher temperature to end up with more unfermentable sugars?

Any thoughts?
:wha:

 

[shocker]

I remember reading somewhere about the old practice of splitting the wort at some point to make a portion of full strength and a portion of "small" beer for general consumption at all times of day by the whole family .The point being that water supplies until very (in my own case VERY) recently were not safe and the boiling sterilised and the alcohol preserved the liquid .

I will have a scan when I get a minute ,I think it was a Dave Line book ,come to think ,it had a recipe for a brewed shandy of very low ABV......

 

[TheMumbler]

Never tried that low an abv, I guess it'll be very hard to do well. Milds are tricky enough without going sub 3%. There is really nothing to hide behind at that kind of abv.

I've been meaning to sort out the smaller mash tun and do a weak beer but tbh I'm more likely to go partigyle with the big un as I have plenty of grain in atm.

I'd be interested to hear how you get along.

pdtnc had a 3.5% beer that tasted pretty good at the NCBA meet recently, the recipe is probably here, if not try Jims

 

[markp]

3.6% ABV is the lowest gravity I have brewed.
As mumbler said, they are difficult to brew well as any faults are very noticable.

Extremely fresh malt will help (as it will with any brew).
A carapils addition would be quite useful to help with body and mouth feel and I'd probably mash a little higher than normal.
Crystal malts for colour and flavour in the same way as you would try and build a traditional bitter.

My own opinion is that this sort of beer would be lightly hopped - 20-25 IBU perhaps.
No American or NZ hops.....I think they would overpower it. I'd use traditional English varieties myself; EKG, fuggles.

The parti gyle method could also be used.......a big honking Barley Wine and a low gravity ale from the same tun.

 

[shocker]

Aaaahh ,yeah Dave Lines Big Book ,chapter 37 .He describes using the intial run off of a mash for a high gravity ale or barley wine for just that and the sparge for making a 20-30 OG brew with Goldings ,vanilla and lemon rind - sweetened with an artificial and coloured with caramel if needed .

 

[oldbloke]

Mann's Original is 2.8 IIRC.
I quite like it, especially if I have to drive later in the day.

 

[WelshPaul]

My housemate tried just that last week - splitting the wort prior to sparging to make a <2.5% beer for a friend who can't really drink that much for health reasons. I'll see how it turns out but it fermented well enough.

 

[oz11]

Fuller's are trying out Mighty Atom at 2.8% at the moment. Can't comment on the quality myself as haven't yet seen it. I would expect other brewers to be trying something similar.

 

[RobWalker]

Steeping malt will increase the flavour, colour and possibly a little body with no abv addition...

 

[snail59]

This sounds like it could be a Forum Challenge Brew. Make a sub 3% brew ready for the spring thing 2012.

 

[shocker]

Rob ,how would you define steeping ?

 

[mickyfinn]

excelent idea . cannot remember last time i brewed under 6% (how i like a beer) . Gnats , Cats ,Horse, Sheep whatever pee will be a challenge to compare

 

[RobWalker]

Rob ,how would you define steeping ?

steeping non diastatic malts in water, basically (crystal etc.) It wouldn't add any sugars because enzymatic conversion couldn't take place, but would at least add flavour and colour....

Lactose might do the same thing for body, although it's slightly fermentable and a bit of a sweetener.

 

[shocker]

Aaahh...thank you .And at what sort of temp ?And time ? ish......

 

[RobWalker]

I could only tell you real information by googling, but if your malt has no diastatic power, you can treat it as a mash with 500g malt in 1.3L of 78 celcius water - at least that was the reading from my last recipe. that should give you a 65 degree infusion :)'

half an hour should do it to be safe. but yeah, this is open to somebody explaining it better. :p

 

[RobWalker]

Anything come of this? I think it could be interesting! My 2 gallon brews are now costing pittence, plus I've plenty of ingredients stored up, so still wanna see how it goes :-)

 

[RobWalker]

OK, had a good look and piecing a recipe together now. Low abv milds arnt easy to come by recipe wise, but you might be interested to know that dropping the abv decreases the cost massively. Using plenty of leftovers, I'm probably looking at 2 quid for a 2 gallon batch, hahah! Would like to add some raspberries for a fruity malty flavour, gonna use plenty of aroma hops and steep in lots of malts along with mashing some for great flavour depth. An idea might be to treat this as a full brew when planning and then knock any flavour malts to steeping instead, mainly so you can get a good idea of what you want your recipe to be.

That said, the idea of brewing a mild is very unappealing to me. Low hops, no real flavour except malt, don't really see the point where the real challenge is to make a well-rounded mega tasty beer under 2.8%. for that reason, i'm going with fruit, aroma hops and a lot of malt depth!

Low abv raspberry, hoppy mild incoming :-) will hopefully be able to send a few out for the home brew exchange!

 

[puravida]

Ahhhh that makes sense now.
I was looking through the Brewdog website for some inspiration last night and spotted they now sell a four pack of 'prototype beers' - one of which is a 2.8% beer which I thought was unusual for them.

http://www.brewdog.com/product/prototype-set

Look at their 'blitz beer' - a 2.8% caramalt only West Coast hop bomb.

Sounds pretty fine to me and a million miles of a boring old mild!!

 

[robsan77]

I could only tell you real information by googling, but if your malt has no diastatic power, you can treat it as a mash with 500g malt in 1.3L of 78 celcius water - at least that was the reading from my last recipe. that should give you a 65 degree infusion :)'

half an hour should do it to be safe. but yeah, this is open to somebody explaining it better. :p

You could add the speciality malts at mashout and run the apathetic over them.

 

[RobWalker]

I steeped my amber in 1 litre of water, poured through the grain bag into the boil after 70 degrees, as I assume no mashing would take place after that. Seemed to work! Thanks for the advice. :)

Full brewday here, so this is on! It's a 2.7% Raspberry beer, of sorts. Secondary fermentation with the raspberries to come. This actually came up at 1.028 and I've a little water to add to hit 1.027 :)

Here's a little picture, the low OG and deep colour are just what I wanted

Full brewday here; Raspberry 2.7%er