Beer Forum

Hey there ...

The gf wants to do the northern german alt from BCS. I am looking to use up some munich LME that I have. Somewhere in this there must be a potential compromise

Keeping in mind that it won't be quite the same beer, if I were to increase the munich in the recipe by say 2x, 3x or even 4x (adjusting the pilsner appropriately), would that end up as something that I should expect to be tasty or would it just be kind of messed up? Also, presumably I'd want to cut back (or drop entirely?) some of the specialty grains (e.g. the caramunich he calls for I'd imagine) - what do you think?

Thanks

Munich malt gives a toasty, bready flavor. Too much in a light beer can be cloying, but in an Alt it should be OK. I assume there is some chocolate malt or carafa special in the Alt recipe that would offset the higher percentage of Munich. If you are going to increase the munich, I would only reduce the base malt and leave everything else the same.

I poked around the net a bit after posting this ... it looks like what I'm thinking of would end up somewhere between an alt and a mocktoberfest type of thing. I'll probably just give it a whirl and see what happens.