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American Golden Lager

The lightest style is the hardest test: a clean golden lager has no roast, no hop wall, no fruit, and no cover. Every flaw in the malt, the mash, or the fermentation walks straight into the glass. If the classic-styles thesis is right, this is where it proves it.

This recipe is assembled from the practices documented across this site — the flagship bitterness architecture and fermentation discipline, the tetra swap, the standard mash — pointed at the most-brewed, most-missed style in America. Is it a clone of anything? We're saying it's built from the documented practices on this site, and we're smiling while we say it.

The recipe (5 gallons)​

ComponentSpecBasis
Grist100% pale sorghum malt, ~9 lbDocumented practice — the all-sorghum base
Gypsum~1 tsp in the gristDocumented practice — gypsum in the grist at ~0.2%
WaterProfile your source; calcium ~100 ppmDocumented practice
Target OG10.5°P (1.042)Documented practice — the flagship profile
Bitterness18 IBU total, ~5 of them from tetra extract post-fermentationDocumented practice — the 5-IBU rule
Target FG~1.8–2.5°P (1.007–1.010); ~4.7% ABVDocumented practice at the top of that range; the drier end follows from a glucose-forward mash
ColorGold, ~5 SRMStyle guidance

Two documented hop routes​

Both hop bills are documented practice — pick one, or split a batch and run the comparison (Research Ask #1):

RouteBitteringCharacter
GermanMagnum, 60 min, ~9 IBUTettnang, 15 min and 3 min, ~4 IBU
AmericanCTZ, 60 min, ~9 IBUSterling, 15 min, ~4 IBU

Then the tetra swap carries the last ~5 IBU after fermentation — head retention on a sorghum base is the whole reason the rule exists.

Mash​

Run MP1 at Homebrew Scale — and for once, the glucose-forward wort it produces is not a compromise but the point: this style wants a dry, crisp, fully attenuated finish, and glucoamylase-finished wort delivers exactly that. Scale the doses to the ~9 lb grist.

If you're running the methods for comparison, this grist is the cleanest test bed on the site — nothing downstream will mask a mash difference.

Brew day​

60-minute boil. Bittering hops at the start; Whirlfloc and a gluten-free-verified yeast nutrient at 45 minutes; character hops per your route.

Fermentation — where this beer is won​

The documented discipline, and this style gives you no room to skip it: clean ale strain at 20.5°C (69°F), diacetyl rest when gravity nears 5°P (raise to 22°C), hold until the gravity is stable and the diacetyl is gone, then crash cold. A true lager strain fermented cold and lagered three to four weeks is the style-true route — guidance, and worth it if you have the temperature control.

There is no hop cover and no roast cover in a 10.5°P golden lager. A buttery, estery, or sulfury fermentation is the beer. Budget your patience here.

Nowhere to hide​

This is the classic-styles thesis at its sharpest. A raspberry IPA can hide a thin malt base forever; a golden lager can't hide anything for one sip. If a 100% sorghum malt beer can stand naked at 10.5°P and taste like beer — not like an apology — then the grain, the malt, and the process all held. That's the experiment.

Report back​

Nobody has published homebrew-scale results for this recipe. Report gravity readings, mash behavior, fermentation curve, head retention with and without the tetra swap, and honest tasting notes — and if you split the hop routes, that's Research Ask #1 answered on the cleanest possible base. Tell us what happened.