https://www.homebrewersassociation.org/forum/index.php?topic=22344.msg285063#msg285063
then entering the world of “no true irish red ale would use a german malt” lol
it’s the funniest style classification ever tbh - “it has to be RED, it has to be um irish” yet it did not exist in ireland and i can’t remember ever hearing about one using say malting co. of ireland ingredients, but then all the best examples of a true irish red use red x/munich/carafa III lol
Last year I made my one and only Irish Red that was:
80% 2-Row
16% 20L Munich
3.5% 57L Med. British Crystal
0.5% Carafa II
Came out red enough for me. Wasn’t “malty” but there was a touch of sweetness. Finished dry. Hopped with Willamette. Used 1450, dropped very clear.
Very happy with it, even if I have no idea what an Irish Red really is, other than “red”.
There’s a picture of it here that doesn’t really do the color justice, poor choice of background.
If I was to brew one myself I would use UK ingredients…
Marris Otter, UK crystal, UK roasted barley, EKG hops, Irish ale yeast. Done.
Well, since all of my grain in the store room is of German origin, this might be a German Red Ale!
And the correct answer is that it doesn’t matter. If someone wants to be truly authentic, they need to use French grain.
A friend of mine was one of the original brewers at McGuire’s. He said that he would look at his brewers log and tell me how they used to make it, but that was quite a while ago. Who knows what changes they may have made. I’ll post his notes as soon as he sends them to me.
Bloody fantastic, mate!
My wife had their Stout, and the rest of us had the Irish Red. Great beer, very good Pub!
Obviously the BJCP guidelines recognized it as a style with guidelines. They’re pretty easy to follow…
By the sounds of it here you could brew a pretty basic american amber and call it good…
Depending on the info from McGuire’s, the plan will be to brew with German malt since we have so much of it in stock, and S-04 yeast. English hops, most likely.
But for purely cosmetic purposes, it has to be red!
Here is the recipe that my friend sent me for McG’s Red (sorry if it’s not exactly what you were looking for, but he was indeed the brewer there a couple decades ago and since has been head of production at Cigar City as well as a few other places). It may have changed since then. As with any recipe, you can use this as a starting point.
2 row
C60
Chinook 60 mins
Willamette @15 mins and dry hop
OG 1.048-50
FG 1.008-12
SRM 11
IBU 30
ABV 5.5
Thank you! This gives us a great start on the recipe! This is my next brew project. Full report to be posted.
Here is what we went with, using the grains on hand in the grain room:
10 gallons
12# Ireks Pale Malt
1# Tex-Malt Pils
4# Ireks Munich
1# Ireks 40*
8 oz Roasted Barley 300*
Single Infusion Mash
3 oz Savinjski Goldings 3.4AA (FWH)
18 IBU
75 Min Boil
OG: 1.049
S-04 London Ale Yeast (1st Gen)
Diamond Lager Yeast Slurry
I’ll be curious to see what you think of the color. 8 oz. roast seems a lot for a hint of color.
My thoughts, too - maybe 2-4 ounces would work well enough for coloring?
Yeah, I usually use 1 oz./5 gal. for color. 2 tops sometimes. I’d be worried about it coming out too brown with that much.
The recipes for an Irish Red found on other sites showed as much as 5 oz roasted malt (300*) for 5 gallons.
So we went with 8 ounces for the 13.5 gallon boil volume.
It is not too dark. But I did detect a bit of a roast aroma from the mash.
SRM range: 9 to 18
Ingredients
9.9 lbs. (4.5 kg) Crisp British pale ale malt or similar British pale ale malt
6.0 oz. (170 g) crystal malt (40 °L)
6.0 oz. (170 g) crystal malt (120 °L)
5.0 oz. (142 g) roasted barley (300 °L)
5.25 AAU Kent Golding pellet hops (60 min.) (1.05 oz./30 g at 5% alpha acid)
White Labs WLP004 (Irish Ale), Wyeast 1084 (Irish Ale) or Fermentis Safale US-05 yeast
Ingredients
10 lbs. (4.5 kg) 2-row pale malt
8 oz. (0.22 kg) Carapils® malt
8 oz. (0.22 kg) crystal malt (40 °L)
8 oz. (0.22 kg) crystal malt (75 °L)
3 oz. (85 g) biscuit malt
2 oz. (57 g) chocolate malt (350 °L)
1 oz. (28 g) black malt (600 °L)
I don’t understand your recipe. Are those two separate recipes?
5 oz. of roasted barley or black malt for 5 gallons seems like stout territory to me. I would expect way lower for a Irish Red, which I think should have much milder roast flavors if any.
Yes, these are just two separate examples of Irish Red recipes I found online.
I used 8 ounces of roast in a 13.5 gallon boil.
I agree. I would shoot to keep the rb below 2% for sure.