🍺 Top-down Brew: Maibock (Helles Bock)
Recipe Variables
Variations
For steeped grains plus malt extract:
- Delete the malt lines.
- For liquid malt extract, add sugar: Pilsner liquid malt extract, 70, 5, 76 and sugar: Amber liquid malt extract, 30, 10, 76
Explore other malts, sugars, and hops
Results
Notes
2021 BJCP 4B - Festbier characteristic ingredients: "A mix of Pils, Vienna, and Munich malts. No adjuncts. Light use of pale crystal type malts possible. Traditional German hops. Clean lager yeast. Decoction mash is traditional, but boiling is less than in Dunkles Bock to restrain color development. Soft water."
Vital statistics: IBU: 23 - 35, SRM: 6 - 9, OG: 1.064 - 1.072, FG: 1.011 - 1.018, ABV: 6.3% - 7.4%
Continental pilsner malt is the essential base malt. Maibock should have higher percentages of Vienna and Munich malt than Festbier, summing to 25% to 50% according to Zanisheff. Light crystal malts are okay, but medium and darker crystal malts are inappropriate. Decoction mashes, step mashes, or single step infusion mashes are possible mash methods.
The hops should be German or continental European varieties. Hallertau, Magnum, Perle, and Tettnang are the most popular choices. Using the high alpha Magnum for bittering and Hallertau for aroma and/or flavor is a pairing strategy. Late hop additions are optional, and should be kept small.
Use a clean fermenting lager yeast that produces low diacetyl. Fermentation practices that minimize diacetyl should be used, such as a diacetyl rest.
Sources
Beer-analytics.com Maibock (Helles bock) analysis
Strong, G. (2018, May - June). Maibock/Helles bock: One more reason to welcome spring. BYO, 28 - 32
Zainasheff, J. (2011, October). Maibock/Helles bock: Make it clean and malty. BYO, 19 - 23