Brewing a Maine Beer Co. Lunch clone (No. 8 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

Another year, another attempted clone of a Maine beer! It never ceases to amaze me how many awesome breweries this state has. My wife and I took a beer trip to Portland in May; it was our first trip without kids to Portland in about a year and a half... that was a real eye-opener to me, since I regularly used to make it to Portland about four times a year before my daughter was born. With that big of a travel gap, there were a few new breweries that had popped up, and it looks like some more have opened even since then. My point is, there are plenty of great beers brewed in Maine, and therefore plenty of great beers to try to "clone" at home... but I keep coming back to the classics, most of which are brewed by Maine Beer Company.

Lunch was MBC's fourth release (after Peeper, Zoe, and Mean Old Tom), and their first American IPA. Let me tell you, even though it's been years now since they started brewing it, it is still considered - rightly so - a fantastic IPA. Here's how the brewery describes it:

Intense hop flavours and tropical, citrus fruit and pine aromas dominate the flavour profile, balanced by subtle malt sweetness.

That's actually a perfect summation of this beer. If you look at the many pictures snapped of Lunch, you can see immediately that it doesn't look quite as pale-coloured as many IPAs are now; it definitely is on the dark-golden/light-amber side of things. That's not to say this is a sweet beer; it certainly isn't, thankfully. But there's more malt character than a lot of newer breweries put into their hoppy beers. But with Lunch, it all works perfectly. Hoppy, yet balanced. Bitter to a degree, but smooth and easy-drinking. A great beer! And, interestingly, not named after the meal, but after a whale that swims (swam?) off the coast of Maine that had a bite out of its fin, and was named Lunch by the locals as a result.

I've always wanted to brew a clone of this beer. I've done many other MBC clones in my Maine Beer Clone series, and Lunch has been the next one planned for some time. And I'm certainly not the only homebrewer to have tried to clone Lunch; there's plenty of attempts out there that have been documented on blogs, homebrew forums, etc. But this time around, I didn't have to do any work. Nope, no digging, no bugging brewers, no analyzing the beer at all.

You may be wondering, has he developed some sort of a psychic sense when it comes to homebrewing? No, I can assure you that if I had, I would be making better beer. What happened was months ago, someone emailed me and we chatted about at least one of my MBC clones. That person eventually told me that they had been giving a photo taken of the MBC actual brew log, turned to a double-brew day of Lunch. They asked if I'd like a copy; I said sure, even though I admit I was skeptical. But when they sent it along, I had to admit that it looked genuine! I guess only a brewer at MBC could confirm, but it really does appear to be authentic. Everything is there: grist and percentage of each grain, exact hop times, amounts, and alpha acids, pH readings... everything. EXCEPT the dry hop. However, this person told me they had questioned Dan Kleban (MBC's co-owner and head brewer) on this, and that he confirmed they use a total of 2.3 lbs/BBL, shared equally between all three of the hop varieties in the beer (Amarillo, Centennial, and Simcoe).

I've actually had this recipe for months now (maybe even over a year?), but only got around to brewing it in September. I'm no fool; I know that recipe is only part of what makes a beer great, with technique being at LEAST half of it. But I wanted to give it a try! I've had Lunch about ten different times, so I'm at least a little familiar with it, and had an idea what to expect it to look, taste, and smell like. So I finally found the time to fit it in my brewing schedule, and scaled the recipe down from ~400 gallons, to 5.

The grist is made up mainly of 2-row, with small amounts (~4%) of Crystal 40 L, Munich 10 L, and Red Wheat, and an even smaller amount of Carapils. I also threw in some Acid malt as I always do for pale beers, to bring my mash pH into range (MBC's mash pH for Lunch is ~5.4). I will note that I asked Dan Kleban a while back if they did pH adjustments when making large dry-hop additions (e.g. Dinner), and he responded by saying that they didn't do any pH adjustments. I assume this means no adjustments throughout the brewing process at all, and the brew log seems to indicate this; I see no mention of Acid malt, phosphoric acid, etc. The OG I was aiming for was 1.063; Lunch is a 7% ABV beer, and MBC lists their OG as 1.059. Personally, I can't get the attenuation they seem to be getting, so I always aim for several points above their target when brewing one of their beers, to make up for that. I should also note that the Lunch mash temp is listed as 149 F.

As with all their beers, MBC lists on their website the hop varieties used in each. Lunch uses Warrior, Amarillo, Centennial, and Simcoe. Without seeing what is, apparently, the actual recipe for Lunch, I would probably come up with a clone that involved large additions of all three flavour hops, late in the boil (or maybe even just a flameout addition), and a large dry-hop... I would have been half-right.

Check out that hopping schedule! Let me begin by saying their 60-minute addition is actually Warrior, not Centennial; I'm not sure what I was doing. Maybe lowering the IBUs to where I wanted them? Dunno, but if you want to follow the MBC recipe, use 3 grams of Warrior (17.7% AA) at 60 minutes. Otherwise, there are many additions throughout the boil, but they're SMALL additions. I can see why they're not large; it's not like you're going to get much aroma or flavour at 45 or 30 minutes, and they weren't going for high IBUs. Obviously this approach works for them, so while it was against how I normally brew now, I followed their schedule to a tee. Minus the 60-min addition, of course. The flameout addition I used was also changed; MBC lists a whirlpool addition at half of what I have, 12 g of each variety for 5 gallons. I upped it because I assume their whirlpool is longer than 20 minutes at that size, so I made a hopefully-educated guess. A single, large dry-hop (almost 6 oz total), and you're set! Ferment the beer with a neutral American strain, of course (WP001, Wyeast 1056, US-05, etc.).

So, the beer was finally brewed and fermented, with no real issues to report; I admit it felt a little weird adding so few hops before chilling the beer, but I had faith. I pitched a rehydrated package of US-05, and fermentation took off quickly. The FG made it down to 1.011, which was about what I expected. The dry-hops went into primary for about 5 days, and then I kegged the beer and carbonated it with my typical 36-hours-at-30-PSI approach, which usually works well.

This was one of those beers where I really liked it at first, then felt that both the hop aroma and flavours dissipated quickly... and then came back a few days later. I'm still not sure if this is actually a part of the process, or one of my... quirks, but it can certainly be frustrating! Now that the beer (or me) has settled down, I'm enjoying it. While it's certainly not the best IPA I've brewed, it's got a pleasant blend of pine and citrus, with a fairly powerful aroma, and moderate bitterness. But how does it compare to Lunch?

Well, luckily I recently made a trip to Portland, and had a friend pick up a super-fresh (as in, bottled two days before I bought it) bottle of Lunch for me! And now that I've done a side-by-side with these beers, I can say that this recipe will get you VERY close. Complete tasting notes are below, but these beers are extremely similar: they look virtually identical, and the aroma and taste are pretty much spot-on as well. The biggest differences were that my clone smelled a bit hoppier, while the real thing had the edge in the taste department, with a smoother balance between the malt and hops.

If there's one thing this beer has taught me, though, it's that IPA tastes and expectations have changed in the last couple of years. I really enjoy Lunch, but it's not the type of IPA I usually seek out now. It's still a great beer, no doubt about that, but it doesn't really seem to be in line with the REALLY great IPAs out there, such as Bissell Brothers The Substance - hazy/cloudy, super-hoppy, with little perceived bitterness.

But if you're a Lunch fan - and I think most of us still are - give this recipe a try! I don't think you'll be disappointed. And a big shout out to the person responsible for sending it to me; I apologize for losing the email and forgetting your name!

Recipe Targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.063, FG ~1.011, IBU ~50, SRM 6.9, ABV ~6.8%

Grains:
4.75 kg (82.3%) Canadian 2-row
250 g (4.3%) Crystal 40 L
250 g (4.3%) Munich
250 g (4.3%) Wheat malt
150 g (2.6%) Acid malt
125 g (2.2%) Carapils

Hops:
Centennial - 5 g (9% AA) @ 60 min
Centennial - 7 g @ 45 min
Centennial - 5 g @ 30 min
Amarillo - 4 g (8.7% AA) @ 30 min
Simcoe - 3 g (12.2% AA) @ 30 min
Centennial - 11 g @ 15 min
Amarillo - 6 g @ 15 min
Simcoe - 5 g @ 15 min

Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe - 24 g each @ 0 min (with a 20 min hop steep)

Amarillo, Centennial, Simcoe - 58 g each dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale (1 pack, rehydrated)

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 5 g Gypsum and 7 g calcium chloride added to mash

- Brewed on September 27th, 2016, by myself. 50-minute mash with 15 L of strike water; mash temp on target of 149 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 8.5 L of boiling water to 168 F. Sparged with ~3.25 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- Pre-boil gravity at 1.050 (target 1.051). 60-minute boil. Final volume ~5.7 gallons; OG low at 1.061. Chilled to 64 F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 75 seconds of pure O2, pitched yeast at 64 F.

- Airlock bubbling strong by the next morning, continuing on for a few days before slowing down. Temp got up to 72 F during the peak.

- 4/10/16 - FG 1.011; added dry hops into primary.

- 10/10/16 - Racked beer to keg, cooled, and carbed to 10-12 PSI.

Lunch on the left, homebrew on the right

Appearance: Colour is about exactly the same; the homebrew is just slightly lighter in colour, and more clear. In the commercial version, the head lasts longer and there's more lacing.

Aroma: Virtually identical, hard to tell the difference. The homebrew is a bit stronger in the hop department - fruity and citrusy - while the commercial beer has a bit more malt presence.

Taste: Again, extremely close, with the commercial beer having the hops come across as smoother, somehow; lots of hops in both, citrusy and fruity, balanced by a bready malt backbone. Medium bitterness in both.

Mouthfeel: The real thing is slightly creamier. Both are medium-light bodied, moderate carbonation.

Overall: You can tell them apart, but not by much. Doing it blind (the triangle-test would be best) would make it even more difficult. I'm going to give the edge to Maine Beer Co. though, thanks to the smoother body and flavour profile.

Brewing a Maine Beer Co. Peeper clone (No. 7 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

After my attempt to brew a clone of Maine Beer Company's highly-coveted DIPA, Dinner, I didn't want to wait too long to try brewing another one of their beers. Why? Because that clone attempt came out pretty crappy. Probably one of my worst homebrew attempts of all time. If I hadn't had so many people that wanted to still try it, it probably would have turned out to be my first drainpour batch. It didn't, in the end... but it wasn't too far off. More on that failure in the link above.

Anyway, time to move on, right? I've had several successes since then, and have learned from the experience; this is what homebrewing is all about. I know now that a pound of hops for a 5 gallon batch dry-hop is probably a WEE bit too much. And I've had some good results with some other Maine Beer Co. recipes, with one I'd been sitting on for awhile that I've always been wanting to try - a clone recipe of their very first beer, Peeper.

When Maine Beer Co. came on the scene in Portland six years ago, they initially only had one beer available. Spring Peeper was an "American Ale", basically a really hop-forward APA that was dry, refreshing, and immensely hoppy. I remember my very first trip to Portland's Novare Res Bier Cafe in the fall of 2009; one of the bartenders there insisted that I had to try this beer (even though "the brewery name is kinda crappy"...!). They didn't have it on tap, but they did have the 500 mL bottles available (which were being delivered, I believe, to bars and beer stores in the area by owners/brewers Dan and David Kleban, who still had their day jobs at the time as well). The hype was real - this beer was delicious. And it was, of course, eventually followed by many other amazing beers over the years.

The name was eventually changed to Peeper (I assume so people wouldn't be confused and think it was only a seasonal release?), but the beer stayed the same. Peeper is like Coors Light in Portland - it's hard to go into a beer bar, restaurant, etc. and NOT find it... which speaks volumes as to the awesomeness of Portland. Several years ago, I came across a post on Home Brew Talk where someone included a clone recipe of Peeper that they had received from Dan Kleban. I've had great luck and lots of help from Dan on other clone recipes of his beers, but this was even more... it was quite detailed. I assume that he was simply less busy back then, and had a little more time to answer pesky homebrewer's emails! I held on to this recipe for quite awhile before I finally decided to brew it. Here it is in its entirety:

I use American 2-row base malt (88%), then red wheat (3.5%), Vienna (3.5%), and C-10 (5%). U.S. Magnum as bittering charge, then equal amounts Cascade, Centennial, and Amarillo at beginning of whirlpool. Dry-hop equal amounts Centennial and Amarillo only (4.5 oz/5 gal). House yeast is a variant of Wyeast 1056. Mash at 150 F and sparge with 180 degree hot liquor to raise runoff to 172ish. 60 minute boil. 

OG: 1.053
FG: 1.011
IBU: approx 45
SRM: no idea

My secret: extreme late hopping (up to 50% of IBUs come from whirlpool hops)

Pretty helpful! I imagine that most of their hoppy beers follow the same approach, where a good hunk of the bitterness comes from whirlpool additions. All of their beers are so smooth and easy-drinking, with tons of hop aroma and flavour; this is the approach I've used with all my Maine Beer Co. clones (not to mention a lot of other recipes).

So, obviously the grist was extremely easy to put together. I threw in 100 g of Acid malt, as per usual for my pale beers, for mash pH purposes. I also didn't have any Crystal 10L; I first thought of just using Carapils, but I have a lot of CaraRed, which is about 20 L. So, I used that one, but decreased the amount to ~3% to hopefully-account for the slightly-darker color. For the hops, I went with 1.5 oz each of Amarillo, Cascade, and Centennial at flameout, for a 15-minute steep (I basically just went with a quantity that would yield about half of the 45 IBUs I was aiming for). I probably should have steeped longer, since there were no other flavor/aroma additions until this point, but I was on a tight schedule and have had good results with 15-minute steeps in the past. For the dry-hop, I followed the instructions exactly... and assumed that it was 4.5 oz TOTAL, not 4.5 oz of each hop.

That's about all the work I had to do with this one. The brew day went smoothly; while taking place in June, the temperatures really weren't that high, so the groundwater was still manageably cool, and the fermentation never got out of control.

I was quite happy with how this one came out. While I've had Peeper plenty of times - like I said, it's everywhere - the last time I had it was in March. And of course I don't have access to it here, and unfortunately I haven't been to Maine in months... so, no side-by-side tasting, which would have been great. I can say that the beer is very tasty - while there's a pretty good background note of bready malt, the hops are quite prevalent. But this isn't your typical BANG hops in your face hoppy beer... I find them somewhere between subtle and prevalent. That sounds contradictory, but it's hard to explain. Fruity and kind of tropical, not quite in the background, not quite overpowering. Maybe just really nicely balanced?

Either way, it's good. I think the beer, despite cutting back on the CaraRed, is a touch too dark for a Peeper clone. It seems darker than the calculated 4.5 SRM, to me. Now that I look at the website, I see that Carapils is listed as an ingredient for Peeper, not C-10. And I feel like Peeper finishes drier, which wouldn't surprise me since Maine Beer Co. normally has extremely high attenuation in their beers (the OG and FG provided in the recipe must have been adjusted for homebrew purposes (they list the beer as 1.047 on their site, which means for 5.5% ABV it would be finishing at about 1.005).

So, if you're a fan of Peeper, or just of hoppy, tasty Pale Ales, give this recipe a try. I suggest subbing in Carapils for C-10 or CaraRed or whatever. Cheers!

Recipe Targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.053, FG ~1.010, IBU ~45, SRM 4.5, ABV ~5.6%

Grains:
4.25 kg (87.8%) Canadian 2-row
170 g (3.5%) Vienna
170 g (3.5%) Wheat malt
150 g (3.1%) CaraRed (20 SRM)
100 g (2.1%) Acid malt

Hops:
Hop extract - 2.5 mL @ 60 min (or 14 g of a 10% AA hop variety)

Amarillo - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Cascade - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Centennial - 42 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)

Amarillo - 63 g dry-hop for 5-7 days (in primary)
Centennial - 63 g dry-hop for 5-7 days (in primary)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale, 1 pack, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Gypsum and 5 g calcium chloride added to mash

- Brewed on June 16th, 2015, by myself. 50-minute mash with 15 L of strike water, mashed in at target of 150 F. Sparged with ~5.25 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- Forgot to take a gravity reading pre-boil. 60-minute boil. Final volume ~5.75 gallons; OG on target at 1.053. Chilled to low-60s F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast at 64 F.

- Good fermentation over the next couple of days, slowed down quickly by the third day. Temp never higher than 70 F. FG close to target, 1.011.

- Added dry-hops in primary about 12 days after pitching, kegged beer 5 days later and started carbing.

Appearance: Pours with a medium-sized, white head; retention isn't bad, but the slightly-low carbonation has it fading a bit faster than I'd like. Body is a burnished-gold color, with very good clarity.

Aroma: I get fruity, citrusy hops in the aroma, but with a firm background of bready malt. A bit of sweetness in there, too. Otherwise, clean.

Taste: Again, nice presence of malt character in this beer. The hops win (tropical and fruity), but as mentioned above, it's not an overpowering presence, but they're firmly there and linger perfectly. Medium-low bitterness in the finish, which is somewhere between dry and sweet, with the tilt towards dry.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light bodied, medium-low carbonation.

Overall: Quite enjoyable. Somewhere between one of your classic APAs where the malt comes through more (think the original Stone Pale Ale) and one of the way-more-hoppy APAs you see more often today.

Batch #100 : Maine Beer Co. Dinner clone (No. 6 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

I've always kept track (maybe a bit too meticulously) of each batch of homebrew I've brewed, starting with my first (Nov 29th, 2009; no, I did not have to look that up), all the way up to this, my 100th batch. So, I've known this day was coming for awhile, and had wanted to do something "big"; that is, a brew that would be a large undertaking, maybe not in terms of ABV, but just in the sheer craziness of it all (and tastiness, hopefully). I threw around a few ideas, but it didn't take me too long to settle on one: a clone of Maine Beer Co.'s first Double IPA, Dinner.

I've already brewed a couple of "clones" from Maine Beer Co. (Zoe and MO; also, quite recently, a low-ABV or "Session" version of Zoe), and they're easily one of my favorite breweries, so tackling another beer from them has always been one of my many homebrewing intentions. But Dinner is in a whole category of its own. Since its first release in late-2013, it has consistently dominated the "Top DIPA" categories, sitting in the top spots among Heady Topper, Enjoy By, Double Sunshine, Pliny, et. al. The difference compared to the ones I just mentioned? Dinner isn't a regular-release beer; in fact, it just had its 4th release on April 11th (actually, the next release is coming up soon, June 20th). If you want to get some, you can find it on tap at several bars/restaurants across Maine around its release, or, you have to buy it on release-day at the brewery in Freeport. For the April 11th release, there were apparently over 700 people lined up (starting quite early in the morning), patiently awaiting the opportunity to buy one case of Dinner, which is the limit. It was sold out later that day.

I'm lucky - I've actually had this beer, and more than once. I have a friend who lives in Freeport who was kind enough to grab a few bottles for me at the second release. I don't think things were as crazy then as they are now; I believe he just walked in and bought a few bottles. Now, they sell out before even reaching the end of the line! But I can tell you, this beer is delicious. As expected from Maine Beer Co., it's the perfect balance between hugely hoppy (tropical, citrusy, piney, dank) and easily-drinkable, finishing very dry and without an overwhelming bitterness. Basically, one of the perfect DIPAs, actually living up to its hype.

Once again, when I decided to attempt cloning this beer, I first checked out the info that Maine Beer Co. provides on their website. They may not get into specifics, but they DO list all the ingredients in terms of grist and hops for each of their beers, which is a great starting point. For malt, they list 2-row, Carapils, Caramel 40, and Dextrose. As for hops, we've got Falconer's Flight, Simcoe, Citra, and Mosaic listed... and here's the kick - they dry-hop the beer twice, with over SIX. POUNDS. PER BARREL. In homebrew terms, that's over 1 lb (16 oz, 448 g) of hops for your standard 5-5.5 gallon batch. For the dry-hop alone! Factor in what's sure to be a healthy amount in the late additions, and this has got to be one of the highest-hopped commercial batches available.

Let's just take a moment to discuss. We all know there's a "ceiling" when it comes to bitterness in beer. Sure, you can hop a beer until you get - theoretically - 1000 IBUs, but we humans can only really detect up to 90 or so IBUs in terms of bitterness. Anything more than that is really just waste. But what about aroma, and flavor? Is there a limit to what we can detect? When does it become ridiculous in terms of cost and wastage (of hops, of beer due to absorption) to keep adding more hops, whether it be at flameout, dry-hop, or whenever? I used to be under the assumption from what I'd read that there WAS no ceiling-effect on aroma and flavour, but I don't know if I completely believe that.This is not to suggest that Maine Beer Co. is doing anything wrong. If there's a brewery that knows how to brew quality hoppy beers, it's them. But as a homebrewer, I'm truly curious as to how much is too much... if that number even exists at all.

Ok, back to coming up with a recipe for this beer. Based on the other clone recipes from MBC that I constructed, I quickly put together a grist for the beer. I had a good idea of what I wanted to do; this isn't a dark beer at all, and MBC's IPAs and APAs are not heavy on the Crystal malts, so I went with 87.5% 2-row, 5% each Carapils and sugar (I always sub in table sugar when a recipe calls for Dextrose), and 2.5% Crystal 40 L. For the hops, there was a wide variety of combinations that could come into play, so I reached out (once again) to owner/brewer Dan Kleban. I let him know what I had in mind for the grist, and asked if he would suggest leaning more-heavily on certain hop varieties for flame-out and dry-hopping. Despite how busy he's sure to be, he was extremely kind to get back to me after a time:

You are actually pretty close. 
As for malt, scrap the C40 and use more base malt.
As for hops, lean on Simcoe and FF for additions starting about halfway through the boil, then feather in some Citra in the WP. Use equal parts of Simcoe, FF and Mosaic in the dry hop. Aim for about 95 total calculated IBUs.
Hope this gets you started.

Have I mentioned already what a great person this guy is? Maybe I didn't in this post, but I did in the others... anyway, it bears repeating!

To me, that email reads that they don't start adding ANY hops until halfway through the boil; I emailed him back to double-check, and he confirmed that. So, knowing exactly how many hops to add in the dry-hop, I pretty much had a recipe. I added a bit of Acid malt into the grist to bring my mash pH down, but otherwise made no other changes. The hop additions at 30 and 10 minutes aren't overly large (well, at least not compared to later), because I knew that large flame-out additions would still add quite a few IBUs to the beer. I actually split the FO additions into two (I went with equal parts FF, Simcoe, and Citra), as I often do with big, hoppy beers - one for a hop stand, and another after the chiller has been started and the wort temp is below 180 F. Combined with two dry-hop additions (each one containing 2 oz each of FF, Simcoe, and Mosaic), that's a lotta hops! About 21.5 oz total for a 4.5 gallon batch, if you're keeping track.

That's what 21.5 oz of hops look like (the white bowls are the dry-hop additions)

Well, my 100th brew day approached quickly. Actually, it was spread over two days; due to circumstances, I had to complete the mash one evening, and finish the beer the next morning. Shouldn't be a big deal, I've done it once before with no issues. After the mash, sprage, etc. were all complete (I treated the mash with 8 grams calcium chloride* and 3 grams Gypsum, aiming for higher-chloride levels based on some good results I've had with some recent hoppy beers), I heated the wort to over 180 F to kill off any unpleasantables, and left it in the garage with the lid on.

The next morning, I started the boil and weighed out all of the hops. As you can imagine, there was a crapload. When I opened the Falconer's Flight (a very prominent hop in this beer; along with Simcoe, my recipe calls for a grand total of almost 8 oz for a 4.5 gallon batch), I wasn't blown away by the aroma like I have been with this variety before. Yes, this is a variety that will change constantly, since it's made up of several West Coast, C-hop varieties, but still... something was not right. I bought them from a friend, who bought them from a local homebrew shop who had told him they were the 2014 crop. So, I trusted this, and not my instincts**. The brew day went fine otherwise, I pitched a healthy amount of rehydrated US-05, aerated with pure O2, and began fermenting the beer in the mid-60s. I will say that despite the large hop additions, the wort didn't smell near as good as the Fortunate Islands clone I had brewed a week before (= clue).

After about 10 days, I threw in the first dry-hop addition into primary, left it for 5 days, then transferred the beer to my dry-hop keg, purged with plenty of CO2, and added dry-hops #2. Waited another five days, did a closed-transfer to the purged serving keg, carbed it up, and started drinking it.

I'm much later posting about this beer than I had ever intended. Part of that is because I still hadn't posted about the Fortunate Islands clone, another part is the typical busyness of life. But a big part of that is the shame that is weighing down on me like a soaking wet blanket over this beer. The thought of having to come on here and post about such an utter failure still makes me sick to my stomach.

Ok, I'm being a bit dramatic, but hey, it's beer! A beer that is my 100th batch. A beer that a lot of people knew I was brewing. A beer that I was looking forward to more than any other beer I've ever brewed. But not every homebrew is a great success; some are, lots are ok, and some are bad.

This, my friends, is not a good beer. This beer tastes of - mostly - oxidized hops. This is not a fruity, citrusy, tropical, piney hop-bomb, like I was expecting. It smells and tastes like oxidized hops; there's definitely that cheesy presence that you dread to experience in a hoppy beer. You don't have to have had Dinner before to know that this isn't anywhere CLOSE to the real thing. I'm not sure that some bad Falconer's Flight is the only problem, though. I've had a few people try this beer, because despite not liking it, I really wanted honest, critical feedback, which they were kind (?) enough to give me. All agreed that there was clearly a strong aroma and taste of oxidized hops, but a couple of people thought there was something more. Not an infection, not heat from the alcohol, just more... badness. Which doesn't do me a lot of good, but the end-result is still the same: at least some of the hops must have been bad. Old, poorly stored, maybe both. It's not TERRIBLE, drinking it doesn't make you want to vomit, but the fact that the oxidized hops come through right away... it distracts you from anything else.

The FF was definitely one of the culprits; I can't say with surety that the other hops were all perfect. But they WERE all fresh (the 2014 fall crop), and properly stored in their original one-lb vacuum-sealed packages from Yakima Valley hops; I've bought many hops from YVH in the past, with no issues, so let's hope the FF were the only problem ingredients. It's too bad, since it's a highly-used hop in this recipe; odd that the other hops didn't overpower them to some degree. But maybe this should just be a strong lesson - albeit an expensive lesson - on the importance of ingredient freshness.

As for the water chemistry, I don't think the adjustments I made have anything to do with how the beer turned out. Like I said, the chloride and sulfate levels I aimed for worked really well in an APA and IPA that I brewed earlier this year. Since I didn't brew a similar beer with unadjusted water, I can't say for sure, but I definitely feel the hops are mostly, if not solely, to blame.

I won't wax poetic on how bad this turned out any more; it's done... onward and upward. And please don't let my failure deter you from trying to brew this beer. I believe the recipe is still sound, especially since a lot of it came right from MBC. Yes, it's pricey, and yes, it may be unnecessary to add that many hops to one beer. I'm just as skeptical as before that this many hops is necessary; in fact, maybe this beer was too-highly hopped, on a homebrew scale at least, since my technique doesn't exactly mimic the oxygen-free process at the best breweries. All I know is that I brewed an Equinox Session IPA with 4 oz of hops (a fifth of the hops used in this Dinner clone), and it came out smelling and tasting better than a lot of other beers I've brewed, with a lot more hops.

Up until now, I've been really lucky with the beers I've brewed so far in 2015; I've enjoyed all of them till this one. So, please, if anyone reading this decides to brew this recipe, let me know how it turns out for you. I didn't want to just pretend this didn't happen (despite the urge!), especially since Dan Kleban was so helpful in putting the recipe together. I just hope you all have better luck than I did! If that amount of hops and/or the price is scaring you off, maybe try halving the dry-hop additions. And, once again, remember: the importance of hop freshness should not be played down!

*Mistake #1?
**Mistake #2 

Note: No official tasting notes for this beer; the flaws - which I've spoken about at length already - cover up everything else.

Recipe Targets: (4.5 gallons, 72% efficiency) OG 1.073, FG ~1.010, IBU ~90, SRM 4.7, ABV ~8.3%

Grains & Sugars:
4.85 kg (88.2%) Canadian 2-row
275 g (5%) Carapils
100 g (1.8%) Acid malt
275 g (5%) Table sugar (added during boil)

Hops:
Falconer's Flight - 14 g (10.8% AA) @ 30 min
Simcoe - 14 g (12% AA) @ 30 min

Falconer's Flight - 35 g @ 10 min
Simcoe - 35 g @ 10 min

Citra - 28 g (12.3% AA) @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Falconer's Flight - 28 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)
Simcoe - 28 g @ 0 min (with a 15 min hop steep)

Citra - 28 g @ 0 min (when start chilling)
Falconer's Flight - 28 g @ 0 min (when start chilling)
Simcoe - 28 g @ 0 min (when start chilling)

Falconer's Flight - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)
Mosaic - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)
Simcoe - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in primary)

Falconer's Flight - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in keg)
Mosaic - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in keg)
Simcoe - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days (in keg)

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale (1.5 packs, rehydrated)

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Gypsum and 8 g calcium chloride added to mash

Curses!

- Brewed on March 28th/29th, 2015, by myself. 60-minute mash with 16 L of strike water, mashed in at 148.5 F (target 148 F). Sparged with ~4 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~5.75 gallons.

- SG 1.052. 60-minute boil. Added table sugar with 15 min remaining in boil. Flameout hops had a 15-minute steep before turning on the chiller. Final volume a bit high at ~4.75 gallons; OG low at 1.070. Chilled to low-60s F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 100 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast at 64 F.

- Fermentation started off strong by the next morning, and continued for 4-5 days before slowing significantly. FG 1.010.

- 7/4/15 - Added 1st dry hops directly into primary.

- 12/4/15 - Racked beer to CO2-purged dry-hop keg, added 2nd dry hops, and purged again.

- 17/4/15 - Set keg in keezer for two days to cold-crash.

- 19/4/15 - Transferred via CO2 to serving keg and started carbing.

"Baby Zoe" - a Session version of Maine Beer Co. Zoe

It was almost two years ago that I brewed my first Maine Beer Co. clone; it was Zoe, a hoppy Amber ale that was the second beer that the brewery released. I had contacted co-owner/brewer Dan Kleban for help formulating a Zoe recipe; he sent along some useful suggestions, and the resulting beer was excellent. When tasted side-by-side with the commercial beer, I found that the homebrew version actually came out hoppier. I think it's possible that Zoe has become a less-hoppy beer over the years compared to when it was first released, but I could easily be wrong; it could simply be that my tastes have changed.

Either way, I really enjoyed the homebrew version and had always planned on brewing it again. Recently, I decided to revisit it, mainly because I've brewed several really hoppy Amber ales since then that I've loved (such as a Modern Times Blazing World clone, and Meek Celebration, a hoppy Amber I brewed for Christmas a few months ago), and I wanted to see if the Zoe clone could hold its own. But then I had another idea: I've been brewing more and more lower-ABV, hoppy beers lately, and had been planning on doing a "Session Red IPA" of sorts. I love Red IPAs, but they're usually 6-8% ABV (or higher), and the idea of a sessionable one really appealed to me. So... why not brew Zoe to a lower ABV?

This is exactly the same recipe - grist-wise and hopping-wise - as before, except it's all been scaled down to a 4-gallon batch, and to an OG of 1.048. The grist is made up of equal parts 2-row and Maris Otter, with several specialty malts added to give the beer its dark amber color and supporting malt backbone (lots of caramel in this one, and even a bit of chocolate, too). I did raise the mash temp this time; it was 150 F before (at Dan's recommendation), but with the lower OG, I wanted to make sure that the beer had enough body. My experience with low-ABV hoppy beers has led me to always use a mash temp of at least 153 F, which is the target I aimed for with this beer. I also kept the water adjustment the same as last time, with a bit of Gypsum, table salt, and Epsom salt added to adjust to the "San Diego - Hoppy" water profile from The Mad Fermentationist. Not a profile I usually aim to replicate anymore, but it obviously worked well for this beer before, so I decided to use it again.

The hopping schedule I used for Zoe is made up of equal amounts of Centennial, Columbus (CTZ), and Simcoe. Apparently, Simcoe is used as the bittering hop, but this time around I subbed in CTZ, simply because I can't see it making a difference. There's lots of other hop additions for flavor and aroma: two near the end of the boil, one at flameout for a hop steep, and another when I started chilling the wort. A single dry-hop (in primary) for a week or so, and then rack to a keg or bottle. Pretty straight-forward.

The brew day went well; my only real complaint was a slightly low OG due to a little extra volume. Brewing this time of year can be a pain, even with a garage to keep the wind out and the temps from getting TOO low (but come on, it's winter, and the door still has to be open a bit, so it's still damned cold). The one plus is that the ground water temps are so low, it takes barely any time to chill the wort to pitching temp. But yeah, I know, for those of you in California, this sounds like a bit of a stretch... and it is! Jerks.

As before, I fermented the wort with US-05. These low-OG beers usually ferment out pretty quickly, and after 2-3 days of activity in the airlock, things settled down. I dry-hopped the beer directly in primary about a week and a half later (I would normally have racked the beer to my dry-hop keg, but didn't have the time, oddly), then racked to a keg and carbed it up.

I wasn't really sure what to expect from this beer, but I guess I was hoping to have a beer that smelled and tasted as good as the original clone, in spite of the lower ABV. And you know what? That's about how it turned out. For the first few pours, I felt like the beer was good, but not as hoppy as the last time (despite using the same hop varieties, and the same amounts); it actually tasted more like the real Zoe than the last one did! But after a couple of days (probably as the carbonation improved), the beer really opened up. It's the perfect balance of malty (slightly sweet, some caramel and toffee, and just a touch of chocolate) and hoppy (citrusy, fruity, slightly dank). All that and 4.3% ABV? I'll take it.

With these results, there's nothing I would change with the recipe. I suppose I could bump the mash temp up a bit, to 155-156 F, next time, just to see if a bit more body would make the beer even better. If you're a big fan of Zoe, brew the first recipe. If you're a big fan of Zoe but want less alcohol, brew this one. I'm definitely going to continue this experiment, and re-brew the other Red IPAs I mentioned above, but in the sub-5% ABV zone. Cheers!

Recipe Targets: (4 gallons, 80% efficiency) OG 1.048, FG ~1.012, IBU ~50, SRM 11.5, ABV ~4.7%

Grains:
1.25 kg (41.7%) Canadian 2-row
1.25 kg (41.7%) Maris Otter
150 g (5%) Munich
150 g (5%) Victory
75 g (2.5%) Crystal 40 L
75 g (2.5%) Crystal 80 L
45 g (1.5%) Chocolate malt

Hops:
CTZ - 5 g (11.3% AA) @ 60 min
Centennial - 10 g (8% AA) @ 10 min
CTZ -10 g @ 10 min
Simcoe - 10 (11.8% AA) g @ 10 min
Simcoe, Centennial, CTZ - 10 g each @ 5 min
Simcoe, Centennial, CTZ - 14 g each @ flameout, 10-minute hop steep
Simcoe, Centennial, CTZ - 14 g each when started chiller
Simcoe, Centennial, CTZ - 19 g each dry-hop for 5-7 days

Misc: 1/2 tab Irish Moss at 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale, ~3/4 package, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 4 g Gypsum, 3 g table salt, 2 g epsom salt added to the mash

- Brewed on March 6th, 2015, by myself. 50-minute mash with 9 L of strike water, mashed in at 153 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 4 L of boiling water. Sparged with ~3.75 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~5.4 gallons.

- SG low at 1.036 (target 1.037). 60-minute boil. Flameout hops had a 10-minute steep before turning on the chiller. Final volume a bit high at ~4.25 gallons; OG a little low at 1.046. Chilled to low-60s F, then poured into Better Bottle. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast at 64 F.

- Good fermentation after about 24 hours from pitching; took 2-3 days before it started slowing down significantly in the airlock. Temp reached as high as 68 F.

- 15/3/15 - FG 1.013. Added dry-hops directly into primary. Kegged about 7 days later and started carbing.

Appearance: Pours with a moderate-sized, off-white head that eventually fades to a thin film on the beer. Body is a dark amber/light red color, with excellent clarity.

Aroma: Equal balance between fruity hops and caramel malt... sweet, but not too much. A tiny bit of chocolate making its way through, as well as a little hop dankness.

Taste: Sweet caramel and toffee flavors at first, melded with just a hint of chocolate. The fruitiness of the hops comes through very quickly, and finishes with a moderate bitterness. More on the side of dry than sweet.

Mouthfeel: Medium-light bodied, moderate carbonation. 

Overall: Very enjoyable; nice having a "sessionable-Zoe". Nothing wrong with the previous clone at ~7%, but I'll take something that tastes about as good with less alcohol, any time!

Tasting : Maine Beer Co. MO clone

I've probably said this before, but it's often the case that the homebrews you look forward to the most are the ones that let you down. Of course this is inevitable with homebrewing as much as it is with everything else in life - the more you want something to be great, the more you over-analyze it and stress over the shortfalls. I've had a few homebrews where the beer actually came out as good (or even better) than I wanted it to, but usually it's the opposite.

And with this beer, my clone attempt of the fantastic Maine Beer Company MO (an APA), unfortunately it came out below my expectations. I should say right now that this doesn't mean it's a BAD beer... not at all, actually. If I had an APA that looked, smelled and tasted like this, and didn't know what I was drinking, I'd really enjoy it. But MO is just so over-the-top delicious that, unsurprisingly, my clone attempt disappoints me. But hey, I'm not a professional, right?

There's a good amount of hop aroma and flavor to the beer, and it's quite fruity and tropical. I loved the smell of the Falconer's Flight hops when I opened the package, and it seems to have carried over well into the beer. What surprises me is that I was really expecting a HUGE hop punch... with 6 oz combined of Falconer's Flight and Simcoe at flameout, and then two dry-hop additions of 2.5 oz each time... maybe there IS a limit to what late-addition hops can offer . IS there a ceiling-effect?

Or, was my method flawed? The recipe certainly isn't saturated with specialty grains. With only ~7% of the grist being Crystal malt (half of that Carapils), I'm also surprised at an odd caramel-flavor in the beer. Fermentation was fast and clean, and I've never had issues with US-05 in the past. It's supposed to be a clean, neutral yeast, and that's always been my experience with it.

As an extra disappointment, this was my very first kegged beer, so I was REALLY hoping for a huge hop punch, what with all the CO2 blanketing and such! For my next hoppy beer, I'll definitely try keg-hopping. With this beer, I transferred to a secondary carboy, because I hadn't yet received my kegging system; maybe the transferring actually caused some early oxidation of the hops?

Ok, enough speculating. The beer is very good, if you want to try the recipe. Do what you can to avoid oxygen exposure after fermentation has begun. Make sure your hops are as fresh and well-stored as possible... the usual stuff. And let me know how it turns out for you.

Note: I should mention that a friend who lives in Freeport, ME was nice enough to mail me two bottles of MO. I had full intentions of doing a side-by-side of the two beers, but both bottles of MO were 5 weeks old, and were not a good representation of what MO should taste like. Ironically, they had a huge caramel sweetness to them; kind of oxidized, too. Too old, or maybe something to do with shipping issues? Either way, it wouldn't have been fair to compare the two, so I decided against it.

Appearance: Pours with a thick, moderate-large white head that has excellent retention. Finally fades to 1/2-finger. Body is a burnished gold color, with fairly good clarity (some haze).

Aroma: A strong tropical fruit hop character, mixed with a bit of pine and a larger-than-expected caramel presence.

Taste: As the aroma... lots of hops, but the caramel/sweetness part of it doesn’t seem to really fit. Not really sure where that’s coming from; their certainly isn’t a large amount of Crystal in the recipe. Finishes with a very firm, moderate-high bitterness; quite dry.

Mouthfeel: Medium-low carbonation, medium-bodied.

Overall: A pretty good APA... but definitely no MO when it's at its freshest. With the large amounts of hops added, I’m surprised the beer isn’t hoppier, and the caramelish part of it throws me off every time. Needs work if it wants to approach the real thing.

Brewing a Maine Beer Company MO clone (No. 4 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

While I've been brewing clone recipes left, right and center the last year, it's been quite a while (about 8 months) since I last brewed one for my Maine Beer Clone series. It's not that I ran out of ideas of beers from Maine to try to clone; on the contrary, it seems that every time I go back to Portland, I discover a new Maine beer/brewery that really impresses me. That being said, now that I'm taking the time to brew another entry in the series, I just can't help but attempt another beer from my favorite Maine brewery, Maine Beer Company.

Back in May, I brewed my first beer from MBC, a clone attempt of Zoe, their excellent hoppy American Amber Ale. I put together the recipe based on notes from their website, tasting experience on my part, and some help from brewer/owner Dan Kleban. I was very happy with how the beer came out; it's still up there with some of the best beers I've brewed. I've always been a big fan of Zoe, but now that MBC has a larger selection of beers, it takes a back seat to a couple of their other products.

I'd have to say my all-time-favorite beer from MBC is MO, an American Pale Ale that comes in at 6% ABV. I'd even go so far as to say it may be my current favorite APA of all the ones I've tried so far. If you think their Peeper is a fresh, hoppy beer, you'll be blown away by MO - it's a super-hoppy, delicious beer that you could drink pint after pint. Here's the more-eloquent description by the brewery:

"Flavors and aromas of zesty citrus, passionfruit, and pine present themselves throughout. A very subtle malt sweetness for balance, but this is intended to finish dry." 

Photo courtesy of Letspour.com

I've wanted to try to brew something along the lines of MO for awhile now. When I looked at the ingredients for the beer (MBC lists these for each of their beers on their website), the grist looked completely doable; it consists of "American 2-row, Carapils, Caramel 40 L, and Red Wheat". However, when I looked at the hops, one of them stood out as unrecognizable to me - the hops listed are Warrior, Falconer's Flight, and Simcoe. Any guess as to which one I didn't recognize?

Looking into it a little more, Falconer's Flight has only been around commercially for a few years. Developed by Hopunion, FF is a high-alpha acid aroma hop described as having an aroma of "distinct tropical, floral, lemon and grapefruit characteristics". Apparently it's actually a blend of hops from the Pacific Northwest, including experimental hops. Does this mean that what you buy as FF hops will differ from year to year? Not sure, but it sounds interesting, if a little inconsistent. Either way, I know they work fantastic in MO, and I finally bought a half pound of them, specifically for use in brewing this beer.

Ok, so, finally time to approach how to put the recipe together for this beer. As with the Zoe clone, I took the ingredients that I knew were in the beer, and plugged them into my brewing software (Beersmith), playing around with the percentages and such until it "looked right". In this case, my main concern was the hopping... obviously, Warrior was most-likely to be used for bittering. I knew that it probably wasn't a large amount at that; I've seen a homebrew Peeper recipe from Dan Kleban that is extremely detailed, and he said then that half the IBUs for that beer were from the flameout addition. I assume this would apply to MO, and maybe even more so. The IBUs for MO aren't listed on the MBC website, but with a 6% beer that isn't painfully bitter to me, I assumed about 60. Therefore, I initially went with a small addition of Magnum at the beginning of the boil, to about 30 IBUs.

As for the aroma and flavor hops, I knew they were FF and Simcoe, but how much of each? Equal amounts? Or is it more FF, or more Simcoe? For the Simcoe, Centennial and CTZ of Zoe, I went with equal amounts, but I really wasn't sure this time if it would work as well for a MO clone. So, I ASSUMED equal amounts for the recipe, going with a flavor addition at 10 and 5 minutes, and then a big flameout and dry-hop addition.

I then took this recipe and emailed Dan Kleban again, as I did for the Zoe clone. This is what I told him I'd probably be going with:

"~88% 2-row, 5% wheat malt, 3.5% each Carapils and Crystal 40 L. Mash in the high 140s. 60-minute boil, Warrior at the beginning to about 30 IBUs, then equal amounts Falconer's Flight and Simcoe at 10 and 5 minutes to bring the IBUs to a total of ~60. Lots of equal amounts of FF and Simcoe at flameout for a hop-steep, then lots in the dry-hop (maybe even a 2-stage DH). Ferment with a neutral American strain at ~68 F. Not sure if you use equal amounts of FF and Simcoe, or if one is higher than the other...?"

I waited for a few weeks for a response, and then shamelessly emailed him again, swearing to myself I wouldn't bug the poor man; if he didn't reply, I'd just go with it as-is. He did respond, however, with the following:

"Hey, Shawn - Grain looks good.  I would stick to equal amounts FF and Sim. Also, way less IBU from Warrior and more from late hop additions (don’t forget, you get isomerization at whirlpool too)."

The obligatory hop photo shoot

As with the Zoe clone, basically very few changes to make. From his advice, I decided to decrease the 60-minute hop addition in half to ~15 IBUs (I also had to sub Magnum for Warrior based on what I had on-hand). I also dropped the 5-minute addition and bumped the flameout hops even more. The calculated IBUs come to 43, but with the large flameout addition, it should be closer to my target of ~60. In the end, I'll be using 13 oz of flavor/aroma hops in this beer... quite a lot for an APA. But, I know that Peeper calls for a lot of hops, and MO is definitely hoppier than Peeper, so I don't think I'm overdoing it.

A word about the grist for this recipe. I aimed for an OG of 1.057, even though MBC lists their OG for MO at 1.051. I discussed this in the post for the Zoe clone; MBC obviously has crazy-high attenuation to be able to get a 6% ABV beer with an OG of 1.051... that would put their FG at about 1.005. That ain't gonna happen for me, even with using US-05 Safale for my yeast, and mashing low (about 148 F). I'd be happy seeing a beer of this size finishing at about 1.010-1.011, so 1.057 would put me in the range of 6% ABV. Your system may be different than mine, so adjust accordingly. I also added a bit of acid malt to drop the mash pH, as I've been doing lately for pale beers.

I unfortunately don't have any plans to be in Portland in the near future, but I'm hoping I'll somehow be able to get a bottle of fresh MO to compare to this beer when it's ALSO fresh.  

Recipe targets: (5.5 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.057, FG ~1.011, IBU ~43 (calculated), SRM 6, ABV ~6%

Grains:
4.54 kg (86.1%) Canadian 2-row
254 g (4.8%) Wheat malt
191 g (3.6%) Carapils
191 g (3.6%) Crystal 40 L
100 g (1.9%) Acid malt

Hops:
Magnum - 11 g (10.8% AA) @ 60 min
Falconer's Flight - 28 g (10% AA) @ 10 min
Simcoe - 28 g (12% AA) @ 10 min
FF, Simcoe - 42 g each @ flameout, 20-minute hop steep
FF, Simcoe - 42 g each when started chiller
FF, Simcoe - 35 g each dry-hop for 4 days
FF, Simcoe - 35 g each dry-hop for 3 more days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: US-05, 1 package, re-hydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 7 g Gypsum added to the mash

- Brewed on January 7th, 2014, by myself. 60-minute mash with 17.5 L of strike water, mashed in at target temp of 148 F. Sparged with ~4.75 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~6.75 gallons.

- SG 1.045, a bit below target of 1.047. 60-minute boil. Final volume 5.5 gallons. Chilled down to 62 F, then poured/filtered (lots of hop sludge) into Better Bottle. OG low at 1.055. Aerated with 75 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast. Placed BB in laundry room, ambient temp about 68 F.

- 8/1/14 - 11/1/14 - Lots of activity over the first few days, temp rising from 64 F to 70 F over 4 days. By the 11th, activity had pretty much stopped in the airlock.

- 13/1/14 - Gravity reading of 1.010.

- 19/1/14 - Racked to secondary, added first dry-hops.

- 22/1/14 - Second dry-hop addition.

- 26/1/14 - After cold-crashing in beer-freezer for one day, bottled about 1 gallon with 25 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 with max temp of 70 F reached. Racked the rest into a keg, purged with CO2, and set at 14 PSI (set in cellar, temp 46 F).

- 25/2/14 - Tasting notes... despite being a very tasty APA, the beer isn't near as hoppy or tasty as the real thing. Dang.

Tasting : Maine Beer Co. Zoe clone vs. Zoe

Ok, here we are about 7 weeks after brewing this Maine Beer Co. Zoe clone, and the beer has been bottled about 4 weeks. I was lucky enough to snag a couple of bottles on a recent trip to Portland, ME (straight from the source, at Maine Beer Co.'s new brewery in Freeport), so that I could do a direct comparison. This was done last week, when both the clone and the commercial beer were about 3 weeks bottled. I didn't hit my target FG (which doesn't surprise me; MBC has some crazy attenuation going on, according to their numbers!), so my beer is about 0.4% lower in alcohol than the commercial one.

I started drinking the clone about one week after bottling, and carbonation was already in the right zone. I have to say, I was really impressed with how it came out. I've had Zoe probably 8-10 times now, and without comparing directly, I felt that not only was the clone an excellent hoppy Amber, but it was quite close to the real thing. However, I had one main caveat, based on a couple of Zoes I had drank a few months ago...

At that time, I had two bottles of Zoe. One was only 7 days old, and the other was a month old. The 7-day-old Zoe was very tasty, but it had a fairly-prominent chocolate/rich malt character in both the aroma and flavor that I didn't remember from other Zoes. When I cracked the 1-month-old bottle, oddly enough it struck me as HOPPIER. It's not that it was FRESHER; it was just that the hops were more prominent in the aroma and flavor compared to the younger Zoe. Not sure if this was due to batch variation? Maybe once Zoe ages for a little bit, the hops take over? Not what I would expect in a hoppy beer, but Ambers ARE different from IPAs in that they have a more complicated malt profile, generally.

So, getting on to the actual comparison. I didn't take any official notes, but jotted down the important things. Basically, it was damned close. The two beers looked EXACTLY alike. Held to the light, whatever, there's no way you could tell them apart. Deep red color, very good clarity, moderate-sized white head that held at about 1/2-finger, leaving some nice lacing on the glass. As for the aroma and flavor, they were really close, but the commercial version again had a stronger chocolate presence, which kind of hid the hops a bit. My beer was still slightly sweet and malty, but more in a bready way. The hops come through great - fruity, slightly dank and piney. Very delicious. Mouthfeel for both beers was about very similar: medium-bodied, medium carbonation.

I'd say the beer I brewed is ~95% cloned (I know you can't really measure that in a number!), at least when compared to the Zoe I'm more used to. I wish I had had some on tap at the tasting room at MBC in Freeport, but I stuck with their two Pilot beers (which were amazing, by the way). If you wanted to get this beer closer to the more-malt-forward Zoe, I guess you could increase the Chocolate malt slightly, but I'd be worried the beer would get darker, and maybe more roasty as well.

Regardless, I'm extremely happy with the beer as-is. Attempting to clone a beer is a lot of fun, but in the end, if you get a really delicious beer in the style, it's a good thing, right? I've now found an American Amber recipe that I'll be sure to re-visit in the future!

Brewing a Maine Beer Company Zoe clone (No. 3 in the Maine Beer Clone series)

 

When deciding on the third clone for this, my "Maine Beer Clone series" (previous entries were Oxbow's Freestyle #5 and Rising Tide's Daymark), I continued to have a lot of options. Sorry to beat a dead horse by saying that Maine has a lot of awesome breweries, but it's the truth. Despite all this, however, picking what was next was actually very easy... in fact, I would have done this beer even earlier, but I wanted to wait until I thought I had enough info to take a real shot at it. The brewery is Maine Beer Company, and the beer is Zoe, an American Amber Ale in the U.S. West Coast sense - bigger and hoppier than your "typical" Amber.

When I took my first beer-trip to Portland, ME in June of 2009, Maine Beer Company had basically just started as a professional brewery. Started by brothers Daniel and David Kleban, they only had one beer at the time, an American Pale Ale called Spring Peeper. This was actually the first Maine beer I had on this trip, and I was blown away by it. It was, and still is, one of the best APAs I've ever had... super-hoppy in a very citrusy way, bitter but not overly-so, with a supporting malt background. This beer is still available; the name has just been shortened to "Peeper". Since then, every beer that they have released has been awesome, in my opinion... and a lot of other beer drinkers would agree with me. MBC has grown quite a bit since 2009, and they just moved to larger headquarters in Freeport.

The second beer that MBC released was their self-described, "Happy, Hoppy Amber", named Zoe after the daughter of one of the Klebans. At 7.2%, the beer pours a dark red color, has a really nice caramel malt background (with a touch of chocolate), and a pretty large hop presence, citrusy and piney. A delicious beer. I've had a lot of the "bigger" Ambers over the past few years, and Zoe is still probably my favorite of them all. Like I said, I love all of the MBC beers I've tried, and would be happy trying to clone any of them... but I haven't brewed an Amber in a while, and Zoe is the perfect one to try.

I had actually emailed MBC a couple of years ago about help with a Zoe clone, but the only reply I received directed me to the info on their website. The site DOES actually say what the starting gravity is, and what malts and hops they use... enough to start with, but I wanted a bit more, if possible. About 6 months ago, however, I stumbled upon a clone recipe for Peeper on one of the homebrew forums online. Obtained from Dan Kleban, it was very detailed. It was noted that the recipe was given to the homebrewer back when MBC was just getting started, and that it was more difficult to get this much info out of the brewers now. So, I sent a direct message to the person who had posted it, and he sent along the email address that Dan had replied from.

Knowing that emailing a brewer and just saying, "Give me the recipe for your beer, please" is not the way to go about it, I emailed Dan and told him what I was thinking for the recipe. Here's what I originally came up with:

"~42% each 2-row and Marris Otter, 5% each Victory and Munich, 2.5% each Crystal 40 and 80, and maybe 1-2% Chocolate malt. Mash 152 F. Columbus for bittering, Centennial and Simcoe @10 min, lots in the whirlpool, and a good dry-hop of each as well. Maybe 65 IBUs? Ferment with a neutral American Ale yeast at about 68 F."

Now, as I mentioned, I had the list of ingredients from the MBC website. I based the amounts on the Peeper description and the corresponding clone recipe online... basically, they seem to list their grains in decreasing amounts. I knew that Zoe has a touch of chocolate flavor, but nothing severe, so I figured the Chocolate malt was more just to darken the color of the beer a bit. I guessed on the hop combinations and "amounts", but knew (again, from the Peeper recipe) that Dan does large flameout additions; Zoe may not be as hoppy as Peeper, but it can be pretty darn close. Also, Zoe is bitter but not super-bitter, so I thought ~65 IBUs was a fair guess.

I waited for awhile and never heard back. I sent the email a second time, about a month later, just in case, but still never got a reply. Then, about a month ago, I sent a message to MBC through their Facebook site, and they gave me Dan's email... which was different from the one I had been using! Whoopsie. I emailed the new address, and Dan replied almost right away:

"You are remarkably close. Mash a little cooler, 150. Simcoe bittering. Keep Columbus in the late hop additions and DH."

Ok, maybe not as much info as the Peeper recipe, but hey, I had something to work with now!

So, I basically had the grist decided, since Dan didn't suggest any changes there. When developing the hopping schedule, I kept it fairly simple. I went with a bittering charge at 60 minutes of Simcoe (despite my reservations, using a valuable hop like Simcoe for bittering!) to ~36 IBUs... the rest of the bitterness would be from late additions. Originally I had planned on one flavor addition, and a whirlpool addition for a hop steep, but I decided to go with 1/2 oz each of Simcoe, Centennial and Columbus at both 10 and 5 minutes. I really have no idea if MBC uses equal amounts of these hops for flavor and aroma, but I know that they DO use equal amounts of late-addition hops for Peeper, so I chose to follow this lead. Two large flameout additions of all three (one AT flameout for a 10-minute hop steep, the other when I turned on the chiller), and a decent-sized dry-hop to finish off.

Not much left to deal with, here. I DID make a couple of water adjustments. I have no idea what the Portland, ME water analysis looks like, and I didn't bother trying to figure it out, since I would have to find out exactly what MBC does to their water (if anything) when brewing. However, Mike Tonsmeire of The Mad Fermentationist provided a water profile he calls "San Diego - Hoppy" on his blog, from when he was helping Modern Times develop recipes for their year-round beers. A hoppy Amber was one of the beers that Mike helped develop, and I really liked the look of the water profile, so I adjusted my water to meet those targets (basically, increasing calcium, chloride, sodium, and sulfate to moderate levels).

In terms of yeast, "neutral American Ale yeast" means, for us homebrewers, anyway, either Wyeast 1056 American Ale, White Labs WLP001, or US-05 for dry yeast. I suspect that MBC uses a strain with better attenuation than any of these yeast strains, mainly because of the numbers listed on their website. For example:

Peeper: OG 1.047, ABV 5.5%... so, the FG would have to be ~1.005, which is 90% apparent attenuation
Zoe: OG 1.064, ABV 7.2%... FG must be ~1.009; 86% average attenuation

Their other hoppy beers follow along these lines. However, Wyeast 1056 lists an attenuation as between 73 and 77%, which is a lot lower than upper 80s. I personally would have preferred to use 1056 here, but the pack my LHBS had was over two months old and would have required a two-step starter to get the yeast numbers I needed, so I ended up using about 1.5 packs of US-05, rehydrated. I've never had attenuation with US-05 approach 86%, so I really doubt I'll get this beer down to 1.009. We'll see.

This brew marked the first time in a while that I have purchased new equipment. I finally broke down and made a move into wort aeration that doesn't simply involve shaking the carboy. Williams Brewing, an online home oxygen aeration system for sale that's pretty cool - it's simply a stainless steel aeration stone, some tubing, and an oxygen regulator that you hook up to one of those small oxygen tanks that you can buy at hardware stores. However, it's a sure-fire way to get the required amount of oxygen into your wort... shaking can only add so much, and this becomes more of an issue with higher-gravity beers. I plan on posting about wort aeration in the near future, so more on that later.

With a trip to Portland planned (hopefully) for next month, it should be pretty easy for me to find another bottle of Zoe to take back to compare to my beer; this is great, considering the beers I've been trying to clone lately that aren't available nearby at all. I really like this style of beer, so I'm hoping to make tweaks to the recipe over time until it's close to the real thing.

Thanks to Dan Kleban for his help with formulating the recipe!

Recipe targets: (6 gallons, 72% efficiency) OG 1.064, FG ~1.009, IBU 66, SRM 15, ABV ~7.2%

Grains:
2.77 kg (41.75%) Canadian 2-row
2.77 kg (41.75%) Maris Otter
372 g (5%) Munich
372 g (5%) Victory
168 g (2.5%) Crystal 40 L
168 g (2.5%) Crystal 80 L
100 g (1.5%) Chocolate malt

Hops:
Simcoe - 28 g (12.9% AA) @ 60 min
Simcoe - 14 g @ 10 min
Centennial - 14 g (9.9% AA) @ 10 min
Columbus -14 g (14.5% AA) @ 10 min
Simcoe, Centennial, Columbus - 14 g each @ 5 min
Simcoe, Centennial, Columbus - 21 g each @ flameout, 10-minute whirlpool
Simcoe, Centennial, Columbus - 21 g each when started chiller
Simcoe, Centennial, Columbus - 28 g each dry-hop for 7 days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: US-05, 1&1/2 packages, re-hydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Epsom Salt, 4 g table salt, 6 g Gypsum divided between the mash and sparge water

- Brewed on May 5th, 2013, by myself. 60-minute mash with 20.5 L of strike water, mashed in a bit high at  151 F. Sparged with ~4.75 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~7.25 gallons in the kettle.

- SG a touch low at 1.051 (target 1.052). 60-minute boil. Chilled to 65 F in about 20 minutes with immersion chiller. Poured ~5 gallons into Better Bottle. OG 1.063. Aerated wort with 60 seconds of pure O2. Pitched yeast and set BB in laundry room sink, ambient temp about 68 F.

6/5/13 - In AM, airlock bubbling q 2 seconds or so, temp 64 F. By PM, temp had increased to 68 F, and airlock was bubbling every second.

7/5/13 - In AM, activity has increased, airlock bubbling probably twice per second; temp had increased to 72 F. By PM, starting to slow down at every second, temp still at 72 F.

8/5/13 - Steadily slowing throughout the day, bubbling every 5 seconds by the evening, temp dropped a bit to 70 F.

23/5/13 - Added dry hops into primary.

30/5/13 - FG 1.013. Bottled with 120 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 with a max temp of 72 F reached.

25/6/13 - Tasting notes from a week ago, compared to the real Zoe... came out really great, very similar to Zoe.