Amazing Graf

So for those that don't know Graf if a fictional drink described in Stephen King's Dark Tower series of books. There's not a ton of detail about the drink in the book only that it is a specialty drink of Mid-World where orchards are plentiful. It's described as a strong apple beer.

Graf

Many people have made versions of this drink including a couple local breweries and cideries in my area. The owner of one such cidery dropped in to our homebrew club meeting last night and brought an very interesting version of a Graf that I thought was amazing. I've heard of people making beer and cider and blending them for Graf but this is the first time I'd heard of anyone substituting cider for all the water to make a beer, good idea really. What made this Graf unique is that it tasted just like a beer with a slightly tart finish.

I didn't get his exact recipe but this is the information I gathered from our conversation.

ABV: 8.9%
Water: 100% Apple Cider
Recipe Type: Extract w/ a portion of wheat extract- I feel this is key, I'm not sure you could get a mash to convert starches using cider in place of water.
Yeast: Hefeweizen

So the Hefe yeast worked exceptionally well in this beer/cider. When I make a wheat beer it tends to attenuate to 1.002 but this beer had more body. This seems strange when you consider most ciders ferment out to .999 depending on the yeast used.

The books warn to take it easy with Graf as it is a strong apple beer, I think 8.9% abv qualifies for this warning so if you make it beware, it's a deceptively easy beer to drink! You would never know it was nearly 9%.