Desperados Clone

I can only imagine that desperados is pretty much unknown over the pond, but here's my brief description of it...

It's a "Mexican" beer, brewed in France. It's a huge 5.9%, and tastes like a mexican beer, but with definite citrus and salty tequila in there. I want to try and clone this beer, as it's one of my all time favourites.

Here's an initial idea. Desperados is a whopping 5.9% but this comes in at 5.4%, otherwise I just won't make a dent in the keg. It will need to be fermented at lager temperatures, and not included in the recipe is the juice of 2 lemons and 2 limes. Bear in mind this is a 2.92 gal boil so you will need to adjust hops as neccessary!

It might be worth adding citrus, tequila aroma and beer enhancer to the cooper's mexican kit if you're a kit brewer - apparently the kit is really good, i'm considering it myself!

Anybody got any input in adding a little salt to the brew, or how I could improve this? I want to keep it simple as ingredients are quite scarce in this country!

Desperados Clone
Brew Type: Extract Date: 22/10/2011
Style: American Light/Standard/Premium Lager
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Volume: 2.43 gal Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: Brew Pot (3 Gallon)

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.25 kg Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 75.0 %
40.00 gm Hallertauer [4.80%] (60 min) Hops 13.2 IBU
15.00 gm Hallertauer [4.80%] (10 min) Hops 1.8 IBU
50.00 ml Tequila Aroma (Secondary 5.0 min) Misc
0.75 kg Corn Syrup (1.0 SRM) Sugar 25.0 %
1 Pkgs Mexican Lager (White Labs #WLP940) Yeast-Lager

Beer Profile Estimated Original Gravity: 1.055 SG (1.035-1.050 SG)
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.014 SG (0.980-1.012 SG)
Estimated Color: 3.4 SRM (2.0-8.0 SRM) Color [Color]
Bitterness: 14.9 IBU (8.0-22.0 IBU) Alpha Acid Units: 1.4 AAU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 5.4 % (3.5-5.1 %) Actual Alcohol by Volume: 0.0 %

Harummphh, any input here?

I don't have much to add other than I'm interested in seeing how this turns out.

I had Desparados a few times in Germany and thought it was pretty good. The most recent time I remember thinking it was sweeter than I remembered.

If I'm reading the recipe right you're adding 50ml of tequila in secondary or is that in the last 5 min of the boil? Either way I'm sure that's where the saltiness is coming from so maybe think about adding a little more during secondary or at bottling if it's not where you want it.

Tequila essence. We sell it over here, you add it to spirit kits etc and it flavours it like tequila - there's no alcohol content. The 50ml bottle converts 3 litres to taste like tequila so I assume its pretty intense stuff and I only want to roughly lace it in the background...Both are a good idea but tequila itself really doesn't agree with me, hahah! I would add this at kegging.

Oh and, on my descent (journey?) Into good quality beer, most pub varieties are completely off the cards for me now, but I buy desperados every week without fail, it still tastes great!

How did/is this come/coming out? As far as I know, France doesn't sell Desperados to the US market, because I've been looking for it for a long while in several different states.

Also, is that tequila essence something that can be bought online for a relatively good price? That seems to be another thing that I don't think we have in the states (although I haven't looked for it).