Estrella Damm Clone?

[Chrisdaviking]

Been trying to recreate Estrella Damm a "Mediterranean" Lager out of Barcelona, my girlfriends favorite beer. Anyone out there had it and have any ideas on the hops/yeast?

 

[Northern_Brewer]

You can get some clues - for instance back in 2007 Protz & Oliver reviewed the US import which was 5.4% ABV, 1052 OG, "7.6" colour, 26 IBU. So that implies the yeast is achieving ~78% attenuation on what must be a pretty fermentable grist. It now seems to be down to 4.6%, at least for bottles in the UK.

Although they like to boast of being made from just barley, rice and hops, British supermarket labelling shows up "Water, Barley Malt (10%), Maize, Rice (1%), Hops". That's 10% of the total product, so we know there's a 10:1 ratio of barley:rice - and there must be more maize than rice (because of the ordering of the list). One can assume that most of the malt is pilsner, but the colour implies a bit of Munich or something. They use pearl rice from the Ebro delta. In 2008 they were using E405 (Propylene glycol alginate, PGA) for head retention. They still claim to brew to the same recipe as 1876...

Their yeast will be proprietary and not directly equivalent to any of the homebrew strains. But given that Damm originated in Alsace which has a lot of German influence, I'd assume a German, Frohberg-type yeast so something like 34/70 or S-189 (liquid equivalents are WLP830/2124 and WLP885). By the same token I'd imagine the hops are traditional German varieties like Hallertau Mittelfruh, or perhaps even Strisselspalt from Alsace if you can find it. Or a US hop like Mt Hood will do as an alternative, there's not a huge contribution from the hops beyond bitterness.

So you're looking something like this :

Water
No idea what Damm use, but in the absence of further information, go for a fairly low and balanced water profile - say 50ppm each of calcium, chloride and sulphate.

Grist
Aim for 1.046 OG for the modern version, which for 5 US gallons (19 litres) at 70% brewhouse efficiency implies

6.75lb (3kg, 73%) Pilsner malt
1lb (450g, 11%) flaked maize
12oz (340g, 8%) Munich malt
12oz (340g, 8%) short-grain rice

Hops - aim for 26 IBU

60 min 1.25oz (35g) Hallertau Mittelfruh (4.5%) OR 1.5oz (42g) Strisselspalt (4%)
15 miin 0.5oz (14g) Hallertau Mittelfruh (4.5%) OR Strisselspalt

Yeast
You're looking for 4.6% which implies attenuation of around 78% on this "easy" wort, which means a yeast that attenuates 75-76% on standard wort. So 34/70,WLP830,2124 or S-189/WLP885.

Damm "boast" of 1 week fermentation and 2 weeks conditioning. Commercial Eurolager tends to be fermented pretty warm, like ~60F (15C) although their huge vessels suppress off flavours. Homebrewers have found that Frohberg yeasts like 34/70 can be fermented warmer than that with no major problems. The main thing is to keep the temperature constant.

I can pretty much guarantee that this will NOT be identical to Estrella, it's just pure speculation on my part. But hopefully it will be close enough that you can use it as the basis for further refinement, particularly if you can tie down aspects like what speciality malts they are using beyond my guess of 8% Munich.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Been trying to recreate Estrella Damm a "Mediterranean" Lager out of Barcelona, my girlfriends favorite beer. Anyone out there had it and have any ideas on the hops/yeast?

Off-topic, but are you a member of COHO?