Iron Brewer - Cream Ale Recipe

For the Garage Brewers Society here in St. Louis I entered their yearly Iron Brewer challenge. The idea is that you and another person in the homebrew club get a random ingredient and you must brew a beer using some part of that ingredient. Mine was Raisin, Date & Walnut oatmeal. The obvious choice was to create an oatmeal stout / porter using this ingredient, but I wanted to try something different.

I've had a few cream ales and thought that the oatmeal would lend well to the smooth mouthfeel that cream ales seem to have. The raisin, date & walnut may just be an interesting combination to add to it as well. I tried buying some Genesee cream ale and adding a little oatmeal to it to see what it would taste like -

The result was interesting. Adding too much of the oatmeal made it not taste like beer anymore. Adding too little was undetectable in the cream ale. I decided to use some of the oats while brewing the beer and use the raisins in a secondary to add hints of raisin to the beer without adding the entire taste of the oatmeal.

Recipe for the cream ale:

Batch Size: 5 Gallons
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients

Ingredients Amt Name Type # %/IBU 8.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 1 4.8 % 4 lbs 8.0 oz Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 2 42.9 % 2 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 19.0 % 1 lbs Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) Grain 4 9.5 % 1 lbs Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) Grain 5 9.5 % 8.0 oz Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 6 4.8 % 8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 7 4.8 % 8.0 oz Vienna Malt (3.5 SRM) Grain 8 4.8 % 0.50 oz Fuggles [4.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 9 8.3 IBUs 0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 10 7.4 IBUs 0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 11 1.5 IBUs 1.0 pkg Cream Ale Yeast Blend (White Labs #WLP080) [50.28 ml] Yeast 12 -

Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.048 SG	Measured Original Gravity: 1.049 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.008 SG	Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.2 %	Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.1 %
Bitterness: 17.2 IBUs	Calories: 161.8 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 3.9 SRM Here was the end result:

And 24 hours into fermentation:

Let's hope it turns out well. The iron brewer beer is due in April so we will see how it turns out!

Brew on!

Ryan