Name: This name - Helles No! - is our way of saying it’s a Helles, mostly... We make one tricky change to what is otherwise a pretty traditional recipe, and we happen to dig it.

Style: The Munich Helles beer style (4A in the 2015 BJCP Style Guide) is a regional bottom fermenting lager from (you guessed it) the south of Germany. Small variations in regional malt and malting (while moving towards similar yeasts) drove the subtle differences between the traditional pale lagers of continental Europe. Think of this style as on the road from Pilsen to Vienna. Many consider this one of the harder styles to brew - there are very few things to hide behind. The signature of this style is the light and clean malty flavor matched with subdued floral and herbal hop notes. This is a great starter beer for craft beer inductees.

Story: Our brewer doesn’t brew lagers. It isn’t written in stone, but it was for many years the truth. A few recent exceptions aside, its still true. When piloting beers we wanted to find a lighter style “introductory” beer with the German “lagery” flavors that are familiar to even the casual and occasional beer drinker. This was our way to keep the brewer’s ale roots, but focus on a different style.

History of One Lake Brewing Releases:

• Summer 2019

• Winter 2020

• Spring 2021

Ingredients: Our grain bill adds some Munich malt (for color and malt enhancement) and melanoidin malt for flavor to a grist made primarily of continental pilsner malt. This is a light beer in the 4-5 SRM range. Hops are introduced in two additions, first wort for bitterness and at 15 minutes for a touch of herbal/floral aroma. We use an ale yeast (No!!!). We use a Kolsch style yeast and allow a long cool fermentation wind down to mute the typical kolsch flavors.

Methods: So that is the blasphemy, up front with the yeast. We gave you a hint in the name, so we feel alright about it. This beer is pretty straight forward, until pitch. Go on the low end of the temperature range of a Kolsch yeast and then let it rise in temperature as it finishes its last quarter of attenuation. Let it cold age until the yeast drops and leaves you with a brite beer, and nobody will be the wiser…

Recipe Box:

Pilsner malt - 86%
Munich malt - 12%
Melanoidin Malt - 2%

17IBU of Noble Hops at First Wort
25% of the above charge of Hops at 15min

Kolsch yeast

Brewing Method:

Gravity targets:
* OG 1.051, FG 1.012

Adjust water to achieve mash of:
* 5.37pH and 1:1 ratio of SO4/Cl

Standard mash thickness
149-151 degree mash temp target
Sparge with 175 degree 6.0pH water with same salt profile as mash
90 minute boil