Irish Red Ale (BYO MAGIZINE)
Written by Jamil Zainasheff
Issue: March-April 2009

Fritz Maytag, of Anchor Brewing fame, during a speech many years ago, explained how the “story” around something is a big part of the experience. An interesting tale can even make something taste better. It was an idea new to me at the time, but I’m a firm believer ever since. Essentially, if you’re excited about how something was made, you’ll enjoy it more. I think the same thing goes for environment: a given beer tastes better the more you enjoy the environment. Drinking with good friends? Favorite music playing? The beer tastes better. I’ve also come to realize that beer names can have the same effect. This is why most breweries give their beers creative names, to evoke a positive response in the consumer.

Nearly a decade after I heard Fritz speak I was in Australia to attend the first Australian National Homebrewing Conference. A good friend took me to the Holgate Brewhouse in Woodend where I ran across a beer name that interested me, Big Reg Lager. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “This must be named after some local hero? A dear friend of the brewer maybe? Probably a mountain of a man with a wild mass of flaming red hair. A big, friendly guy, named Reginald, but everyone called him ‘Reg.'” I could almost see his kind face, his smile exposing one gold tooth, atop his massive shoulders. It was a wonderful beer and I enjoyed it immensely. The funny thing is, I came to find out that they hadn’t named it Big Reg. It was originally named Big Red Lager. The beer had won the 2008 Premier’s Trophy for Best Victorian Beer in the Australian International Beer Awards. Somewhere along the line there was a mix up and their trophy was accidentally engraved “Big Reg Lager.” Instead of worrying about it, they just changed the name of the beer. My imagined story of the heroic, barrel-chested Reg was lost, crushed on the cruel, rocky shores of a typo. Still a great beer, but with a different story. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it as much had I tried a “Big Red Lager.” If you ask me, “Red” doesn’t convey as much excitement as “Reg” and that got me thinking about how many different red beers and red beer styles are out there, such as Irish red ale.

Irish red ale is a balanced, easy-drinking pint, with a moderate malt character full of caramel and toasted notes. The deep reddish copper color comes from both crystal malt and a small dose of highly kilned grain, such as roasted barley. Despite a slightly sweet overall character, the highly kilned grain adds a touch of dryness to the finish and can add a very slight touch of roasted flavor too. Hop bitterness is evenly balanced, but the dark malt addition can make the beer seem a little more bitter than the IBU level would indicate. Hop flavor and aroma is often close to non-existent, but there are examples with a touch of hop character. This beer can be brewed as either an ale or lager, but either way the fermentation character should be relatively clean. The BJCP style guide mentions a light buttery character being acceptable, but this beer really shouldn’t have distinct buttery notes. Perhaps a better way to describe it is toffee-like. Toffee is often made with butter. If your Irish red turns out to have toffee notes, that would be an OK amount of butter. If your beer has a butter character, then that would be too much. Brewed as a lager, an Irish red should have a lager profile. Brewed as an ale, the beer will have some esters, but the ester profile should be very restrained and subtle, just enough so you know the beer was brewed as an ale. The higher alcohol examples might have a bit of alcohol warmth, but the focus should be on an easy drinking pint. High levels of alcohol and alcohol flavors are not appropriate.

I prefer British pale ale malt as the base for Irish red. It provides a nice biscuit-like malt character background. British pale ale malt is kilned a bit darker (2.5 to 3.5 °L) than the average American two-row or pale malt (1.5 to 2.5 °L) and this higher level of kilning brings out the malt’s biscuit and toasty flavors. If you’re brewing with extract, your best choice is an extract made from British pale ale malt. Look for products labeled English pale, Maris Otter, or British-style malt extract. If you can’t get it through your local homebrew shop, you can find it online from several retailers. If you use domestic two-row malt or extract made from it, you’ll need to compensate with some additional specialty malts such as Munich, Biscuit or Victory, but show restraint. For a 5-gallon (19-L) batch, add no more than 0.75 pound (0.34 kg) total.

For the caramel or toffee character in this beer, the obvious choice is caramel/crystal specialty malts. What isn’t obvious is where the reddish-copper color comes from. While one might be tempted to go heavy on the caramel-type malts to get both caramel flavor and a reddish color, doing so would most likely result in too much caramel flavor and not enough color. The deep reddish copper color comes from a small dose of highly kilned grain that also adds to the dry finish of the beer. Dark roasted grain can quickly overwhelm this beer’s flavor profile, so caution and precise measuring are important. In this beer style, you’re looking for a balance of all flavor elements and being too bold in any one area will miss the mark.

Irish red ale generally has a medium-light to medium body. A single infusion mash around 153 °F (67 °C) strikes the proper balance between fermentable and non-fermentable sugars. For extract brewers, most light colored extracts will get you fairly close. If not, you can build a little more body without flavor impact by adding some dextrin-type malts to your steeping grains.

Target a bitterness-to-starting gravity ratio (IBU divided by OG) between 0.4 and 0.6. You’re trying to achieve a slightly sweet start to the beer, with a balanced overall character, and a slightly dry finish. Normally, a single addition at 60 minutes is all you need. If you want a beer with some hop character, a moderate later addition, say 0.5 ounce (14 g), around 20 minutes is acceptable. Hop choice for bittering and flavor is fairly flexible. Kent Goldings, Fuggle, Challenger, Target, Perle and Magnum all work well. Don’t use citrusy or catty American-type hops.

This style can be fermented as either an ale or lager, though my preference is to brew it as an ale. Regardless, temperature control during fermentation is also very important. You want the beer to attenuate enough so that it doesn’t have a sweet finish and you want to ferment it cold enough that any esters are restrained and the beer has a fairly clean character. While some commercial examples have a touch of diacetyl, keep any buttery flavors and aromas to an absolute minimum for the best results in competition.

Two great yeasts for brewing this style are White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale and Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale. You can’t go wrong with either product. Irish ale yeast provides the right low-ester profile but is only moderately attenuative. You’ll need to pitch the proper amount of clean, healthy yeast and keep a close eye on fermentation temperatures to ensure good attenuation. If you choose to go the lager route, you can use any continental lager strain with acceptable results.

Recipe
Irish Red Ale
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.053 (13.2 °P) FG = 1.014 (3.5 °P) IBU = 25 SRM = 18 ABV = 5.2%

Ingredients
9.9 lbs. (4.5 kg) Crisp British pale ale malt or similar British pale ale malt
6.0 oz. (170 g) Great Western crystal malt (40 °L)
6.0 oz. (170 g) Great Western crystal malt (120 °L)
5.0 oz. (142 g) roasted barley (300 °L)
5.25 AAU Kent Golding pellet hops, (1.05 oz./30 g at 5% alpha acid) (60 min.)
White Labs WLP004 (Irish Ale), Wyeast 1084 (Irish Ale) or Fermentis Safale US-05 yeast