With summer just around the corner I decided to brew a “classic” macro-brew cerveza clone!

Recipe Source: Homebrew Supply

Beer Specifications

Beer Name:	Corona Extra Clone
Beer Style:	Mexican Cerveza
Recipe Type:	All Grain
Pre-Boil Volume:	6.5 gallons / 24.6 litres
Batch Size:	5.5 gallons / 20.8 litres
Estimated SRM:	2.8°
Estimated IBU:	18
Estimated OG:	1.050
Estimated FG:	1.010-1.014
Estimated ABV:	4.5%

Grain Bill/Fermentables

LBS	Fermentables
6	Pilsner
2	Flaked Corn
1	Rice Syrup Solids (end of boil)

Hops

Oz	Time	Hops
1	60 min	Czech Saaz
0.5	5 min	Czech Saaz

Yeast

#	Yeast
1	Safale K-97

Fermentation Schedule

7-14 days	Primary
21 days	Lagering
14 days	Bottle Conditioning

Directions

Mash Temperature:	150°F / 65.5°C
Mash Time:	60 min
Boil Duration:	90 min

The recipe originally called for using Safale US-05 but seeing as I recently discovered this new miracle yeast I decided to give K-97 another go.

Everything was going just fine with my brew day but then after cooling the wort down and taking a gravity sample I was shocked to see that my original gravity (OG) came in way above target at 1.061! I’m not sure if adding the rice syrup solids perhaps had some impact there but I was really not expecting that at all.

I pitched the K-97 yeast and let it ferment out for a whole month before packaging. That’s when I got my second shock… my final gravity (FG) reading was 1.006! This was much lower than the target as well and meant that I ended up with a 7.22% beverage!

Or did I? I double checked my ingredients and volume measurements against the recipe calculator over on Brewgr and in order to hit my OG of 1.061 would have had to have at least 88% efficiency on the front end. But then to hit my FG of 1.006 the yeast would have had to have attenuated at least 90%. The odds of me hitting that high efficiency on both the front end and the fermentation side are pretty slim so I’m convinced something else is at play here. I for sure cooled the wort to the right temperature for measuring gravity and even double checked that my hydrometer was calibrated correctly in water so I’m at a loss on where the error was introduced but I’m pretty sure there was one somewhere.

Either way it made beer so RDWHAHB right?

Tasting Notes

Smell	Can a smell be airy and light? Well this beer has a bit of a grainy smell to it but one that ends light and fluffy. Almost with a little bit of that sharpness that some ciders have in their aroma. I really don’t know how to describe it any better than that.
Appearance	Very nice bright and clear colour. Pretty sure I nailed that cerveza colour on this one!
Taste	It does not taste like a Corona at all. However it does taste like other, similar, macro-brew cerveza styles that have a bit more complexity and, well, flavour to them. I do think the rice syrup solids contributed something to that taste as well because it has a lightness, for lack of a better word, in the taste that I don’t think any of my other beers have had before. So overall it actually turned out really nice! It is still quite easy to drink and is well suited for the coming patio season. Touching on the yeast for a minute here – again I’m very impressed by what K-97 has managed to do. The beer is clean and actually has a really pleasant yeast flavour that gets out of your way and lets you just enjoy the beer. I would definitely recommend trying this out on your recipes to see if it works as well for you!

P.S. – We called this brew “Pour Favor”.