Details to follow, but I think the fourth round in this Friendly Competition thingy will be with a Dark American Lager.

For those who don't know or are new, anybody who wants can brew one up. We'll select a competition site and all enter that comp individually with the selected style of beer and enter it in that category. We all get valuable feedback on our brews and the highest score gets bragging rights... at least until the next comp.

Any questions, feel free to ask. Any and all welcome...

I'm down with this....I've been looking for something to brew lately and this sounds as good as any.

The great thing about this Friendly Comp is it is getting be to brew some stuff I wouldn't normally brew.

It would be interesting to do one of these and have everyone brew the same recipe? Wonder how different the comments would be

thinking about this, I may do a pseudo lager with kolsch yeast or just go with a super clean dry yeast. dont wanna screw up my pipeline by doing a true lager.

You can always bottle lager...ferment in a Mr. Beer keg, cold crash it, bottle and carb it normally, then lager the bottles in the fridge so as to not tie up your pipeline too much.

Edit: That said, I'm planning to use the Notty cake from the Cream Ale I brewed yesterday and ferment at lager temps (54-55°) At those temps, the Notty should ferment it very much like a true lager. Very clean and crisp, with some nice lager character.

depending on when the comp is, i can repitch to my yeast cake from my blonde.

I know I can lager in bottles but I don't want to lower my fermentation chamber to lager temps since I have 2 things fermenting at all times right now.

My tenative recipe is up!

Ok I really want to get in this, and since I am picking up the Kegerator fridge Saturday and can turn it up to the 50ish temp for a while, I am wondering if:
#1 if any one is interested to do as suggested and brew the same reciepe?
#2 How dang long do we Lager this stuff for?
I have most of the stuff on hand from an Irish Red AG batch that I was going to do, but could be easily swayed this way. I have googled reciepes, but do not see any consistancy to build on so any help building one would help, or I would be willing to piggyback and brew the same reciepe if someone was willing to swap 2 for 2 and the we cold blind taste test the 2 at the same time and post reviews.

Well, an American Lager by definition is low in aroma, low in SRM, low in flavor, and highly carbonated. A Dark American Lager is essentially the same only with a much darker SRM... which is hard to do without bringing a lot of the darker flavors over with it. You probably have mostly what you need in the Irish Red ingredients.

As for when, we haven't picked a competition yet, but it'll have to be several weeks down the road.

From the BJCP guidelines...

--Aroma: Little to no malt aroma. Medium-low to no roast and caramel malt aroma. Hop aroma may range from none to light spicy or floral hop presence. Can have low levels of yeast character (green apples, DMS, or fruitiness). No diacetyl.

--Appearance: Deep amber to dark brown with bright clarity and ruby highlights. Foam stand may not be long lasting, and is usually light tan in color.

--Flavor: Moderately crisp with some low to moderate levels of sweetness. Medium-low to no caramel and/or roasted malt flavors (and may include hints of coffee, molasses or cocoa). Hop flavor ranges from none to low levels. Hop bitterness at low to medium levels. No diacetyl. May have a very light fruitiness. Burnt or moderately strong roasted malt flavors are a defect.