I’ve always had an affinity for Cream Ale, that oddly-named light American ale style with nineteenth century roots. All too often it seems to be nudged out of the way by the more prosaically-named Blonde or Golden Ale in many a brewery’s lineup however.

Admittedly, digging into the style reveals there is not much difference with these labels, at least in terms of appearance, strength, drinkability, and so on. Where you start to see divergence is in ingredients, process, and the historical background of the Cream Ale style.

I’ve been playing with recipes for it over the years and recently brewed my latest iteration, a picture of which you can see at the top of this post (and which I recently brought to the National Homebrew Conference in Portland and shared it on Club Night). So I figured it was time to write a deep dive post on the style, and share my recipe.

History

Whenever you start digging into the history of beer styles, you’re potentially stepping into a minefield, depending on the source of your information. Much of the early homebrew writing repeated myth and folklore, or got the facts wrong, or perhaps simply made wrong assumptions. As such, teasing out the history of a given style can be challenging, though it’s definitely interesting to trace how the conventional wisdom evolves as more rigorous research and examination is applied.

Cream Ale is a great example, and as a relatively young style it is somewhat less fraught than trying to adequately cover something such as IPA or Porter. Generally considered one of the few American indigenous beer styles, it has its roots in the later 1800s. And “cream” has nothing whatsoever to do with Cream Ale; that was as much a marketing name as anything.

Even now there are differing ideas as to the origins of the style. The main school of thought holds that nineteenth century ale brewers, faced with stiff competition from the runaway popularity of lagers sparked by the mid-century immigration of German brewers to America, crafted an ale version of American lager to appeal to lager drinkers.

Among some historical points of contention over the years are whether the style was lagered, or fermented warm then lagered, and whether ale and lager yeasts were mixed (or started with an ale, then finished with a lager). Blending with other ales (or lagers?) was also rumored.

Jeff Alworth, in The Beer Bible, affirms the style as a pale lager competitor: “Like steam beer, cream ales were made to resemble lagers, but they were fermented variously with ale yeast, lager yeast, or a mixture of yeast strains.” Alworth also notes the ample use of corn in American brewing at the time, which helped to counteract the protein-heavy, inelegant American six-row barley.

Randy Mosher, in his book Radical Brewing (which should be on every homebrewer’s shelf), has a slightly different view:

The cream ale style is kind of amalgam of the English-derived American ale style, as brewed by German brewmasters in American lager breweries. It’s my view that many of them simply applied their experience with German ales such as Kölschbier, and voilà, Cream Ale. Some of the early brewery advertising indicates that cream ales were often a blend of stock ale with lager…

It does seem more likely to me that Cream Ale emerged as a style from ale breweries to compete with pale lagers, rather that German lager brewers crafting their version of a pale ale as Mosher speculates. Which makes sense: breweries, then and now, tend to follow the trends and the money to sell what the consumer wants (look at the hazy NE-style IPA trend today). What would be the motivation for a lager brewery to produce an ale?

In The Essentials of Beer Style, Fred Eckhardt defined the top-fermented blonde or golden ale style and considered it to be traditional Cream Ale, and wrote:

Traditional cream ale was “present use ale,” or sometimes “lively ale,” a real ale draft beer of gravity at 13/1053, which was krausened with beer wort, rather than primed with sugar, and served in taverns directly from the wood. Today’s cream ale is a far cry [Eckhardt here refers to the use of “cream ale” to describe what he called American Sparkling Lager], but this style, which I have labeled blonde or golden ale fits that description fairly well, if we allow for the American style of service rather than real ale from the wood.

In other words, he defines classic (pre-Prohibition) Cream Ale as warm fermented, young, with lively carbonation, and served on draft (from wooden casks). No mention of blending with other beers or mixed use of ale and lager yeasts.

Finally, the 2015 BJCP Style Guidelines has this to say on the history of the style:

A sparkling or present-use ale that existed in the 1800s and survived prohibition. An ale version of the American lager style. Produced by ale brewers to compete with lager brewers in Canada and the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest states. Originally known as sparkling or present use ales, lager strains were (and sometimes still are) used by some brewers, but were not historically mixed with ale strains. Many examples are kräusened to achieve carbonation. Cold conditioning isn’t traditional, although modern brewers sometimes use it.

Stats and Style

The style itself is pretty straightforward: for all intents and purposes, it is an ale version of (light) American lager. Being an American style, it then follows that American ingredients are used, including that native grain, corn.

Charlie Papazian listed Cream Ale as a style in the 1991 edition of The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing, though it’s a brief entry. I’ve included the numbers he provides in the table below; note that the first BJCP numbers look like they are based on these.

Cream Ale appears in the (original?) 1997 BJCP Style Guidelines, as category 3C, slotted under Light Ales. The guidelines described it as, “An adaptation of the American light lager style, chiefly involving fermentation of the beer as an ale followed by a period of cold conditioning.” In the 2004 revision of those guidelines, it was category 6A, under Light Hybrid Beer. And for 2015, it was moved to category 1C, under Standard American Beer.

Interesting there’s not a lot of style drift over the years in these numbers, though oddly the 2004 BJCP guideline show a relative spike in IBUs before dropping in 2015, and a slight drop in alcohol occurred at that time while color became marginally darker.

Overall it is clearly a lighter beer, in color, strength, and hopping levels. It should be more aromatic and flavorful than standard American lagers, but still quite mellow and easy drinking across the board. It should be lively, well attenuated, and clear (where a bit of lagering can come into play). Commercial examples that the BJCP 2015 guidelines list are Genesee Cream Ale, Liebotschaner Cream Ale, Little Kings Cream Ale, New Glarus Spotted Cow, Old Style, and Sleeman Cream Ale.

Brewing Cream Ale

There are several approaches to brewing this style, and it should be no surprise that Prohibition is mixed up in them. In fact, before Prohibition these were stronger, hoppier beers; Alworth describes them as such:

Cream ales in the nineteenth century were stuydy beers of 14° Plato (1.057 sp. gr.) and 6% alcohol. They were relatively bitter, loaded with more hops than the porters of the era. In the nineteenth century, Cluster hops were king, and they would have added an American flavor to an American beer. [T]hey were crisp and clean, but had a bit of ale fruitiness.

Modern, post-Prohibition examples fall lighter and onto the spectrum of examples listed by the BJCP (above) — if you’re aiming to brew a Genesee clone. On the other hand, modern craft brewed version of Cream Ales, or at least beers branded as such, might well be all-barley ales that more closely resemble blondes: more hops, more flavor, more body. Pelican Brewing’s Kiwanda Cream Ale, billed as a Pre-Prohibition Cream Ale, is brewed entirely with barley (and includes some dextrin malt for mouthfeel) and has 25 IBUs. It’s a great beer that I enjoy, but BJCP judges don’t consider it a category 1C Cream Ale, and if you look at the list of awards it has accrued over the years, the categories it was entered in are all over the board: Golden or Blonde Ale, English Summer Ale, German Kölsch, Golden Ale/Canadian-Style Ale, and, yes, Cream Ale.

(To be fair, Kiwanda does more closely match the pre-Prohibition style Alworth describes above—save for the lack of corn in its bill. So… is it a proper pre-Prohibition style? I would say yes. Corn or other adjuncts, while common, are not required.)

My approach is fairly classic, and I’ve tempered it towards simplicity over the years. You’re aiming for a lighter style using American ingredients, so that means base malt(s) only. You can get away with just using American two-row malt if you like, but an arguably more authentic version will contain American six-row as well, so I opted for a blend.

And of course—the corn. In my view any proper recipe for this style must have corn in it, whether the grain itself or even just corn sugar (cane sugar will do). BJCP suggests that the adjunct can consist of up to 20% of the grain bill. Since corn (to me) is an essential component of this style, I go with the full 20% and use flaked corn.

The guidelines also say you can use up to 20% glucose or other sugars in the boil as well. I included table sugar with an early version of this recipe, but I don’t know that it really contributes that much to the finished beer other than alcohol strength and drier body. Of course, a shortcut to using corn in the mash is to use corn sugar in the boil instead for a similar result, so if that works for you, go for it.

Hops are dealers choice for bittering, and should be American for aroma and flavor to stay true to the style. If you were going for a truly pre-Prohibition style, go with all Cluster hops. For this recipe, I went with EKG for bittering and Cascade at knockout.

Recipe: Billy Chinook Cream Ale (all-grain)

My targets in developing this recipe were an OG of 1.042 to 1.045, a mash temperature of 150°F for a standard infusion mash (you could go lower, 146-8 for a drier body), and IBUs of 20.

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds American six-row malt (53%)
• 2 pounds American two-row malt (27%)
• 1.5 pounds flaked corn (20%)
• 1 ounce East Kent Goldings Hops (4.84% AA) – 60 minutes – 4.84 AAU
• 1 ounce Cascade hops – aroma (0 minutes)
• Wyeast 2565 Kölsch or Wyeast 1007 German Ale

Now, if you wanted to go really old school here, you could use only six-row malt as your base. And I suppose you could do the full adjunct cereal mash with corn grits as well if you’re truly adventurous. I might even try that myself someday, but for now I’m happy with flaked corn.

When putting together a recipe, I’m usually working with the hops that I happen to have on hand and adjust accordingly. Feel free to mix up the hop variety and schedules as you see fit; I’ve included the AAU numbers for them so you can approximate the same targets for similar IBUs. Remember this isn’t a hop bomb so you don’t need much, though being an American style that little kick of Cascade for the knockout is a good touch. If you were aiming for a more historic version, seek out Cluster hops for your base, and possibly finishing.

This is a single infusion mash at 148-150° for one hour. After the hour, sparge and draw off six to eight gallons of wort for the boil (of course adjust the amount you need based on your own evaporation rate). A 60 minute boil is sufficient, though if you wanted to boil longer to develop some kettle caramelization you could certainly aim for up to 90 minutes. I stick with 60 to minimize any potential darkening in color.

Once boil is complete, chill, transfer to your primary fermenter, and aerate thoroughly. Pitch your yeast as close to 68-70° as possible, or lower if you can manage it.

My original recipe called for Wyeast 2565 Kölsch because as a German ale yeast it produces a clean lager-like profile while retaining a bit of fruity ale esters, which is largely what we want. However if you also read my recent blog post on brewing Cream Ale with two yeasts, you’ll know I also used Wyeast 1007 German Ale (because there was only one packet of Kölsch left), which is similar but with a cleaner ester profile. Of course, you could certainly use a lager yeast here if you can ferment cooler.

If you’re looking at using White Labs or Imperial Yeast, I’d suggest trying White Labs’ WLP080 Cream Ale Blend, or either G03 Dieter or G02 Kaiser from Imperial.

You can bottle or keg this beer, but as the traditional style calls for lively carbonation, plan accordingly. If bottling, I’d usually recommend bottle with ¾ cup of corn sugar (or ⅔ cup of cane sugar) for priming, but to up this a bit you could probably use ⅞ cup of corn sugar.

Recipe: Billy Chinook Cream Ale (extract)

For this extract recipe, I would recommend using light (or extra light if you can find it) malt extract, either liquid or dry form. Hop schedule and yeast remains the same, and if you can boil at least all five gallons that is best, though I would avoid boiling longer than 60 minutes. (I’ve noticed that extract tends to scorch more.)

• 4.5 pounds light or extra light liquid malt extract (LME)
  • OR 4 pounds light or extra light dried malt extract (DME)
• 0.5 pounds cane sugar or corn sugar
• 1 pound American six-row malt
• 1 pound flaked corn
• 1 ounce East Kent Goldings Hops (4.84% AA) – 60 minutes – 4.84 AAU
• 1 ounce Cascade hops – aroma (0 minutes)
• Wyeast 2565 Kölsch or Wyeast 1007 German Ale

Yes, with the use of six-row malt and flaked corn, you’re going to be doing a mini-mash here. Normally my specialty grains recommendation is to add them to your water to steep as it heats up. A grain bag will make things easier, or simply scoop the grains out with a strainer. I always add the grains to the cold water, and then scoop them out (or remove the bag) when the water reaches about 170-180° at the hottest.

For the mini-mash, though, you can start cold but when you water hits about 150° try to hold it at that temp for at least 30 minutes if you can. After that you can let them warm up and remove them by 180°.

Once you’ve removed the grains and the water is hot but not yet boiling, remove your kettle from the heat and add your extract and sugar, stirring constantly. This will help prevent scorching as the extract first sinks to the bottle of the kettle before dissolving.

Note the use of sugar here. I’m recommending it to achieve the desired gravity while lightening the body and drying it out a bit. If you want to omit the grains, and keep the sugar, a perfectly acceptable method, you could increase it to one pound overall, but don’t go over that. If instead you want to omit the sugar entirely (but keep the grains), then increase your LME to 5.5 pounds or your DME to 4.5 pounds.

Follow the same steps from boiling as for the all-grain recipe above.

Years ago I did post another Cream Ale extract recipe, more complex than this one but still perfectly valid, with the only difference being, I would boil for 60 minutes rather than the 30 I advocated back then.

Finally, in case you’re wondering, the name “Billy Chinook” comes from local Central Oregon history and geography. In modern times, Lake Billy Chinook is the name of the reservoir near Madras formed from the conjunction of the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius Rivers, and is a popular recreation spot. It in turn was named for Billy Chinook, who was a chief and member of the Native American Wasco tribe and was a guide for John C. Frémont and Kit Carson, who explored Central Oregon from 1843 to 1844 and from 1845 to 1847.