OK guys, so for my 5th batch of MrB, I am going to try to make their "Cerveza de Cinco de Mayo." At the suggestion of the lady that I was chatting with on the MrB website, she suggested adding a can of the Pale Export UME, for additional body/flavor, and to bring the alc. content up to 6%. Will keep everyone posted on the outcome of this one!

i made that one once... but i DIY'ed the ingredients to use up my can of CABA. it was great. if you can ferment on the cool side, like an ambient temp of around 60°F, it'll be even cleaner and crisper... might take three weeks to ferment, though. i also used sterlings @20 mins and @7 mins instead of just throwing them in at flameout.

6% sounds awful high for a beer to drink with nachos. Gonna take
a while to condition out but it's a long time until May.

Don't forget to bottle this one in clear bottles and condition it outside to get plenty of UV rays to interact with the beer.

If I am drinking Mexican beer it better be Dos Equis!

Just finished a Dos Equis amber

funny you say that, BW... i actually did intentionally skunk half the bottles of one of the Cinco De Mayo recipes i did way beack when... worked well, actually. and only took about 5 minutes of leaving them in the sun. with it taking that short of a time, it's no wonder all the import beer we get is always skunked.

Ok wait a minute...you all are saying skunk it intentionally? like, put it in clear bottles and leave it outside for a bit?

Yup, that's what they are saying.

Please note, I believe psuchunk03 only did that to get rid of a persistent cidery taste that wouldn't go away with conditioning.

If you've doing CABA + pale export + booster, I doubt you'll have that issue.

Um...I always thought leaving beer in the sun was a bad thing.

Not if you're trying to clone Corona, or Heineken, or any import in a clear or green bottle.

LOL well, I have been collecting the green Stella Artois bottles, not really sure what I was going to do with them. I guess I have my answer!

yeah, my beer had a cidery taste... the one time i rushed a fermentation because i was brewing to a schedule, not to when the beer was ready to be bottled.

a rare sunny day in late winter last year... lined the bottles up on the railing on the deck and let them soak up the rays for a few minutes. quite the sight, i'm sure. lol... but it did work to cover up the cidery taste.

you never wondered why Coronas always came with a lime, right? hahaha

Or Rolling Rock, Yuengling Lager & Lord Chesterfield ... Any others? I never had a Straub, but I think they may use green bottles.

UPDATE:
I made this brew tonight, and am now letting it sit in the basement. Is there a particular timeframe in which I should stick these things after being bottled in the sun?

I'd only deliberately skunk them if you find you don't like the beer after the 2-2-2.

Straub bottles the same beer in both green and brown glass.

Even if you get a case of greenies, (so they're sealed in cardboard and haven't been exposed to light) they taste different than the brownies!

Straub bottles the same beer in both green and brown glass.

Even if you get a case of greenies, (so they're sealed in cardboard and haven't been exposed to light) they taste different than the brownies! [/quote]

so...what is better? green or brown? or maybe I should do some experimenting, and split the batch; half in green, half in brown.

green is better if you want to skunk it...brown is better at blocking light and UV rays.

OK, So I bottled this recipe in a handfull of Stella bottles that I had. I am looking at the beer right now, and it is foggy; Very foggy. Will this clear with time? I seem to remember when I made my batch of Witty Monk it was pretty foggy and stayed that way for a while.

what yeast did you use for this and the witty monk? it should clear while it's carbing. if you used a wheat yeast on the witty monk, those won't clear as much since they aren't as flocculant.

some yeasts just take more time to clear and some won't at all without cold crashing the beer before bottling or using fining agents.

most home brew won't really clear to commercial standards when naturally carbing in the bottle. but based on the ingredients, some do clear better than others...and they often require weeks in the fridge for the yeast to fully drop out and settle.

fwiw, witty monk (or any witbier) won't clear up if it is brewed to style. however, WM is one of the best MB recipes out there

The Cinco recipe was one of my first and favorite MB recipes. It or most extract recipes will not be as clear as commercial beers, and this will even be darker than Corona by far. Giving it a good month in the fridge will help it clear considerably and give the chance for the flavors to come together.

A lot of people talk of beer clarity with extract, and one thing I've recently discovered since brewing with extracts again is that better and proper amounts of yeast when pitching will do a lot for clearing a beer...even Mr.Beer extracts which I've been using again. My batches lately have been really clear come bottling or just shortly after. What yeast did you use anyway?...if you ever want to make this or something like it again (a simple light lagerish beer) try Nottingham yeast at cooler temps.

And I've read some talk about skunking the beer in this thread, I would defenately try it first, and if you like maybe only skunk one or two at first to try it out. Put a bottle after carbing on the window sill in mid day sun for 2 minutes...by the time it carbs and conditions a couple weeks you will be left with a tiny trace of that character, it will make you think Corona for sure...and add your lime for a nice summer beer.