Bookworm to brew: Designing a low ABV Beer

In my other most recent post (A gift that has kept on giving) I mentioned that the recent beers I've brewed have been somewhere over the 5% mark ranging from 5.2% to 5.5%. While on their own the ABV isn't a problem, it's when you have multiple amounts, maybe 3 or 4 pints worth. Then before you know it your kissing your wife goodnight and heading for bed as your done for the night!

Something I am more aware of now that I have a proper keg setup in the garage, it's all too easy to pop out there to fill another glass.

I have recently put myself to the task in designing a recipe that is low abv. (targeting 3-3.5%), fortunately on The HomeBrew Forum there has been recent discussions regarding brewing low/no alcohol beers which I found a good place to start.  I then started my own thread specifically in mind to get a few pointers on my 1st attempt of a sessionable beer.

The replies I got helped me alot to iron out a few holes, I also ended up looking in Camra's Essential Home Brewing to find Siren's Yu Lu recipe, with another great tip from Andy (the author) who says drop the Earl Grey & Lemon addition and you'll have a good base for a session beer.

Along with this I took note at 1 particular post on my sessionable beer thread and this was to look into Kernel's Table Beer. Although I probably wont get chance to find a bottle of this before I get to brew my own beer, I did find BYO magazine covered a version of their recipe.

Great! I have two examples that I could adapt....Now to put to paper. This was pretty tricky as I didn't want to have too many 'ingredients' and over complicate things or end up making essentially a hoppy tea.
Fortunately I had the replies from my thread, what I also read on The Mad Fermentationist blog and watched some videos on basic brewing youtube channel.

So...what did I learn regarding brewing low ABV beers:

• Mash high (68/69C is a good temp) for a full bodied beer. The high mash temp means you don't have enough fermentable sugars to get a lower FG 
• Rye adds a lot of mouthfeel so the brews would not taste too watery 
• Oats will add some more body 
• A slightly higher FG should help in the pursuit of some body, so use a yeast that has a lower attenuation AG brewers can manipulate mash temperature to achieve this, but for all brewers, careful yeast choice will drastically affect things.

For instance, using WLP002 English Ale yeast, rather than S-04 or US-05. The lowest attenuation for WLP002 is 63%, which means you can have an OG of 1.035 with an FG of 1.013 and ABV 2.9%.  https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/low-alcohol-beer.18678/#post-399753

The two mentioned recipes, had already covered the above points, so I ended up mashing (pun was intended!) the malt bill's together but also adding abit of rye to be on the safe side and also the rye should pair well with the tropical/citrus hops. The hop schedule is based off Siren's Yu Lu recipe but I decided to pair my own choice of hops into the recipe, using Amarillo,Citra, Engima and Mosaic.

Artwork made up in parts of my wife's illustrations 

......Thus Creatures Great or Small was born. 


Download BeerXML for:All creatures great or small



It's been a interesting few weeks looking into this style of beer, I have learnt alot and having the homebrew community at hand has been invaluable. A home brewer is always learning! 

I'll update after I brew this beer in a few weeks. 

Until next time......Happy Brewing