Smoked Beer?

[tjones_jr]

I was given some extract for Christmas but I don't know much about it. It's Weyermann's Bamberg Rauch (the link is below).

http://www.weyermann.de/englisch/produkte_maltextract_bambergrauch.neo?headline=Pro ducts

Is anyone familiar with this malt, or this style? I'm not familiar with smoked malts and would like some guidance.

[brewmonkey]

I have made several smoked beers (all grain though) using Weyermanns smoked malt. It is a Beechwood smoke they use and is quite nice. When using grain I have gone as much as 60% of the grist being smoked malt and have had a very pleasent smoke flavor and aroma.

These are beers that you are either going to like or hate, I don't think I have ever seen someone be in the middle with this one.

Being that your extract is 98% smoked malt I would think you might want to use a like amount of unsmoked extract to bring it to the 50% smoked level or even more to get around 25%. If you go to www.bjcp.org, they will have some info on the style guidelines. It is generally done as a lager, but a very clean ale strain at it's low side temp will work in a pinch. For hops I would stick with something low key like Mt. Hood or Hallertau and shoot for the low side of the IBU's.