🍺 Top-down Brew: Altbier

Recipe Variables

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Variations

For steeped grains plus malt extract:

  • Delete the malt lines.
  • For liquid malt extract, add sugar: Liquid light malt extract, 50, 5, 76 and sugar: Liquid amber or Munich malt extract, 50, 10, 76
  • For dry malt extract, add sugar: Dry light malt extract, 50, 3.5, 96 and sugar: Dry amber malt extract, 50, 10, 96

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Results

Notes

Altbier is an amber ale from Düsseldorf, Germany. Cool fermentation and cold conditioning gives this style a clean, almost lager-like character.

BJCP Albier description:: Characteristic ingredients: "Grists vary, but usually consist of German base malts (usually Pils, sometimes Munich) with small amounts of crystal, chocolate, or black malts. May include some wheat, including roasted wheat. Spalt hops are traditional, but other traditional German or Czech hops can be used. Clean, highly attenuative ale yeast. A step mash program is traditional. Fermented at cool ale temperatures, then cold conditioned."

Vital Statistics: IBU: 25 - 50; SRM: 9 - 17; OG: 1.044 - 1.052; FG: 1.008 - 1.014; ABV: 4.3% - 5.5%

Zainasheff recommends the grist should be 65 to 90% pilsner malt. Next, Munich malt can be 10 to 30% of the grist. The remaining grist can be medium crystal malt (about 5%) and possibly a small amount of debittered black malt for color. Variations of 100% light Munich or 50/50% Pilsner/Munich are possibilities. Avoid roasted or highly toasted character. The traditional mashing process would be decoction or step-mashing. Carmelization during decoction may decrease the need for crystal-type malts. A single-step infusion mash works well too. When decoction is skipped, get amber colors from specialty malts.

The traditional hop is Spalt. Traditional German varieties (Tettnang and Hallertauer) or newer German hops (Tradition, Perle, Magnum) are also fine choices. Hop flavor and aroma are expected to be low.

Altbier or Kölsch yeasts are ideal choices. These are fermented cooler than many ale yeasts, such as the 60 to 65F (15 to 18C). Fementation is followed by a lagering phase that can be one to two months long. This lagering step is considered to be very important.

References

Dornbusch, H.D., (2004, November). Düsseldorf altbier: A cool ale from a cool city. BYO, p. 19 - 23.

Strong, G. (2019, January-February). Das altbier: Germany's old-school style. BYO, p. 26 - 29.

Zainasheff, J. (2013, October). Düsseldorf altbier: A lagered German ale. BYO, p. 19 - 23.