How do you replicate a beer you love drinking ?

[Staveley Brewer]

Hi how do you replicate or copy a beer you love drinking? Can I name a beer on this thread only I got in touch with the brewery and they told me the ingredients but not the percentages.pale malt, wheat and Styrians Dragon hops.Would it be impossible to get even close to copying this ale?

 

[The-Engineer-That-Brews]

Yes you can name the beer!
My first step would be to see if someone else has already brewed a clone; however in practice it is hard to get close without using the original yeast (and possibly water).
I would say it’s better to aim to produce your own good beer ‘in the style of’ whatever it is rather than a copy - you might even like it better.
Anyhow, when it comes to reproducibility I struggle to exactly reproduce even my own beers from brew to brew

 

[Tanglefoot]

It would help if you knew the abv, IBU"s, EBC etc.
Since you already know the malt bill and hops you could put together a recipe on Brewfather or similar software.
Like TETB says it may take a few attempts, so make sure to keep a note of your process.

 

[Staveley Brewer]

Hi the beers called Dragons Gold from Rudgate brewery in York and its abv is 4.2%

 

[MmmBeer]

According to their website, its a golden ale of 4.2% abv. I would start with 5-10% wheat, either torrified or wheat malt and the rest pale malt. As for the hops, I always use a simple clean bittering hop, such as Magnum or Admiral, aim for 15 - 20 IBU's from your bitterring addition, then a decent amount of Styrian Dragon hops 5 or 10 minutes from the end of boil, to give a total IBU value of 25 - 35.

Plug the numbers into your preferred brewing software to tweak the figures. Not having seen or tasted the beer, it is difficult to judge the exact colour, bitterness or hoppiness, so try brewing it and see how it compares to the original. Lots of ways to tweak, to increase mouthfeel, add more wheat, to darken, add a little crystal malt or similar, to increase bitterness, either add mmore bittering hops, or add the aroma hops earlier, to increase hop character, add more aroma hops, add them later or add more as a dry hop.

 

[phildo79]

As previously mentioned, the water profile will play a huge part. Ask the brewery if they will divulge the info and what yeast they use. The more info, the closer you could get. But in my experience, brewing a clone of a beer you know very well is extremely difficult. The only real success I have had is with stout clones. Hoppy clones tend to be very far from the original. Beers with strong flavoured adjuncts can get quite close as the adjuncts can help mask the imperfections.

 

[Staveley Brewer]

Thanks for this great information I really appreciate your knowledge, expertise and experience.

 

[Braufather]

For me it’s the best starting point. IE a beer you love, it’s unlikely to taste the same but will get close and if you love the original then you are probably going to really like your version, especially as you get a chance to tweak it further.

the detective work is also great fun trying to put a recipe together, given varying amounts of information out there, and when you think you are nearly there post it on the forum for some final feedback!

 

[Crappyfish]

I reckon the trick is make a beer you love from your own recipe then do it again. There's only one beer I've made twice and that was a stout and I made it twice by accident from a clone recipe that looked good.