Karl Strauss: Red Trolley Ale Clone?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
H

holjim

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2008
Messages
51
Reaction score
0
I live in L.A. but I never miss filling a gallon up with Karl Strauss' Red Trolley Ale when I get down to San Diego.

Their site has most of the ingredients listed but with no amounts.

I'm still pretty new to all this and can't really judge how much of this or that is a logical start point when trying to replicate a particular beer.

Here are their stated malts and hops:

Malts: Pale 2 Row, Carapils, Carmel 60 and Carmel 80
Hops: Glacier and Willamette.

It comes out to 5.8 abv with 17 IBU

Any suggestions (esp if you are familiar with the beer) on what amounts might deliver (I'm also not an all-grain guy yet...).

I'm certainly willing to take a few shots at it.

Thanks in advance!

Jim
 
looking forward to seeing if anyone can get this down.

my g/f really liked this beer
 
I made up my own recipe based on what they have on their site. I was told by my brother who wanted me to make it that it tastes very close to their beer. I will post the recipe later when I get a moment.
 
Here is the recipe that I used. It is a partial mash recipe using a 3 gallon mash tun.

3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.0 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 50.0 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.5 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 7.5 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.0 %

1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (60 min) Hops 11.4 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (15 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU

1 Pkgs Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) Yeast-Ale

Some brew notes here: This is actually my second time brewing this beer. The first time I did a small all-grain brew, but it was basically the same recipe. I couldn't find Glacier hops and found out they are very similar to Williamette, so I just used all Williamette. Since they are nearly the same alpha, you can probably sub 1 for 1.

Second, soon after I brewed this, I read somewhere on this site about using too much crystal malts. Maybe I did, I don't know, but this worked out well on this brew. If you are doing an extract brew, remove the pale malts and up the dry extract to 5.50 lbs.

I am sure you can use whatever yeast you want, but I use Nottingham because it ferments so clean. After using many yeasts this past year, I really prefer Nottingham for most of my ales.
 
Mk010101 said:
Here is the recipe that I used. It is a partial mash recipe using a 3 gallon mash tun.

3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.0 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 50.0 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.5 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 7.5 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.0 %

1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (60 min) Hops 11.4 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (15 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU

1 Pkgs Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) Yeast-Ale

Some brew notes here: This is actually my second time brewing this beer. The first time I did a small all-grain brew, but it was basically the same recipe. I couldn't find Glacier hops and found out they are very similar to Williamette, so I just used all Williamette. Since they are nearly the same alpha, you can probably sub 1 for 1.

Second, soon after I brewed this, I read somewhere on this site about using too much crystal malts. Maybe I did, I don't know, but this worked out well on this brew. If you are doing an extract brew, remove the pale malts and up the dry extract to 5.50 lbs.

I am sure you can use whatever yeast you want, but I use Nottingham because it ferments so clean. After using many yeasts this past year, I really prefer Nottingham for most of my ales.
Click to expand...


thanks

What ratio did you mash at? I have a 2 gallon cooler that i'll probably try this in, so i'm not sure if i should go down to 3 lbs of 2-row and then add the rest in DME (1lb extra pound of DME).
 
I'm excited. That has been one of my favorites for years. I'll have to tweek a bit since I don't have a mash tun but I'm sure it will still be very tasty!

Thanks so much!

Jim:mug:

Mk010101 said:
Here is the recipe that I used. It is a partial mash recipe using a 3 gallon mash tun.

3.00 lb Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 30.0 %
5.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 50.0 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 7.5 %
0.75 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 7.5 %
0.50 lb Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.0 %

1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (60 min) Hops 11.4 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (15 min) Hops 5.1 IBU
1.00 oz Williamette [5.50%] (5 min) Hops 2.0 IBU

1 Pkgs Nottingham Yeast (Lallemand #-) Yeast-Ale

Some brew notes here: This is actually my second time brewing this beer. The first time I did a small all-grain brew, but it was basically the same recipe. I couldn't find Glacier hops and found out they are very similar to Williamette, so I just used all Williamette. Since they are nearly the same alpha, you can probably sub 1 for 1.

Second, soon after I brewed this, I read somewhere on this site about using too much crystal malts. Maybe I did, I don't know, but this worked out well on this brew. If you are doing an extract brew, remove the pale malts and up the dry extract to 5.50 lbs.

I am sure you can use whatever yeast you want, but I use Nottingham because it ferments so clean. After using many yeasts this past year, I really prefer Nottingham for most of my ales.
Click to expand...
 
Mk010101 said:
I use this calculator to figure out how much grain I can put into my mash tun:

http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

I think you would be pushing it at 5 lbs of grain in a 2 gal mash tun.
Click to expand...

agreed. To early for me still..lol I forgot to factor in the crystal :drunk:

Thanks though... I might make this the next brew so i'll work on it a bit later.
 
+1 for this recipe. I just brewed a minor variant. 3 weeks in primary and 2 weeks in the bottle and it is GREAT! The amount of caramel flavor is a very close match. If anything, maybe slightly less caramel intensity than from actual Red Trolley.

I added a whirlfloc tab and subbed the hops for EKG and Fuggles bumping the IBUs to ~22. In my partial mash setup the caramel malts added up to ~18% of the total grain/extract bill. Also, used the WLP Irish Ale strain:

60 min 0.6oz Fuggles
60 min 0.5oz EKG
15 min Whirlfloc
5 min 0.6oz Fuggles
5 min 0.5oz EKG

Will definitely brew this again!
 
I just tried this beer last night and was impressed. I'm surprised that their stated malt bill does not include any Munich malt because I was almost certain that is what I tasted along with all the caramel. Wonder if they've tweaked the recipe.

If I was to try a clone I'd probably use 2 to 3 pounds of Munich in a 5 gallon batch.
 
Raising this one from the dead.

Any new changes to these recipes? I miss red trolley, live in ny and don't make it to CA very often.
 
I'm planning on giving this one a brew this weekend. Was looking to see if anybody had any updated recipes or suggestions.

I'm going to try this:
11 Gallon Batch

11# 2 Row Malt
6.5# Caramel/Crystal 80L
4.5# Caramel/Crystal 60L
2# Biscuit Malt
1# Carapils Malt

1.25oz Williamette 60 Mins
1oz Williamette at 15 Mins
1oz Williamette at 5 Mins

Pitch Safale-05 Yeast.

According to BeerSmith:
1.058 OG
SRM: 29.2
17.8 IBU

Overall pretty close to whats listed on the Karl Strauss Website. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
 
I found this recipe before I found the one's on here. This will be my first all-grain but here is the recipe.

5.5 Gallon batch OG- 1.060 FG- 1.016

5.5 lb American Pale 2 row
3.25 lb Crystal 80L
2.25 lb crystal 60L
1 lb Belgian Biscuit
.5 lb Carapils

.87 oz Tettnager - 60 min
.5 oz Williamette - 15 min
.5 oz Williamette - 5 min

Yeast- White Labs California Ale V Yeast WLP 051
 
So how close did this come? I actually work right across the street from a Karl Strauss, so I can easily sample and compare.
 
There is no way in hell you are going to get an OG of 1.016 with a beer that is 48% Crystal... (wow!)
 
skibb said:
There is no way in hell you are going to get an OG of 1.016 with a beer that is 48% Crystal... (wow!)
Click to expand...

1.016 is FG. OG is 1.060... Mine will be a little lower my Boil Gravity was only 1.041 my efficiency was only 68.8%

Now in fermentation. OG for my batch is 1.055
 
I'm sorry I meant FG in my post. I'm just trying to be constructive - but that is way too much crystal malt. The most I would go for a red ale would be 20 percent (or any beer for that matter) and mash low.

Crystal malts are nearly completely unfermentable. If you manage to somehow get 100 percent fermentability from your basemalt you still won't be halfway to 1.016
 
skibb said:
I'm sorry I meant FG in my post. I'm just trying to be constructive - but that is way too much crystal malt. The most I would go for a red ale would be 20 percent (or any beer for that matter) and mash low.

Crystal malts are nearly completely unfermentable. If you manage to somehow get 100 percent fermentability from your basemalt you still won't be halfway to 1.016
Click to expand...

I appreciate the feedback. This is my first time doing an all-grain and so I am unfamiliar with how each grain works together or how they fit into a beer. I was just following the recipe. It's done now. I'll have to see how bad it is in a few weeks, but now I know. :)
 
I'm getting ready to rack this and the FG is 1.013 (with correction for temperature.) I grabbed a taste and it surprisingly is not overly sweet. I'll update more once it's done bottle carbing.
 
If you brewed that recipe you posted, there is no way a recipe with 48% crystal malt finished at 1.013. Did you change something?
 
skibb said:
If you brewed that recipe you posted, there is no way a recipe with 48% crystal malt finished at 1.013. Did you change something?
Click to expand...

I brewed everything as posted. Nothing changed other than my post boil gravity wasn't as high as the original recipe indicated due to poor efficiency. Want me to take a picture of the hydrometer? I swear I didn't make this up. ;)
 
skibb said:
If you brewed that recipe you posted, there is no way a recipe with 48% crystal malt finished at 1.013. Did you change something?
Click to expand...

Here are the pictures of the temp and hydrometer reading. Now looking at the picture it looks like it's closer to 1.014.

photo 1 (9).jpg

photo 2 (9).jpg
 
I brewed an 11 Gallon Batch of the same recipe recently and got my FG down to 1.015. I wasn't aware that Crystal doesn't ferment out well when i brewed the beer, but hit nearly the same FG. I guess it is possible? I was worried that my batch was ruined after reading the posts on here after I brewed. However, the sample didn't taste too sweet. Might actually be decent once chilled and carbed.
 
Well I stand corrected! Sorry I was just trying to figure out how this is possible...still doesn't make any sense to me but that's what I like about this site - you learn something new nearly every time you visit.
 
fedagentbeer said:
I brewed an 11 Gallon Batch of the same recipe recently and got my FG down to 1.015. I wasn't aware that Crystal doesn't ferment out well when i brewed the beer, but hit nearly the same FG. I guess it is possible? I was worried that my batch was ruined after reading the posts on here after I brewed. However, the sample didn't taste too sweet. Might actually be decent once chilled and carbed.
Click to expand...

I thought the same thing when I tasted the sample. I'm looking forward to trying it out in a few weeks.
 
skibb said:
Well I stand corrected! Sorry I was just trying to figure out how this is possible...still doesn't make any sense to me but that's what I like about this site - you learn something new nearly every time you visit.
Click to expand...

Agreed. I love to learn and I was really curious when I read your post. I was pleasantly surprised when I hit the FG. Oh the wonders of HB. :)
 
i'm also interested in brewing this...if anyone could post results on how close it is to the original and which recipe was use that would be great!!
 
So I pulled a sample of the red trolley clone and it's not bad. It has a great red color and it definitely tastes like an amber. However, I think it tastes much darker and heavier than an actual red trolley beer. It's still a little green and could benefit from some additional aging but overall it's pretty decent. However, I don't think it's the best clone recipe out there. Maybe someone else can weigh in with their results.
 
A recipe that has worked well for me in the past is around 80% 2-row, 15% C-60 and the remaining split evenly between c-80 and carapils. I use Bravo as bittering and willamette for my final addition. Use WLP004 Irish Ale yeast to ferment it and it turns out pretty much spot on.
 

Similar threads

Oleson M.D.
Irish Red Ale & Lager
Replies
17
Views
2K
Oleson M.D.
Oleson M.D.
ArizonaGoalie
Imperial Irish Red
Replies
3
Views
2K
ArizonaGoalie
ArizonaGoalie
R
tropical red ale
Replies
4
Views
830
Argyll Gargoyle
A
M
Phillips Brewing Blue Buck Pale Ale clone
Replies
7
Views
3K
InstantParadox
I
R
Tropical Red Ale recipe critique
Replies
0
Views
506
RayRay69
R
Yakima 300

Latest posts

Back
Top