Dirty Faced Amber Clone

We tried this beer out in Washington State from Icicle Brewing Company and want to make a clone of it.

Here’s what their website says is in the beer:

HOPS: Vanguard
MALTS: Pilsen, Muinch, Vienna, Caramunich
ABV: 5.0%
IBU: 21

It would be a 5-gallon all-grain batch.

I know we can use the ABV & IBU to sort of work out the grain bill and hop additions…it’s just the amount of each grain where I’m not sure on.

Does anyone have an existing clone of this? Or a starting point for an Amber Ale grain bill?

Thanks!

Apparently it’s a marzen style lager not an ale. My marzen is 41% pilsen, 41% dark munich and 18% vienna. If you used dark munich you may not need the caramunich but it you use it I’d treat it like a dark crystal malt.

In lagers I generally do a 60min to about 20IBU and then a 10 min addition for a fairly balanced profile. Without knowing the beer or vanguard hops I couldn’t advise beyond that. I generally think of an amber as more bitter than a marzen though…

If you don’t have the ability to lager it you could try WY1007 german ale yeast. I’ve made a mocktoberfest with it in the past that was quite good.

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@dannyboy58 - yeah, I realize it’s a lager, not an ale. Thanks for the feedback on hops and yeast! I’ll look through some other amber lager recipes and see what I can put together! :slight_smile:

Cheers!

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Here’s what I put together:

4 lbs Pilsen
4 lbs Munich
1.5 lbs Vienna
.25 lb CaraMunich

.75 oz Vanguard 60 Minutes
.25 oz Vanguard 10 Minutes

Wyeast 1007

At 75% efficient, 1.053 OG/1.013 FG

20 IBU, 5.25% ABV and 8.2 SRM

I was always a big fan of Denny’s Waldo Lake Amber. It’s a little hoppier but you might want to take a look at the recipe if you haven’t. What you have there will be a lot like a vienna lager or marzen I believe. Personally even for that style I’d go at least 20 IBU just from the bittering (60 min) hops. Having said that it’s your beer and looks like it will be good as written.

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We’ve brewed the Waldo Lake Amber a couple of times already. It is excellent!

This one is for our family to share at a cabin this summer, and my mom doesn’t like hoppy beers. She dies like a good amber, though!

Have you tried first wort hop (ping) FWH instead of the 60 min. It reduces the astringency of the bittering hop. We recently discussed counting them as 20 min hops even though they go into the wort from the very beginning. I am like you in that I spend time with enough people who are over the high IBU IPA craze and I like to offer them something else in the 25 IBU and under range.