Tasting : Hoppily Ever After (Russian River Row 2, Hill 56 clone)

Well, my brother's wedding went off without a hitch (ha ha, I'm awesome)... great weather, great people, no one got jilted, and most importantly, the beer was a hit! I had high hopes for this Russian River Row 2, Hill 56 clone, an all-Simcoe American Pale Ale, and I wasn't disappointed. More importantly, neither was the groom or his guests.

Things really worked out well for this beer. The brew day and subsequent fermentation went smoothly - the only aspect that was off was the higher-than-expected efficiency, resulting in an OG of 1.061 (5-6 points above target), but the beer still fermented fine. I then bottled the beer a little over two weeks before the wedding, which gave it plenty of time to carbonate (always easier this time of year), but still allowed it to be consumed very fresh during the festivities.

And it really came out tasty. As I stated in my original post, I was a little skeptical as to how hoppy a beer would be with only 3 oz of hop additions for aroma and flavor (1 oz at flameout, 2 oz dry-hop), but had read a lot of positive feedback on this beer from others who had brewed the recipe. I'm really starting to think that crazy-high hop additions at flameout and for the dry-hop may not be completely necessary, especially if you're using as-fresh-as-possible hops. For this beer, all of the Simcoe I had was this year's crop, so I'm sure that made a difference.

More research is needed, however... which I'm happy to dive into. In the meantime, you can add my name to the long list of homebrewers recommending this recipe. Hoppy, delicious, highly drinkable... and VERY approachable as a craft beer for any population. Brew it!

Appearance: Poured with a moderate-sized white head that fades fairly quickly to a thin film on the beer. Body is a dark gold color, approaching amber/light copper, with good clarity (despite the picture shown above).

Aroma: Big fruity hop aroma, with a bit of pine... but surprisingly, the fruit is way ahead. A bit of malt sweetness in there, with the grainy pils character slightly noticeable. No flaws.

Taste: Again, the hops are the dominant flavor, but are backed up nicely by the slightly grainy and sweet malt character. Finishes fairly dry with a medium bitterness.

Mouthfeel: Light-bodied, possibly medium-light; moderate carbonation.

Overall: A very tasty beer. Great hop character; the Simcoe definitely comes through with a mostly fruity presence. I really like what the malt bill adds to the beer as well, very supportive for an APA, without overbearing the hops. Quite drinkable, and a nice beer for beer geeks and non-beer geeks alike.

Brewing a Russian River Row 2, Hill 56 clone

Ah, summer. The season of warmer weather, vacations, and of course, beer! Also, fortunately or not, weddings. And next month, my older brother Geoff is getting married. I'm in the wedding party, but luckily I'm not responsible for making any speeches or really doing much of anything, other than standing there and looking pretty. There IS a big party the night before the wedding, however, and I was happy to volunteer to make a batch of beer to go with it.

Like me, Geoff is a big beer fan. He's not into homebrewing, but still loves trying new beers. Also like me, his favorite beers are hoppy ones, especially American Pale Ales and IPAs. I gave him some options of beers that I could brew for the party, and we both decided to settle on an APA - it's always a great style, because if you brew it right, beer geeks can love it, but it can also be fairly accessible for people who aren't necessarily into beer. Think of a hoppy Pale Ale, but not an overly bitter one. There's tons of APA recipes out there, and I have a lot of hops on hand that it would have been pretty easy to throw together a new recipe of my own, but I wanted to brew something that was tried and true, since the opinion of many beer drinkers was weighing on it. After doing a big of digging, I came back to a recipe I had come across a few months ago, a clone of a fairly new APA by Russian River Brewing Company.

The beer is called Row 2, Hill 56. Kind of an odd name for a beer at first glance, but when you read into it a bit, it makes perfect sense. The beer is brewed with 100% Simcoe hops; Row 2, Hill 56 is the location in an experimental hop yard in Yakima, WA, where Simcoe was first created. Now, anyone who is a fan of hoppy beers has experienced Simcoe. Released back in 2000, it's a dual-purpose hop that is mainly used for flavor and aroma purposes, as it gives a very unique profile of both citrus and pine. Russian River uses it in a lot of their hoppy beers (it's very prevalent in Pliny the Elder), as do a lot of breweries and homebrewers.

You don't need me to tell you any more about Simcoe; pretty much anyone reading this is already bored. The clone recipe for this beer was originally posted here, on the popular HomeBrewTalk forum. The recipe and beer stuck out for many reasons: I'm a big fan of Simcoe, but have never brewed a beer using it all on its own; a mid-5% ABV beer with ~40 IBUs sounded perfect - not too high to be accessible only to beer geeks or hop heads; and the recipe appears to have been brewed by many people that stand by its deliciousness. Perfect! Let's get started.

As far as APA grain bills go, this one struck me as a little odd, strictly because the majority of it is made up of Pilsner malt. Most APA recipes incorporate 2-row as the base malt; I'm not sure how much of a noticeable difference there is using Pilsner, but after brewing this recipe, several homebrewers commented on how much they enjoyed the malt bill, so I'm more than willing to give it a shot. There's also a good amount of Pale Malt used (I had Maris Otter on hand); the rest is a fairly small proportion of light Crystal (15 L and Carapils). The mash is performed at a fairly high sacc rest, 154 F, I'm assuming to provide the beer with some body, due to the light use of specialty grains and lower gravity (compared to IPAs, anyway).

Now, look at that hopping schedule below. I will admit, I was hesitant at first. I've brewed a lot of hoppy beers over the past few years, including some APAs with 3/4 lb of hops (or more) per 5 gallon batch. This recipe calls for a comparably scant amount of ~4 oz for a 6 gallon batch; luckily, the majority is used at flameout and for the dry-hop, but 1 oz at FO and 2 oz for the dry-hop is still low when you look at a lot of other APA recipes out there. That being said, I've questioned in previous posts whether there may be a ceiling effect when it comes to hop aroma/flavor; of course we all know there is for perceived bitterness, but what about the aspects that count? I think this will be a good test of that, and again, this recipe has received rave reviews, so I'm more than happy following it as-is, before tweaking it.

The wort is fermented with a neutral American strain (as usual for me lately, US-05) in the high-60s F. For water treatment, I chose not to go too heavy on anything - I didn't add any acid malt to the grain bill to fiddle with mash pH this time. I DID add a very small amount of gypsum and calcium chloride, but that's it. I won't be kegging this beer, unfortunately; the wedding is in our home province of Prince Edward Island, and I likely won't have the room to take a keg and 10 lb CO2 tank with me, so bottles it is!

A lot of Geoff's friends are beer drinkers, so unlike all of my other homebrews, I don't expect I'll get to really consume much of this batch. However, I'll be sure to set a bottle aside to do an official tasting, to post on the blog. Look for that sometime next month!

Recipe targets: (6 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.056, FG ~1.014, IBU 41, SRM 5, ABV ~5.6%

Grains & Sugars:
3.325 kg (60.5%) Pilsner malt
1.782 kg (32.4%) Maris Otter
225 g (4.1%) Crystal 15 L
165 g (3%) Carapils

Hops:

Simcoe - 14 g (12.4% AA) @ 60 min

Simcoe - 15 g @ 30 min

Simcoe - 28 g @ 0 (with a 5-minute steep)

Simcoe - 56 g dry-hop for 5 days

Misc.: 1/2 tab Irish moss @ 5 min

Yeast: US-05 Safale, 1 package, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 3 g Gypsum and 2 g calcium chloride added to the mash

  - Brewed on June 10th, 2014, by myself. 50-minute mash with 15 L of strike water, mashed in at 153.5 F, slightly below target temp of 154 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 6.5 L of boiling water. Sparged with ~4 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~7.75 gallons.

- SG a bit high at 1.046 (target 1.044). 60-minute boil. Added flameout hops for a 5-minute steep, then turned on chiller. Final volume ~6 gallons. Chilled down to 66 F, then poured into Better Bottle. Gravity quite above target at 1.061. Aerated with 60 seconds of pure O2, pitched rehydrated yeast. Placed BB in room with ambient temp at 68 F.

- Over the next few days, fermentation gradually got going until reaching maximum activity in the airlock, bubbling every second, with the temperature getting as high as 72 F (warmer temps made it a bit tricky to keep it down to 68 F). The activity and krausen eventually settled after about a week.

- 24/6/14 - Gravity reading of 1.014, right on target. Added dry-hops directly into primary.

- 2/7/14 - Bottled with 115 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 for 5 gallons, with a max temp of 72 F reached.

- 30/7/14 - Tasting notes up... a delicious beer. Lots of hop presence with low bitterness; a fantastic beer to introduce non-beer drinkers to hoppy craft beers.

Tasting : Russian River Pliny the Younger clone

Well, I'm finally posting a review of my clone attempt of one of the most highly-rated, sought-after beers on the planet. And I approach the keyboard with my tail tucked between my legs... it's a disappointment. One of my most-disappointing attempts at homebrewing I've made in a long while.

Sure, we're all our own worst critics. But this isn't a case of false modesty, here. No, I've never had the real Pliny the Younger, and I probably never will. But I know that a DIPA with that many hops isn't supposed to taste like this! I read the detailed tasting notes over at Bertus Brewery, where I got the recipe from (only a few very minor changes were made on my end). Scott describes his clone as having a huge hop aroma and flavor, and I didn't get that with my beer. Not to say the beer isn't hoppy; it is. But with THAT many hops, even with a beer as high as 9.7% ABV, I would expect the hops to come through more.

So, what went wrong? I'm pretty much flabbergasted. The brew day went well. I pitched two rehydrated packs of US-05, more than necessary for this beer. I aerated with pure oxygen, for 90 seconds... and then aerated AGAIN 18 hours later (at the recommendation of several sources when brewing bigger beers). The beer fermented out well, getting down to my target FG of 1.010. And it fermented under controlled temperatures, starting at 64 F in my fermentation chamber, with gradual increases over the week to 68 F.

As for the hopping... well, I transferred to secondary and made four dry-hop additions every 4 days. As mentioned in the original post, this would be more ideal if I had a way of purging the secondary headspace with CO2, which I wasn't able to do. However, I used this same approach (albeit every 3 days) for my Kern River Citra DIPA clone, and it turned out great.

So, in a nutshell... the beer isn't hoppy enough at all, considering the amount of hops added to it. Luckily, it doesn't really TASTE like hot alcohol; the 9.7% is actually hidden pretty well in the flavor. I don't want to discourage anyone from brewing the recipe, however... I think it should really turn out great. If you keg, and can thus dry-hop in the keg and purge with CO2, I think you should have a real winner of a DIPA on your hands.

Hopefully.

Appearance: Pours with a medium-sized, off-white head that's fairly thick and fluffy... eventually fades to 1/2-finger. Body is dark golden in color, with surprisingly very good clarity.

Aroma: Citrusy and piney hops. Maybe not as strong as I would have thought, but a bit of time has helped them come through. There's a bit of alcohol in there, too, but the hops dominate.

Taste: The hops come through, flavor-wise, both citrusy and piney, but again, maybe not as much as I expected. A bit of sweetness, surprisingly, but ultimately the beer finishes quite dry and strongly bitter. 

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, with moderate carbonation. Some alcohol warmth, but it's not hot or solvent-like.

Overall: In the end, not nearly as hoppy as I was expecting. The hops are there, and it's a nice beer, but I wanted more from it. Sneakily drinkable at 9.7% ABV... but I'm disappointed.

Side-note: Just thought I should also include that several people (beer geeks) have tried this beer and really enjoyed it... re-reading the post, I come across as a little harsh. It IS a good DIPA, but like I said before, when you add that many hops, I just feel like they should have come across more than they are.

Brewing a Russian River Pliny the Younger clone

When I brewed the Russian River Blind Pig clone last month, I already had the next couple of beers planned out. While I've actually had Blind Pig several times, I decided to brew another Russian River clone - this time, one of the biggest white-whale beers out there, Pliny the Younger. Now, Pliny the Elder is the brewery's regular-release Double IPA (DIPA); it's not exactly wide-release, by any means, at least in terms of distribution, but if you're somewhere in the West Coast U.S., chances are you'll find Elder on tap or in bottles, somewhere. And it's a fantastic beer, pretty much deserving all the accolades it has received over the years (and there's been a lot of them). I actually brewed the widely-available clone recipe (straight from Vinnie Cilurzo, owner/brewer at Russian River) a couple of years ago, and it came out pretty fantastic.

Pliny the Younger, however, is a DIPA that the brewery releases once every year, on the first Friday in February. It's not available in bottles, and you can't get growler fills of it - it's only available on tap, and usually only at the brewery (a keg or two will pop up at some choice beer bars in the country, but that's it). People line up on the release day at extremely early hours to try the beer, where it's available for two weeks only.

Unfortunately, I'm not lucky enough to have been able to make a trip out to California just for a beer release. Maybe some day, but that just ain't gonna happen for awhile. All I can do is read about the beer; it's supposed to be pretty fantastic, of course - high theoretical bitterness, high alcohol (10.5% ABV) yet alarmingly drinkable, with a huge hop presence. Basically, Pliny the Elder times two... or more. Younger has actually been called a "Triple IPA" by some (including those at the brewery), but let's not even start trying to divide DIPAs into Triple and higher categories... Double or Imperial IPA is fine by me.

So, there's a lot of clone recipe attempts floating around the internet, put together by speculation, tastings, and interviews with Vinnie where he's mentioned this or that about what they do at the brewery. The best I've seen is from a homebrewing blog called Bertus Brewery, run by a guy from Arizona named Scott. Scott does a lot of IPA/DIPA clones, and seems to have a lot of success with them (the blog is really well-written, too; I suggest you check it out if you haven't already). Scott put a lot of work into his Younger clone, and claims to have come quite close on his second attempt. This is the recipe I used, and other than a few changes noted below, I followed it pretty much exactly. So, any luck I have with this will be mostly attributed to Scott's work... ditto for any failure! <shakes fist in general direction of Arizona>

That's a lotta grain...

Ok, so let's get to the recipe. First, the grist. Similar to the Pliny the Elder clone recipes that are available, it's pretty simple: a large amount of 2-row, and some Crystal 40 L and Carapils - not a lot, though, which is typical for Vinnie's opinions on Crystal malts in DIPAs. He feels that the best DIPAs are the ones that aren't overly sweet and underattenuated... and I agree. I prefer my DIPAs quite dry; when they get sweet, they're starting to border American Barleywines. There's also a good amount of table sugar in the recipe. In Scott's recipe, he went with 1 lb, but later thought that a bit more to increase the attenuation would be a better idea; so, I went with the higher end of his recommendation, 1.5 lbs. As I normally do with sugar additions, I boiled the sugar in some water to make a syrup, and added it to the fermentor when fermentation began to slow down. I like to do this to make sure the yeast chew threw the maltose and maltotriose, before they get their "dessert", the more-easily-fermented sucrose. It also means that your starting gravity is lower, so you don't have to pitch as much yeast.

For the mash, Scott did a 75-minute rest at a very-low 145 F, to really increase the amount of sugars that would be easily-fermentable by the yeast; he then followed-up with a 10-minute rest at 155 F. I went with this approach (albeit at a slightly-less 145 F, for 60 minutes), but if you wanted to skip the 10 minutes at 155 F, you'd probably be fine.

Of course, what you really want to read about with a recipe like this is the hopping schedule. It's pretty darned crazy, really. Overall, you're looking at almost a full pound of hops, PLUS 40 mL total of hop extract, the equivalent of 8 oz of a 10% AA hop, giving you a theoretical or calculated IBU of somewhere above 250. Quite bitter, let's just leave it at that. Full details are listed below, but here's the amount of each actual hop variety used, between kettle-hopping, flameout, and dry-hopping:

• Simcoe - 6 oz
• Centennial - 2.5 oz
• CTZ - 2 oz
• Amarillo - 2 oz
• Chinook - 1 oz

And, that's a lotta hops!

Now, I didn't go with Scott's recipe EXACTLY. Based on his thoughts after drinking his clone, he made a couple of recommendations for changes, which I applied. He had also added 10 g of CTZ at 45 min, which I ignored since I didn't think it would be missed. He also had a couple of small additions of Warrior in the dry-hopping, based on a change to the recipe he had heard Vinnie has done recently. I didn't have access to Warrior, so I subbed in CTZ for one dry-hop, and dropped the Warrior in another (it was only 1/4 oz, anyway).

So, there's a huge flameout addition (5.5 oz) of four different hops; I did a 10-minute steep with these before beginning the chilling. As for the dry-hopping, there are FOUR dry-hop additions. I haven't done that many since my Kern River Citra DIPA clone, and it was tough to decide how to do it. Ideally, I would have a kegging system, so that I could just add and remove each dry-hop directly in the keg, purging the headspace with CO2 each time to prevent oxidation of the beer and the hops. However, I don't keg, so I had these options:

1) Dry-hop in primary - I've done this before, with usually good results. Pro: it's easy, and some argue that this method may help prevent oxidation, since CO2 may still be released from residual fermentation of the beer. Con: the yeast in suspension may strip away some of the hop aroma and flavor. Even with four additions? Not sure.

2) Transfer to secondary, then dry-hop - I've also done this before, and also have had good results. Pro: you get the beer off most of the yeast, so there should be less stripping of the hop flavors (if that happens, of course). Con: you're increasing the risk of infection and oxidation.

I thought about doing half the dry-hop in primary, and then half in secondary, but that seemed counter-productive, and just as much work as doing it all in secondary. I also considered dropping the temp of the beer while in primary to floc out the yeast, and THEN add the dry hops, but I wasn't sure if that would be better. In the end, I decided to rack to secondary and add all the dry hops there. I came to this decision based on the excellent results I had with the Citra DIPA clone; this was the approach I used with that beer, so hopefully it'll work out as well, here.

When brewing Younger, Russian River apparently does each dry-hop for 1 week. On a homebrewing schedule, not only does that require a lot of time, but it REALLY increases the likelihood for oxidation of the beer and hops, especially for someone like me who doesn't have the luxury of purging with CO2 over and over. So, I'm going to go with a 4-day dry hop of each addition, for 16 days total.

For the yeast, as expected, you can use the California Ale yeast of your choice: WLP001, Wyeast 1056, or US-05 dry yeast. I had originally planned on using yeast slurry from my recent Modern Times Fortunate Islands clone, but based on some past results with reusing yeast, I chickened out and went with 2 packets of US-05, rehydrated. Now, Vinnie has always recommended that you do a slight UNDER-pitch of yeast for hoppy beers; he feels that too much yeast will strip away some of the hop flavors/aromas. I believe 100% that the man knows what he's talking about, but for a beer this big (and expensive), I just didn't want to take that risk. I'd rather lose a bit of hop flavor than have a big DIPA stall out at 1.035.

As for the water, I didn't add much in terms of minerals. I followed the same approach I've used with my last few hoppy beers, adding a couple of salts in moderate amounts to increase the calcium, chloride, and sulfate. In this case, just 5 grams each of Gypsum and calcium chloride, directly into the mash.

My goal here is to have a really drinkable, REALLY hoppy DIPA. Even if I had had Younger before, I wouldn't necessarily expect this clone to come out exactly similar. While Scott says that his version came out almost identical, I know my limits with my system - the inability to purge with CO2 will undoubtedly hurt this beer. Hopefully, oxidation will be minimal at the worst... nothing worse than oxidized hops, especially in a recipe as expensive as this one! I'll likely be drinking this beer around the beginning of September... tasting notes will be posted soon after.

Recipe targets: (6 gallons, 70% efficiency) OG 1.088, FG ~1.010, IBU 266 (!), SRM 6.6, ABV ~10.3%

Grains:
7.73 kg (86.5%) Canadian 2-row
341 g (3.9%) Carapils
182 g (2%) Crystal 40 L
681 g (7.6%) Table sugar (boiled in water and added in two portions during fermentation)

Hops:
Hop extract - 35 mL @ 90 min
Hop extract - 5 mL @ 45 min
Simcoe- 14 g (12.9% AA) @ 30 min

Simcoe - 70 g @ 0 min 
Centennial - 42 g (10.9% AA) @ 0 min
Amarillo - 28 g (8.9% AA) @ 0 min          *All flameout hops steeped for 10 minutes
Chinook - 14 g (11.4% AA) @ 0 min

Dry-hop 1: 14 g CTZ, 14 g Simcoe, 14 g Amarillo for 4 days, then...
Dry-hop 2: 28 g CTZ, 28 g Centennial for 4 more days, then...
Dry-hop 3: 14 g Chinook, 14 g Simcoe for 4 more days, then...
Dry-hop 4: 14 g CTZ, 14 g Amarillo, 28 g Simcoe for 4 more days

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

Yeast: 2 packages Fermentis US-05 dry yeast, rehydrated

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 5 g Gypsum, 5 g CaCl in the mash

- Brewed on July 27th, 2013, by myself. 60-minute mash with 21 L of strike water, mashed in slightly above target temp, at 146 F. Added 4.75 L of boiling water to bring temp up to 155 F for another 10 minutes. Sparged with ~4.5 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~8.1 gallons in the kettle.

- SG at 1.056, slightly under target of 1.057. 90-minute boil. Flameout hops steeped for 10 minutes, then turned on immersion chiller. Chilled down to 64 F, then poured/filtered ~5 gallons into Better Bottle. OG low at 1.083. Aerated with 90 seconds of pure O2 and placed in fermentation chamber with temp set at 64 F.

- 28/7/13 - In AM, bubbling about q 2 seconds. Raised temp to 65 F and aerated with 30 more seconds of pure O2 (about 18-19 hours after pitching).

- 29/7 to 1/8 - Lots of activity in the airlock over the next couple of days. Added the first dose of table sugar (341 g in boiled water) when activity started to slow slightly on the 30th, then the other 341 g on the 31st.

- 2/8/13 - Bubbling starting to slow, gradually raised temp to 68 F over a couple of days.

- 8/8/13 - Gravity 1.011. Racked beer to secondary and added first dry-hop addition. Added dry hops every 4 days afterwards, as in recipe.

- 24/8/13 - FG at target of 1.010. Bottled with 120 g table sugar, aiming for 2.5 vol CO2 for 5 gallons, max temp of 72 reached. Also added ~1/8 pack rehydrated Nottingham yeast.

- 2/11/13 - Late, but here's the tasting notes... ultimately, disappointing in the hop department.

Tasting : Visually Impaired Sow (Russian River Blind Pig clone)

Even though I've had Russian River's Blind Pig IPA two or three times, I really didn't know what to expect when I brewed this clone in late June. It's probably been at least two years since I've had Blind Pig; I know I really liked it, but I can't remember specifics. So, when I saw the clone recipe posted in Zymurgy, it immediately went in the top section of my list of IPA clones to brew. Even if the results weren't the exact same as Blind Pig, I could tell by looking at the recipe that it would make a tasty beer.

And it did. The result was an American IPA with a healthy amount of hop aroma and flavor, moderate (but extremely smooth) bitterness in the finish, yet some definite malt character in the background. The body is also a bit fuller than a lot of other American IPAs out there now, but it's not chewy. I think I was expecting more hop character in this beer than I got, but the hop amounts in this beer really aren't that crazy. A bit of bittering, a small amount of Amarillo at 30 minutes (which I screwed up and added at 60 minutes... obviously any bit of flavor from that would be next to nothing), and 2 oz of several hops total at flameout. Follow that with 2 oz of dry-hopping... a healthy amount of hops, but not DIPA territory for sure.

The first few bottles struck me as hoppier, overall, but it's settled quickly into a very easy-drinking American IPA. Definitely a tasty recipe; recommended to anyone out there looking for a new IPA to brew, whether you've had Blind Pig or not.

Not as dark as the picture makes it look

Appearance: Pours with a moderate-large, white creamy head that shows very good retention; finally fades to about 1/4-1/2 finger and stays there. Body is golden-colored, with extremely good clarity.

Aroma: Strong hop aroma (but maybe not as strong as I expected)... citrus and tropical, mainly. A bit of dankness in there, too. A touch of sweet malt character, but it’s very light. No diacetyl.

Taste: The hops dominate, of course, again, coming through with a lot of citrus and tropical character, followed by that bit of dankness. Medium bitterness in the finish; mostly dry, but it’s got a bit of sweetness there, too. Quite smooth.

Mouthfeel: Medium-bodied, with moderate carbonation.

Overall: Very nice. I was expecting a bit more hop character (the first couple bottles seemed to have more), but I like how easy-drinking it is. The higher mash temp really helped increase the body (it’s close to medium-full) and leave a bit more malt character. Nice hop presence... an IPA I think that non-IPA drinkers would be able to enjoy, and maybe open up to bigger things.

Brewing a Russian River Blind Pig clone

After brewing a Witbier in early June, it's time for another hoppy clone! The clone recipes are starting to get a little out of hand, but I've accumulated so many that I've wanted to brew, and I've accumulated a good amount of hops as well, so I'm going to take the time over the next few months and cross a bunch of them off my to-brew list.

There aren't many homebrewers/beer geeks out there who haven't heard of Russian River Brewing. Vinnie Cilurzo, owner/brewmaster at RR, is one of the main craft beer idols that we all worship; he may not be as Hollywood-ish as Sam Calagione, or as revered as Shaun Hill... but he's somewhere in-between! RR is known for brewing some of the finest American Wild Ales and hoppy beers that you can find; I've been lucky enough to have had several of their beers, and can say that all of the praise they get is completely warranted.

Blind Pig was one of the first beers that RR began producing when their brewpub  opened in 2004. An American IPA, it's still available on tap and in bottles today, and it truly is a great beer. It's not quite as dry as the other RR hoppy ales, but it still packs a big hop punch, showcasing fruity and piney hop aromas and flavors. The "recipe" is included in Mitch Steele's IPA book, but unfortunately there aren't any specifics when it comes to hop amounts to use. Luckily, Zymurgy had an article back when the book came out, and they included several of the book's recipes, but with exact grain percentages and hop weights. On top of all that, Scott of Bertus Brewery did a couple of iterations of the recipe, and reported that his most recent attempt was extremely close to being cloned. I'll trust his opinion; it's been a couple of years since I've had Blind Pig, and Scott obviously has greater access to it than I do, given his location.

Like most of Vinnie's IPA recipes, the grist is fairly simple. It's mostly 2-row, with close to 8% of Crystal 40 L and Carapils combined - high for him, actually; when it comes to DIPAs, Vinnie recommends no more than 3-4% Crystal malt of any sort. The mash temp was quoted as 153-154 F; again, high for a RR hoppy beer, but obviously Blind Pig wasn't meant to be as dry as, say, Pliny the Elder.

Mashtun steaming and ready to go

Surprisingly, the recipe doesn't call for a HUGE amount of hops. There's a small bittering charge of Chinook and CTZ at 90 minutes, a bit of Amarillo at 30, and then four 1/2 oz additions of different hops at flameout for a hop-steep. Other than that, the original recipe called for 1/2 oz each of three hops for the dry-hop. However, Scott had noted that if brewed again, he would increase the dry-hop additions by 25%, so I went with a bit more, at 2/3 oz each.

For the flameout additions, I decided to go with a 10-minute hop-steep before turning on the chiller. When you throw the below numbers into BeerSmith, it comes out with an IBUs in the low-40s. However, calculating for a 10-minute steep actually brings the bitterness to about 62 IBUs, which is about the target for Blind Pig, so that should work fine.

I added a bit of table salt and Gypsum to the mash to help decrease the mash pH and boost the water chemistry a bit, bringing the calcium to 73, sulfate to 108, and chloride to 81. This isn't too far off the targets I had for my Maine Beer Co. Zoe clone, and I was quite happy with how that beer turned out. 

Once this beer is complete, I'll be sure to post the tasting notes post-haste. I vow not to drag my feet doing that for hoppy beers anymore, especially now that we're in the summer months and the days of storing large amounts of beer at proper temperatures are over!

Recipe targets: (6 gallons, 75% efficiency) OG 1.059, FG ~1.013, IBU ~62, SRM 6, ABV ~6%

Grains:
5.5 kg (93.1%) Canadian 2-row
227 g (3.8%) Crystal 40 L
182 g (3.1%) Carapils

Hops:
Chinook - 17 g (11.4% AA) @ 90 min
CTZ - 8 g (13.4% AA) @ 90 min
Amarillo - 14 g (8.9% AA) @ 30 min
Amarillo - 14 g @ 0 min
Cascade - 14 g (5.5% AA) @ 0 min
Centennial - 14 g (10.9% AA) @ 0 min
Simcoe - 14 g (12.9% AA) @ 0 min           Note: All flameout hops have a 10-minute steep
Amarillo, CTZ, Cascade - 18 g each dry-hop for 7 days

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

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

Water: Fredericton city water, carbon-filtered; 4 g table salt, 7 g Gypsum in the mash

Flameout hops about to be added

- Brewed on June 25th, 2013, by myself. 50-minute mash with 16.25 L of strike water, mashed in at target temp of 153 F. Mashed-out for 10 minutes with 7 L of boiling water, resulting temp 168 F. Sparged with ~4.5 gallons of 168 F water for final volume of ~8 gallons in the kettle.

- SG at target of 1.044. 90-minute boil. Mistakenly added 30 min Amarillo addition at 60 min; stupid, but should only increase IBUs by 3-4, and likely won't affect the flavor much. Took about 45 minutes to chill to 70 F (extremely hot day), even using pump/ice water. Poured ~5 gallons into Better Bottle and set in fermentation chamber with temp at 38 F; brought wort down to 66 F after 30 minutes. OG on target at 1.059. Aerated wort with 90 seconds of pure O2. Pitched yeast and set BB in laundry room sink with cold water and ice.

- 26/6/13 - In AM, hardly any visible activity in the airlock, temp 64 F. Drained most of the water from the sink. By evening, temp up to 66 F, airlock bubbling every 2 seconds.

- 27/6/13 to 28/6 - Over this period, consistent activity in the airlock, big krausen... temp got as high as 70 F.

- 2/7/13 - Krausen completely settled, temp 70 F. Took gravity reading of 1.015.

- 4/7/13 - Added dry-hops directly into primary. Temp 72 F.

- 11/7/13 - Bottled with 115 g table sugar, aiming for 2.4 vol CO2 for 5 gallons, max temp of 72 F reached.

- Tasting notes here... a very easy-drinking, citrusy and tropical IPA.