The Classic American Beer – Cream Ale

The Cream Ale.

One of the few completely unique to America beer styles. This style has been brewed since the late 19th century. It was invented here with a purpose, rather than taken from England and then using American ingredients. Much like Munich breweries invented the Helles Lager to compete with the pale Pilsner beers coming out of Czechia in the mid-1800s, the Cream Ale was created for the sole purpose of competing with the American Lager.

As we will explore further in the other entries in our Brewing In America series, German immigrants brought with them Lager brewing techniques and yeast. They created a tour de force of a brewing culture here that the original Ale/Porter brewers from Britain were struggling to compete against.

Using large amounts of the abundant 6-Row barley found in North America, new malting methods capable of creating paler malt, and a plethora of corn, ale brewers were able to produce a straw-yellow beer. This beer had fewer malty toast aromas than their pale ale and porter cousins across the pond in Britain. The softer and lighter malt flavor mimicked the cracker and white bread flavors found in continental 2-row pilsner malt. This was evident in the American Lager that was taking the continent by storm. Yeast selections changed to ale yeasts that are ‘cleaner’ and impart fewer of their own flavors during the fermentation process.

All of these decisions led to the creation of a beer style (still an Ale) with a light cracker/white bread and slight corn flavor. It had little hop character and a clean yeast flavor. This beer was actually light and crisp enough to give the American Lager a run for its money. It also had a high carbonation level. When combined with the light corniness, it earned itself the moniker “Cream Ale.” Thus, a truly American beer style was born.

Now let’s brew one.

Brewing A Cream Ale – Simone’s Golden Promise

The BJCP Style Guidelines list the stats of Cream Ale as the following:

IBU: 8 – 20

SRM: 5 – 20

OG: 1.042 – 1.055

FG: 1.006 – 1.012

ABV: 4.2% – 5.6%

Stats are all well and good but we need some meat and potatoes, or malt and hops rather. 

Here is our recipe for a Cream Ale called Simone’s Golden Promise:

Grains: 8.5 lbs 2-row

0.5 lbs Flaked Barley

0.5 lbs Flaked Corn

Hops: .75 oz Willamette

Yeast: Omega West Coast Ale I (OYL-004)

You will notice our recipe uses all 2-row instead of 6-row. This was a decision we made since, despite the historical accuracy, we found that batches of this beer made with 6-row had too little flavor and body, and were not as enjoyable to drink as the maltier version. We also added flaked barley to increase the body and give a creamier mouthfeel, to really lean into the name.

For hops, we went with a historically used American hop, Willamette, a daughter of British Fuggles. There is just enough hops to balance out the malt sweetness, and largely keep hop flavor to a minimum since that is not what this style is about.

Lastly, we chose a super clean American yeast, known as the ‘Chico’ strain since it hails from Chico, California. It’s a super neutral strain, that imparts little ester character to the finished beer, despite being an Ale yeast.

That is the essence of a cream ale. I hope you enjoyed this little excursion into one of the few truly American beer styles. This is one of a series of four. As we lead up to the Olympics, sit back, drink a true American beer, and cheer on our incredibly talented athletes!