In the craft beer world, it seems like beers keep getting more hoppy with IPAs still having the spotlight among most consumers. There’s nothing wrong with that, but sometimes its nice to make a throwback beer, and by throwback we mean the old world, when beer was poured from casks using beer engines. With St. Patrick’s day right around the corner, we thought it was the perfect time to build a beer engine and brew a sessionable, low ABV Irish Red Ale. Follow this recipe below if you’re a fan of creamy, malty beers that are perfect for day drinking or enjoying after a long day of work.

This is a recipe for a 5 gallon batch that is tailored for our 20 Gallon 240 Volt brewing system. Why brew such a small beer on such a big system? To prove that even our largest brewing systems are capable of brewing small batches of low ABV beer. Watch the full recipe video below to see how we did it.

Full Brew Day Video

Benchmarks

Pre Boil Gravity: 1.041

Starting Gravity: 1.048

Final Gravity: 1.008

ABV: 5.25%

Water

Fill your kettle with 8 gallons (30.3 liters) of water. Add a Campden tablet to remove any chlorine.

Grains

• 8 lbs 8 oz (3.85 kg) of Maris Otter
• 4 oz of Caramel/Crystal Malt 40L
• 4 oz of Caramel/Crystal Malt 120L
• 4 oz of Roasted Barley

Mash

We mashed at 153F (67.2C) for 60 minutes.

After our mash, we did a 10 minute mash out at 168F (75.5C)

Hops

After mashing, we brought our wort to a boil. This recipe calls for only one hop addition

60 minutes - 2 oz. of East Kent Goldings

Yeast and Fermentation

Chill your wort to around 70F (21.1C) and pitch one package of WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast from White Labs.

Ferment for 2 weeks at 67F (19.4C)

Beer Engine & Tasting

This beer finished with a low abv and a nice malty flavor. The beer engine we poured it on gave it a smooth creamy head as well and made it feel like we were in an Irish pub. We highly recommend you brew this any time of the year, not just for St. Patrick’s Day.

We bought this beer engine, check out this article to see how we set it up.