Blue Moon?

[Uncle Joshua]

The boy came to visit today, he was going on about a beer called Blue Moon. He's asked if I can brew him a clone, anyone got a recipe?

[scuppeteer]

Blue moon is an American version of a Belgian Wheat beer (not to my taste though), available in tosco's and Waitrose. I reckon any decent recipe will cover it.

[jimp2003]

Its not a bad beer but I found it did not live up to the hype. You could probably get pretty close with a pretty standard Belgian wheat beer brewed to about 5-5.5% ABV with the usual orange and coriander but make sure you add some oats to the grist to give it the more silky mouthfeel.

[seymour]

Maybe you're teasing us--or maybe the kid is teasing you--but here goes. Blue Moon is mocked by beer snobs in the US, because it's brewed by big-bad Coors, but I'm in the camp that feels it's actually a decent true-to-style Belgian Wit. Not a classic example from Belgium, but vastly better than the macro-adjunct-lager alternatives. It doesn't help that mass-marketing has convinced the idiots to demand Blue Moon served with a gimmicky orange wheel on the rim of an oversized branded glass.

This is pretty inexpensive beer. My recipe calls for wheat malt, but you can save money on unmalted wheat (especially if you use a traditional De Clerk multi-step mash.) Swipe the next two ingredients from your kitchen. The cane sugar (not corn or beet) further reduces the cost and body. You can substitute some brown sugar if you want to darken the color. The oats (plain 'ol quick oats, flaked, rolled, steel-cut, Scotch, etc) improve head retention and lace and add some smoothness/silkiness back into the mouthfeel. This beer's most distinctive traits come from the coriander and true Belgian Wit yeast, so don't skip 'em.

SEYMOUR'S BASIC BELGIAN WIT
All-grain recipe
5 Imperial gallons = 6 US gallons = 22.7 liters

Grains:
47.6% = 5 lbs = 2.27 kg, Pale 2-row malt
38.1% = 4 lbs = 1.81 kg, Wheat malt
9.5% = 1 lb = 454 g, Cane sugar
4.8% = ½ lb = 8 oz = 227 g, Oats

Mash at 122°F/50°C for 30 minutes then raise to 152°F/67°C, 2 hours total

Hops:
Bittering: 1 oz = 28 g, Crystal, 90 minutes remaining
Flavor/aroma: 1 oz = 28 g, Hallertauer, 15 minutes remaining

90 minute boil

Any Belgian Wit Yeast: such as Hoegaarden, Celis, Moortgat, De Dolle or Wittekerke bottle cultures, White Labs WLP400 or WLP410, Wyeast 3942 or 3944, Zymoferm 36, etc.

Ferment at 62-74°F/16-23°C

When primary fermentation is complete, add 1 oz crushed coriander seeds (and optionally some dried orange peel) and let sit another two weeks before bottling. Prime keg/bottles with ½ cup sugar boiled in a little water to sanitize. Store 1 week at fermentation temperature, then 3 weeks at 50-60°F/10-16°C if possible.


Estimated stats assume ≈ 80% mash efficiency and 77% yeast attenuation
OG ≈ 1.054
FG ≈ 1.012
ABV ≈ 5.4%
IBU ≈ 15
Color ≈ 4°SRM/8°EBC

Cheers!
-Seymour

[Kev888]

Theres a bar we sometimes end up at in which its the only beer, amongst rows of bland fizzy lager-water, so I'm quite thankful for it - its pretty inoffensive.

It didn't particularly impress me as such, perhaps partly because (IMHO) it doesn't seem to live up to the marketing blurb on the label. But now I realise its made by Coors, its not as bad as I'd have expected from one of the mass producers. For my taste its still a bit bland though, maybe homebrew has skewed my perceptions; I think a home-brewed Wit would outstrip it pretty easily.

Cheers
kev

[seymour]

...I think a home-brewed Wit would outstrip it pretty easily...

Oh yeah, definitely.

[Barley Water]

I'm pretty much with Seymour on this one. Would I drink it? Sure. Would I drink it in a place with a large selection of other micro brews, probably not. Compared to other examples of Wit beer I think it's a bit on the sweet side but perhaps that's just my personal taste. It is a very popular beer with the young hipsters. Actually, it does my heart good to see my countrymen actually enjoying a beer that is cloudy, 20 years ago that would never have worked in the states 'cause back then we liked our beer cold, clear and with as little flavor as possible.

By the way, the best examples of this style have a pretty big mouthfeel for a relatively low gravity beer. I would formulate with some unmalted wheat as well as the oats previously mentioned and I would do a ceral mash to get the right consistency. I still remember when Piere had his brewery in Austin and we would get a fresh keg of Celis White up here in Dallas, damn it was good. The major difference between that beer and Blue Moon was that the Celis beer was more nuanced, the spicing was subtle and as I mentioned the beer was not quite as sweet. Now if you guys want to make something that is very novel, we are starting to see Goose (I think I spelled that right) which is an old fashioned German wheat beer that has salt and coriander, very refreshing and different. The homebrew and craft beer scene here in the states is really starting to take off again and folks are starting to make all kinds of forgotten styles, it's all great fun. Dallas used to be a "beer nightmare" but lately we have several new breweries springing up and some are making some really good stuff. You don't need to make it yourself anymore if you want a good pint although of course us hardcores will never give it up.

[Barley Water]

I'm pretty much with Seymour on this one. Would I drink it? Sure. Would I drink it in a place with a large selection of other micro brews, probably not. Compared to other examples of Wit beer I think it's a bit on the sweet side but perhaps that's just my personal taste. It is a very popular beer with the young hipsters. Actually, it does my heart good to see my countrymen actually enjoying a beer that is cloudy, 20 years ago that would never have worked in the states 'cause back then we liked our beer cold, clear and with as little flavor as possible.

By the way, the best examples of this style have a pretty big mouthfeel for a relatively low gravity beer. I would formulate with some unmalted wheat as well as the oats previously mentioned and I would do a ceral mash to get the right consistency. I still remember when Piere had his brewery in Austin and we would get a fresh keg of Celis White up here in Dallas, damn it was good. The major difference between that beer and Blue Moon was that the Celis beer was more nuanced, the spicing was subtle and as I mentioned the beer was not quite as sweet. Now if you guys want to make something that is very novel, we are starting to see Goose (I think I spelled that right) which is an old fashioned German wheat beer that has salt and coriander, very refreshing and different. The homebrew and craft beer scene here in the states is really starting to take off again and folks are starting to make all kinds of forgotten styles, it's all great fun. Dallas used to be a "beer nightmare" but lately we have several new breweries springing up and some are making some really good stuff. You don't need to make it yourself anymore if you want a good pint although of course us hardcores will never give it up.

[Goulders]

My wife liked this once and I looked into clone recipes some time ago, but couldn't be bothered to do it myself.

Some long posts on this thread HBF if you can be bothered to read 40+ pages!

Edit:
Or here with some versions of clone recipes