I’ve been drinking craft beers for a long time now, trying over 700 of them. It’s funny that I don’t see a ton of talk about cream ales in the craft beer circle. And hardly any a blip about it on the homebrew scene. But, as I’ve wrote about before cream ales can be so good for so many reasons; they are simple, they are cheap to make, they make great starters, and they can be so rewarding.

Because of this, I included a cream ale as part of my holiday six pack. It’s a bunch I beer I hand out to spread some holiday cheer. This year I wanted to make some styles that the casual beer drinker may not have tried before. As I was planning things out I thought, “Why not toss in a cream ale?”.

I’ve made a few in the past and I really think I’ve nailed it this time (for my tastes). Here’s the recipe that I’ve created after a number of tries and I think you take the dive into cream ales with this one too. For the record, this beer cost me $15.88 for 5 gallons (I buy in bulk).

Brewhouse efficiency: 65%

OG: 1.042

FG: 1.007

ABV: 4.6%

IBU: 17.5

Color: 2.9 SRM (or as my wife calls it, “apple juice”).

Fermentables:

6# American 2-Row

2# Flaked Corn

8 oz table sugar (added at 10 minutes)

Mash at 148 for 75 minutes

Boil additions:

.35 oz magnum (12.10%) at 60 minutes

.2 oz cascade at 10 minutes

.5 oz cascade at 0 minutes

Yeast:

1 packet US-05 ( I used this as a starter for a rye IPA. Check out how quickly it took off)

Tasting notes:

Unlike my previous batch, that had some bready notes from the yeast, this beer had subtle floral tones. That translated right into the taste. There was a fine balance of sweet and bitter from the combination of the corn and hop addition. The crispness of the 2-row and sugar came right through. This, is the best cream ale I’ve made to date.

Other notes: