BRAD SEGALL: Hello again.
Welcome everybody, back to another episode of Behind the Brew. Today we are going to talk about
our newest beer kit again, which we always do. This time around we have a Mexican Agave Lager.
What it is is basically kind of a Mexican version of an adjunct light lager. It is brewed with
some agave syrup; what that does is give you a nice real kind of honey biscuit type flavor to
it. It's really gentle in the background. It goes really well with the Tettnang hops in here, noble,
a little bit spicy, a little bit floral, a little bit earthy. It's got a little bit of everything.
And, what you think might be just a really light, kind of boring, dull lager is actually
pretty complex in its own right for being such -- for having so few ingredients in it really.
If you're really wondering what agave is, if you've ever had tequila or mezcal spirits,
that is exactly what they're made out of. Agave is actually a succulent plant that grows really
well in the desert climate of Mexico. Because it is a succulent it does have a lot of liquid
inside. That is generally pressed, fermented, and then distilled to make tequila and mezcal. In this
case, it has not been fermented or distilled, it is in its syrup form, which is then added to the
beer to ferment into your batch. Because it does dry the beer out and it is so fermentable, this
beer also includes a little bit of dextrin malt -- in this case, the Briess Carapils. That helps to
keep the final gravity up just a hair, otherwise this beer would finish really low. We're talking
1.003, 1.005, in that region because of those simple sugars. That dextrin malt gives a little
bit of complex sugars that those yeasts can't chew on and that lets the final gravity sit a
bit higher, about 1.008, maybe 1.010 depending on the exact attenuation you achieve in your batch.
If you are an extract brewer, you will be steeping the Carapils in your water before
you add your malt extract. Just like any beer recipe kit you're going to add your malt extract,
make sure it's well dissolved before you bring it to a boil. Add your bittering charge;
in this case it's one ounce of Tettnang hops at 60 minutes, right at the beginning of the boil.
You also have a hop addition at 10 minutes. It does call for one ounce of Tettnang, which can
be for some people maybe a little on the flavorful side, maybe a little bit too much hop character.
Personally I like it, but if you do want to subdue that a little bit, go ahead and cut
that addition in half. That goes in at 10 minutes, the same time that you're going to be putting in
the pound and a half of agave syrup. That's what really gives this beer its unique flavor, it's
whole unique spin. It's really a Mexican light adjunct lager.
If you are the all-grain brewer, you're gonna find Rahr Malting Corporation's Premium Pils malt,
that is keeping in the whole North American theme as this is a
Mexican-style lager in North America. So, we do have the Rahr Premium Pilsner malt,
we do have a little bit of the Carapils in there as well to make sure that final gravity doesn't
drop too low. Also, just as in the extract kit, we do have an addition of the agave syrup
at 10 minutes remaining in the boil with your final addition of tetang hops.
Now, what really makes this beer what it is, what gives it its unique flavor, its distinctive
character, its nice dry crispness is the Mexican lager strain. In this case we have both
Omega OYL-113 Mexican Lager, and it also will be paired with white labs WLP-940. Both these
strains are the Mexican lager strain, so pretty much any mass-market Mexican beer you have,
it's going to have that very similar crisp dryness to itl. Very low in sulfur, if any at all.
Another flavor component to this beer is the Tettnang hops. As described earlier,
that will give it a nice earthy, floral, almost herbaceous kind of flavor to it; which goes really
well with the clean, crisp, dry finish, the slight sweetness of the malt that pairs really well with
the honey-like sweetness of the agave syrup. It all comes together to make a really pleasing,
mildly complex -- sounds a bit like an oxymoron -- but for such a simple recipe
it really does come out to be quite complex although quite subdued.
Introducing the Mexican Agave Lager available now on northernbrewer.com in both extract and
all-grain versions. And, if you do like these videos and you want to see more of them,
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