Cream Ale

I know, I know...it's supposed to be a summer beer, but I've had this Cream Ale Blend for months now and I really need to use it.

So, anybody ever made a Cream Ale? I've been intrigued since I listened to Jamil's podcast about it...he described it as a light crisp lawnmower beer.

Here is his recipe.

The only ones I have tried were spiced with vanilla (yuck) so I want to know what a real Cream Ale tastes like.

As always, my recipe is slightly experimental. I added a small amount of vienna and munich to give it a nice malt profile and added flaked wheat along with the flaked corn to help with the head, perhaps smooth out the flavour a bit as well.

I welcome comments on the recipe! This will be my 3rd AG.

Here's the BJCP guidelines

Brewing 5.5 gallons

Anticipated OG @ 70% efficiency: 1.048
Anticipated IBU: 17

4 lbs - American 2-Row
2.5 lbs - Pilsener 2-Row
0.5 lbs - Vienna Malt
0.5 lbs - Munich Malt
1 lbs - Flaked Corn
1 lbs - Flake Wheat
1 lbs - Cane Sugar

1 oz - Liberty (Bittering - 60 min)
1 oz - Saaz (Aroma - 1 min)

White Labs WLP080 Cream Ale Blend @ ~60 F

My recipe is a "corn" cream ale- see the drop down list. I have to tell you that I usually like intense hoppy beers, but I thought the corn cream ale was great. It doesn't have a corn taste, it's just to lighten it up a little. I'll be making this again, probably in spring, and cold conditioning it. It was a great lawnmower beer, and I want it ti be a summer house beer.

I made Jamil's recipe and it came out with a spicy taste to it. I'm not sure if I f'ed something up (it was in the summer so the ferment temp may have been too high?) or if it was the hops coming through. It was nice and light, definitely no corn taste. I also recently drank a commercial Cream Ale from Laughing Dog in Idaho. It seemed to have a similar spiciness to it. Again I'm assuming it was the hops.

Anyone else with experience?

YooperBrew said:

My recipe is a "corn" cream ale- see the drop down list. I have to tell you that I usually like intense hoppy beers, but I thought the corn cream ale was great. It doesn't have a corn taste, it's just to lighten it up a little. I'll be making this again, probably in spring, and cold conditioning it. It was a great lawnmower beer, and I want it ti be a summer house beer.

Click to expand...

glad to hear it. i'll check out your recipe before i go to buy my grains tonight...

3rd AG went off without a hitch. i got 73% efficiency...my best to date for any mashing. the ingredients changed. I didn't have any cane sugar and i changed the hop additions to: 0.5 oz fuggle + 0.25 oz saaz @ 60 minutes, 0.5 oz saaz @ 5 minutes. tasted good but peculiar...it'll be interesting to see how that corn affects the final product.

got the hefe and the scottish ale bottled as well. then there was a little accident. the spout on the bottling bucket popped off!! Apparently i missed the threads when tightening...beer everywhere, but we managed to get it reattached. i had to stick my hand in the beer, but hopefully it will turn out ok.

I really like Jamil & Palmers new book Brewing Classic Styles for stuff like this. They tell you what each beer should taste like and give you a extract & AG version of it that has recently won awards so you know it should be decent. I find my self going to it all the time when deciding what to brew next and working up the recipe.

yeah, i listened to jamils podcast (that's what got me interested) and i had his recipe as a reference, but changed it up a bit. i'm hoping to receive that book for x-mas, otherwise i'll order it after

on it's way!



The two boxes of brew on the right are the DFJMS. That screw-up of a beer is actually going to be a very, VERY tasty brew