By Eric Buist

I love lagers, like love love lagers. When we first brought in our Francin Barley, I couldn’t believe the luck we stumbled upon! Here’s a Czech barley variety that is the perfect American lager malt, just sitting here in the malthouse! I got to play with this malt that was bred for flavor, bred to make great Czech Lagers.

With 2 harvests of Francin Barley and many many batches of both a Pilsner and a Bohemian malt, we have dialed in what I truly believe is one of the best American malts for making great tasting Pilsners - Francin Bohemian. This malt performs great on the brewing side and creates a full flavored beer all on its own.

The following recipe is really simple, but will give you something you can hang our hat on.

Washington Pilsner

5 Gallon Batch

Malt

10lbs (100%) Francin Bohemian

Hops

60 Minute - 2oz Saaz - 16.2 IBU

15 Minute - 2oz Saaz - 8 IBU

5 Minute - 1.00oz Saaz - 1.6 IBU

Yeast

Imperial Yeast - Deiter (G03) or another German Lager Yeast

Mash at 152 for 75 minutes, boil for 60 minutes.

Ferment at 50º for 2 weeks, raise to 62º for 4 days, gradually bring down to 35º for 3 weeks of lagering.

This beer should end up at 1.012 hitting 5.2%.

What does your lager recipe look like? Any tweaks you would do?

Head to the SVM Store to get your hands on some fresh Francin Bohemian Malt!