Trying to copy a beer. Need help

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biggerthanyou83

biggerthanyou83

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Ok, I really like skopsko beer. It is the national beer of Macedonia. It's classified as a German lager style and sub style is a pilsner. The abv% is around 4.9% nice gold color, slightly pale, off white head, a bit hoppy. I was thinking about getting brewers best kit and maybe dry hopping. But that's my guess. If anyone has tried this beer or has looked it up can you please help me out here. I personally love this eastern European beer. :mug:
 
Ok. This is what I found online. Do u guys think I should just play around with the ingredient list that is given?

"The Skopje Brewery (Pivara Skopje) (Cyrillic: Пивара Скопје) is a Macedonian brewery in Skopje. It is a subsidiary of Heineken.[34]

Skopje brews the premium brand beer Skopsko as well as Gorsko.[35]

Skopsko (Cyrillic: Скопско) is a 4.9% pale lager introduced in 1924. The ingredients are water; barley malt; unmalted cereals; hops; and brewers yeast.[36] The advertising slogan is "Our Best" (Macedonian: Нашето најдобро!)."
 
You need a little more info - specifically what type or "unmalted cereals" and what type of hops. Probably one (or more) noble hops and pils base malt. Also, you'll need to have lagering capability to even get close to a knock off.
 
Ok. I'll look into more info.… what do u mean by Lagering capability? I have only brewed 2 batches so far so I'm kinda new. But I catch on fast just point me in the right direction
 
Read this article it helped me learn to research clones...

How to Clone, by Chris Colby. BYO magazine.

But if you can't lager, meaning don't have a good way to maintain consistant temps and lower them to near freezing temps for a couple months, you're really not going to be able to do this that easier. I didn't lager for years, and even now since I don't really have lagering capabilities I'm limited to doing it in winter.
 
Well I have a fridge in my garage that I do t use. Would that work for fermenting the beer or would it be to low of a temp? It does have a temp adjustment on it.
 
Most of the beers over here (I am next door to Skopje) are Pils base with very little else for grain. Agree on the noble hops, again light touch.

Also someone once made the point that in the very light beers you do not have a lot of flavors to hide behind if you make a small mistake. I don't think at this point in my brewing I would try something like that.
 
Maybe ill try top just brew a lager first before i try to copy a beer. But would my fridge idea work? If it does ill start cleaning it out and gettting it preped this week.
 
Your spare fridge would work as long as you can keep it at 2 different temperatures. You will need the fridge to maintain 50-55F for primary fermentation and 30-35F for the lagering period. You should not have a problem with the 30-35F range as that is only slightly lower than the normal operating range. To check to see if your fridge can go as high as 50F, turn it on low(or whatever) and put a bucket of water in it with a thermometer. Check the thermometer in 8-12 hrs and see what it reads. If its not up to 50F, you will need to buy a temperature controller. You can find them on any homebrew store websites. Then you will be ready to make lager beers. I also suggest reading on the subject of lagering by searching HBT or buying a brewing book that covers the topic of lagers. I don't mean to imply that you are incapable of brewing a good lager right now, but there is alot of good information out there that will help.
 
BenS said:
Your spare fridge would work as long as you can keep it at 2 different temperatures. You will need the fridge to maintain 50-55F for primary fermentation and 30-35F for the lagering period. You should not have a problem with the 30-35F range as that is only slightly lower than the normal operating range. To check to see if your fridge can go as high as 50F, turn it on low(or whatever) and put a bucket of water in it with a thermometer. Check the thermometer in 8-12 hrs and see what it reads. If its not up to 50F, you will need to buy a temperature controller. You can find them on any homebrew store websites. Then you will be ready to make lager beers. I also suggest reading on the subject of lagering by searching HBT or buying a brewing book that covers the topic of lagers. I don't mean to imply that you are incapable of brewing a good lager right now, but there is alot of good information out there that will help.
Click to expand...

Trust me by no means do I take offense if you say im incapable of making lagers right now. Im probably not since I have only brewed 2 beers so far. But ill prob read up on it and try it after a few more batches. Thanx for the bucket idea. Ill check that once I get a chance this week. Prob on Thursday. :mug:
 

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