Tailgating and Homebrew: Two Essential Recipes

Nothing goes with tailgating like great beer. If you need a great beer quick, you can have these beers ready to serve in 10-14 days if you keg and about 21 days if you bottle. All grain recipes are formulated for 70% efficiency.

Dark Mild Recipe

A dark mild is a low-gravity, malt-focused British session ale. It’s refreshing and quaffable and will please both craft beer drinkers and those who think “dark beer” is a craft beer. Full with flavor, it’s approachable and with a low ABV so you can enjoy more than one. This recipe easily goes from grain to glass in 10 days. It’s delightful with a lower carb level, so once you keg it’s easy to quick carb it and serve.

Dark Mild Partial Mash

Notes:

Mash the grains in at 152 in one gallon for 60 minutes, then sparge (rinse) the grains up to your boil volume. Add the first addition of extract, and bring to a boil. Add the first hops addition, and begin timing for 60 minutes. At the second addition of hops with 10 minutes left in the boil, and add the final addition of extract when you turn off the flame.

Dark Mild All Grain

Notes:

Mash at 152 for 60 minutes. Use Irish moss or whirlfloc with 15 minutes left in the boil, if desired. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for approximately one week or until clear and at FG for at least 3 days.

Fizzy Yellow Beer

The “fizzy yellow beer” is an ale version of a crowd favorite. It’s approachable by light beer drinkers, but still with enough flavor to satisfy the beer snob in your midst.

This beer is simple, but simple can be wonderful. It’s a clean tasting beer like a macrobrew, but with a bit more flavor. Still low in alcohol for those “have more than one or two” days, it can be enjoyed during tailgating and throughout the fall.

You can substitute other noble hops for the tettnanger and perle with good results. Magnum is a good bittering hop, just make sure to calculate for the high alpha acids in a different hop variety. Hallertauer would be great, and saaz would also make a fine finishing hop.

Fizzy Yellow Beer Extract

If you can’t find Vienna LME, you can substitute pale LME but the Vienna flavor brings so much to this beer that it should be sought out and used if at all possible.

Notes:

London ale yeast is used for this recipe because it is fairly “clean” at low ale temperatures and leaves a clear beer behind quickly. You can substitute another yeast strain if you have a favorite. Using whirlfloc or Irish moss in the boil will help with having a clear beer quickly. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for about a week, or until the beer is clearing and is at FG for at least 3 days.

Fizzy Yellow Beer All grain

Notes:

London ale yeast is used for this recipe because it is fairly “clean” at low ale temperatures and leaves a clear beer behind quickly. You can substitute another yeast strain if you have a favorite. Using whirlfloc or Irish moss in the boil will help with having a clear beer quickly. Ferment at 65-68 degrees for about a week, or until the beer is clearing and is at FG for at least 3 days.

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^{Tailgaiting image by Kipp Jones}