Midday Maibock

By Arthur Olcot

Recipe is part of Recipe Index

BJCP 2021 Style 4C Helles Bock

This is a really interesting beer as it was inspired by a recent trip to Bamberg where one of the breweries we visited was Keesmann. There I had the most delicious, malty-chewy, perfectly balanced 8% odd Maibock (at midday!!). It wasn’t too far away from a barleywine in style. I enjoyed it that much I wanted to try and replicate it. So, after some research and thinking about the style and trying to recall the flavors of the beer I drank, I came up with a recipe and set about brewing it.

What came out of the keg wasn’t anything close to that beautiful beer in Bamberg! But nonetheless it was a very malty strong Helles style beer. Not knowing an awful lot about the style, and if my beer was anything close to it, I entered it into a competition as a Helles Bock and was blown away when it picked up a gold on its table scoring a 44. I guess it wasn’t that far away after all!

Awards

Welsh National 2024 (Mad Dog Brewery Co, Cardiff, 12/10/2024)

1st - Light Lager

Measures

• Original Gravity: 1.059 / 16.7 °P
• Final Gravity: 1.012 / 4.8 °P
• IBU (Tinseth): 31
• BU/GU: 0.45
• Colour: 14.2 EBC
• 21L batch volume

Ingredients

Water

• Ca2+ 73
• Mg2+ 7
• Na+ 0
• Cl- 70
• SO42- 109
• HCO3- 0

Malt

• 3.3 kg (50.8%) — Weyermann Floor-Malted Bohemian Pilsner Malt
• 2 kg (30.8%) — Dingemans Munich
• 1 kg (15.4%) — Weyermann Barke Vienna Malt
• 200 g (3.1%) — Weyermann Melanoidin

Hops

• 15 g (27 IBU) — Magnum 17.3% — Boil — 60 min
• 15 g (4 IBU) — Perle 7.9% — Boil — 10 min
• 20 g — Hallertauer Mittelfrueh 5.4% — Boil — 0 min

Yeast

• White Labs WLP833 German Bock Lager (big starter)

Process

Mash

• 66C for 1hr

Boil

• 60 minutes

Ferment

• 11 °C with a slight increase towards the end to help finish strong.
• Cold crash then package