[Question] Lowering ABV but retaining flavour profile?

[Parky]

Hi folks, I'll be brewing up a clone of Brooklyn Brewing's Pennant Ale (see recipe below) over the weekend. I want this to be a nice session beer, but the ABV on this recipe is coming in at 5.4%, so a bit high for my tastes. I'm wondering is there a way to reduce the alcohol content, but still retain the bready flavour and malt balance of this beer?

My initial  thinking is to reduce the overall weight of pale malt and sub in a smaller amount of a fuller flavour malt, such as Vienna, to compensate. Or should I adjust the base and speciality malts proportionality ? Any advice or tips on brewing a lower ABV, full-flavoured beer appreciated 



Brooklyn Brewing Pennant Ale Clone
American Pale Ale

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L):           12.5
Total Grain (kg):         3.126
Total Hops (g):           49.64
Original Gravity (OG):    1.055  (°P): 13.6
Final Gravity (FG):       1.014  (°P): 3.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV):  5.40 %
Colour (SRM):             8.9   (EBC): 17.6
Bitterness (IBU):         37.6   (Rager)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes):      60

Grain Bill
----------------
2.846 kg Pale Malt (91.04%)
0.168 kg Caramunich III (5.36%)
0.113 kg Biscuit (3.6%)

Hop Bill
----------------
11.7 g Fuggles Pellet (5.1% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
10.7 g Willamette Pellet (5.7% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (0.9 g/L)
6.8 g Hallertau Mittlefrueh Pellet (3% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
6.8 g Perle Pellet (4.4% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
6.8 g Cascade Pellet (7.8% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)
6.8 g Fuggles Pellet (5.1% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil) (0.5 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
Whirlfloc Tablet @ 15 Minutes (Boil)
Yeast Nutrient @ 15 Minutes (Boil)

Single step Infusion at 154°F for 90 Minutes.
Ferment at 64°F with Mangrove Jacks British Ale Yeast

[nigel_c]

Drop the grain bill and mash at a higher temp.

[Parky]

Drop the grain bill and mash at a higher temp.

Cheers Nigel, do you mean drop the overall weight, but keep the % of each malt as is? What temp would you recommend?

[Jacob]

You can keep your grain bill as is. Mash it at 72C. Doing that will give you more body and less fermentable sugars.

[Qs]

I'd just drop the base malt a little and mash higher.

[Parky]

Thanks folks  ,

In the end I decided to take the middle path, and dropped the pale malt from 2.8 (91%) to  2.2kg (88.67%). this dropped the calculated ABV from 5.4% to 4.3%, which is close enough to what I was aiming at. I also mashed at 158F (70C), which is slightly higher than the recipe, and for 60 minutes, rather than the 90 recommended. So hopefully all those steps combined will do the trick.

Will post some updates as things progress, as I plan to do a few lower ABV versions of my favourite brews over the summer months, and this is a nice way of learning how to achieve a more sessionable beer, without sacrificing taste.

[Qs]

You should take a look at the Nierra Sevada thread on HBT. Thats a session version of SNPA, might be useful in seeing how other people scaled down a recipe.

[Parky]

Thanks for the link Qs. That session version of SNPA seems to have gotten a lot of good feedback - let's just say it's going on the to-do list 

Finished brewing the Pennant Ale clone last night, and it's fermenting away nicely at the moment. The wort had a nice balance of malt and citrus hopping, so it checks the box re: flavour. Post boil gravity came out at 1.042, which is just perfect, so looking forward to this one over the coming months.