SEYMOUR URBAN CHESTNUT PILGRIM 7 CLONE

[seymour]

Recently, I met a guy at a party and of course the conversation turned to beer within minutes. He talked about Urban Chestnut Pilgrim 7, how delicious it was (I agreed) and what a bummer it is they no longer brew it (I agreed.) His wife ratted out how sad he was when his horde stash ran out. When I said I could probably help him brew something very similar for himself, he accepted. He's never brewed before, but he said he needs a new hobby. This would definitely be "diving into the deep end." I'm not sure when we'll meet up again, or how best to give him this recipe, so I'm sharing it here as a form of "cloud computing." You lucky bastards.

Thankfully, Urban Chestnut revealed their grains and hops online (since removed when they retired the beer.) In terms of relative percentages, times, temperatures, and techniques, I filled-in the blanks partly based on what I know about their other brews and partly based on guesswork.

Brewer's description:
Harvesters rejoice! In celebration of the seasons of "Reap" and "Thanks" we introduce this bounty for your table - a sessionable ale brewed with seven (that’s right) seven different grains: Oats, Sorghum, Wheat, Barley, Rice, Corn, and Rye. The result...a tasty "cornucopia of flavors" ale.

Malts: Pilsner, Wheat, Munich, Caramunich, Rye, Spelt, Oats, Sorghum, Emmer*.
Hops: Cascade, Centennial, Chinook

*see update below

My Ratebeer review, in case you're interested:
11/14/2013 Tasted on tap at the preview tour of their new brewery/bierhall. It poured a hazy, light orange-ish amber colour with thick white foam, long-lasting with lace. Strong American hoppy aromas: orange peel and grapefruit, woodsy, earthy, resiny, faint fruit and pepper. Grainbill was light and crisp, but layers of complexity. Some residual malt sweetness, crusty French bread, crackers, honey. Smooth and creamy mouthfeel. Light body, average carbonation, perfect bittersweet balance, lingering hoppy aftertastes. Great stuff. Along the lines of other trendy "Session IPAs" such as Founders All Day IPA and Boulevard Single Wide but with a more nuanced grainy mouthfeel than most.

So here goes:

SEYMOUR URBAN CHESTNUT PILGRIM 7 CLONE RECIPE

5.5 US gallons = 4.6 Imperial gallons = 20.8 liters

GRAINBILL
Source as many German malts as possible. Get the unmalted grains from a health food store or wherever.
60% = 5.56 lbs = 2522 g, Pilsener Malt
10% = .93 lb = 422 g, Wheat Malt
10% = .93 lb = 422 g, Munich Malt
5% = .46 lb = 209 g, CaraMunich Malt
3% = .28 lb = 127 g, Rye
3% = .28 lb = 127 g, Oats
3% = .28 lb = 127 g, Sorghum
3% = .28 lb = 127 g, Spelt
3% = .28 lb = 127 g, Emmer
TOTAL: 9.27 lbs = 4.2 kg

MASH at 148°F/64°C for 90 min

Raise temp to 171°F/77°C, then VORLAUF, then SPARGE to collect 7 US gal/5.8 Imperial gal/26.5 L preboil.

BOIL hard for 60-90 min, evaporating down to target volume.

HOPS
I don't know exactly which hops are added when, but since all three of these hop varieties are multi-purpose (bittering/flavour/aroma), I recommend the somewhat unorthodox method of stirring together equal .8 oz of each ahead to time. It's not so different from Urban Chestnut's approach to single hop trials; and this is the same idea behind trendy hop blends like Falconer's Flight, Seven Cs, Zythos, etc.

Use the resulting blend as follows (alpha acid percentage averages to ≈ 9.9):
.7 oz = 20 g, Cascade/Centennial/Chinook blend, 60 minutes remaining
.7 oz = 20 g, Cascade/Centennial/Chinook blend, 15 minutes remaining
1 oz = 28 g, Cascade/Centennial/Chinook blend, dry hops added 7-10 days before bottling
TOTAL: 2.4 oz = 68 g

YEAST
"American Ale", most likely the Anchor Liberty strain, which is possibly from Genesee originally, available as Wyeast 1272 and White Labs WLP051. Pitch a fresh, healthy starter. Ferment low and slow.

STATS (assuming ≈ 75% mash efficiency, 78% apparent attenuation)
OG: 1046
FG: 1010
ABV: 4.6%
IBU: 35
Colour: medium orange amber

[Clibit]

Is that roughly even quantities of Cascade, Centennial and Chinook? May use that blend in something, I've used Cascade and Centennial and liked it.

[seymour]

Yeah, I'm imagining .8oz each X 3 = 2.4oz total, but feel free to experiment.

[Clibit]

Trust me, I will.

[Fido97]

Hey Seymour, maybe I have the wrong end of the stick but I had expected to see some chestnut in the recipe? Have seen plenty of IPAs with chestnut flour added for instance. Or maybe chestnuts have nothing whatever to do with this beer?

[seymour]

Hey Seymour, maybe I have the wrong end of the stick but I had expected to see some chestnut in the recipe? Have seen plenty of IPAs with chestnut flour added for instance. Or maybe chestnuts have nothing whatever to do with this beer?

I can see how that would be confusing, out of context. Urban Chestnut Brewing Company (UCBC) is the name of a prominent local craft brewery, so all their beer names start with "Urban Chestnut." They are only four years old but have already won lots of awards, expanded to a second (HUGE!) location, and have even purchased a microbrewery in Germany which will bear the Urban Chestnut name as well. After InBev's hostile takeover of Anheuser Busch here, they culled the ranks with lucrative early retirement deals. The unintended result was that numerous experienced brewmasters and executives left to start their own breweries. This is one of them, much to AB/InBev's dismay. How ironic they're now losing so much market share to craft breweries.

To your point though, Urban Chestnut Winged Nut is a delicous Dunkelweizen with toasted chestnuts in the mash.

[seymour]

UPDATE: I spoke with the General Manager of Urban Chestnut at Microfest last weekend. He said their Pilgrim 7 will return as a fall seasonal each year, around Thanksgiving time (I guess playing-up the whole "cornucopia" schtick.) As you may have noticed above, there are two different lists of 7 grains, with two conflicting entries. He said they don't actually use any rice nor corn, and didn't know how that incorrect description made it onto their label. I updated my clone recipe to correctly reflect Spelt and Emmer.

[Clibit]

What the 'ell is Emmer?!

[seymour]

What the 'ell is Emmer?!

In short, it's an older, wilder, less domesticated form of wheat. Also known as farro, which might be the more common term in England and Europe, I dunno.

To be honest, I've had a few beers with emmer in them, and definitely would not have known if the label had not said so. It seems to serve the same purpose in beer as any other unmalted cereal grain. In this case, I think it's a novelty, just a non-offensive way to get to a seven-grain mash. Then again, maybe it does add some special complexity, like I said, Urban Chestnut Pilgrim 7 is a delicious beer.

[Fido97]

Ok cheers Seymour. Urban Chestnut Brewery now on my radar!

[seymour]

Cool. There's some info and a great recipe in Stan Hieronymus' book For the Love Of Hops, in case you're interested.