If you are like me, the week before Saint Patrick’s Day I’m making my beer because of bad planning. Well not this year! I’ve been planning out this one for a while.
This year is different. I’ve marked this beer down for a while thanks to the brewing calendar. If you want to know, Saint Patrick’s Day is March 17th this year, a Saturday. Pretty much my favorite holiday along with Fat Tuesday (Feb 21st this year) but I digress. Everyone is Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day, as seen in the picture below.
(Guy lost in woods with weird hat trying to be accepted as Irish on Saint Patrick’s Day)
So getting back to it, we need to be thinking about the beer that we are going to be making. It really gets easy for this holiday, you either have and Irish Red, or a Dry Stout.
For the Dry Stout I already have a recipe up about this one. Just don’t use the whiskey and it’s still going to be pretty stand up. Or use Irish whiskey instead. Also if you are going all-grain, use the conversion chart and just convert the LME or the DME.
(Skills)
But what I can tell you is that I am going to be making this Irish Red. I love this recipe. It’s one of my classics that I make. What I really like about this recipe is that in the stores, it’s really hard to get a good Irish Red. This recipe makes the Sam Adams Irish look like it’s amateur hour. A little cocky? Try the recipe and I’m sure you’ll agree. If you don’t, well, I’m one man – I can’t save the world…
Irish Red:
OG: 1.056
FG: 1.011
SRM: 16
IBU: 33
ABV: 5.9%
Ingredients
6.6 lbs LME Golden Light
1.0 lb Biscuit Malt
2 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz CaraMunich
8 oz Cara Foam
1 oz Fuggle (60min)
1 oz Fuggle (30min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings (15min)
.5 oz Kent Goldings (5min)
WLP 004 or WLP 002 WLP023 Safale 04 – any of these work
Directions
Take the grains and steep in 2.5 gallons of water at 150 degrees for 30min. Take out after 30min. Add malt extract and bring to a boil. At the begining of the boil add 1 oz of Fuggle hops. Boil for 30min then add 1 oz of Fuggle hops. Boil for 15min then add .5 oz of EKG boil for 10 min then add .5 oz of EKG. Boil for 5 min then kill the boil.
Cool down, pour into fermenter, fill up to 5 gallons and then pitch yeast.
Primary: 1-2 weeks
Bottles: 3-4 Week
Total Time: 6 weeks
Flavor Profile
The biscuit malt really is added to this recipe to mimic that of Maris Otter. Maris Otter is a base malt that is English, super clean and has a bready flavor to it. Has a great mouth feel. Biscuit malt taste exactly as the name describes, like biscuits.
The chocolate malt is added for the color, this will make the beer, “red” in color.
Caramunich, again another bready and sweet type of specialty grain. This will add some color to the beer.
Carafoam, this is for head retention.
The hop choices are fuggles and east kent goldings. Both of these are English style hops. Having this recipe at 33 IBU really doesn’t over power the flavors that come with the beer. I use these hops in some way in almost all of my beer recipes that are European ale’s. Love, love, love these hops!
Conclusion:
This recipe is one of my favorties as well as one of the most requested ones that I do. If you are looking at doing it all-grain, just use the conversion table that is in our blog.
This is just a fantastic beer to make. And if you start thinking about it now, you won’t be in a rush for Saint Patrick’s day.
Good luck and if you have any comments or suggestions leave them in the space provided below!
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