Attempting to clone GUBNA, seeking feedback

5 gallon batch

17lbs US 2 row
2lbs Dark Munich Malt
1lbs Rye malt

Mash at 153

2oz Summit at 90min
2oz Summit at 5 min
2oz Summit dry hop

WLP001 yeast

This is my first attempt to clone anything, so I figured I'd start with something simple. I left out the flavoring hop addition because supposedly that can lead to onion flavors with summit.

I know the only way to really tell is to brew it up and taste it, but does this recipe seem reasonable to everyone else?

anyone? anyone?

Gubna is really oniony to me. No way I'd clone it, but good luck.

Hmmm, I definitely get some spiciness from it, but not what I would call an onion flavor. But now that I think I about it, I guess that could be what everyone is referring to. Raw onions do have a bit of a spicy kick to them.

The comment I see most on BeerAdvocate is "Tomato" flavor. Have you noticed that at all?

I don't get tomato either. To me the most prominent flavors are the earthy spice "onion" flavor and tangerine. I love it.

I'm drinking the Gubna as I type this. At first it was all pine and grapefruit - I really didn't get any onion at all. A quarter of the way through the pint, all I can think about is onion. The grapefruit and pine are still present in my nose as I exhale after each sip, but the onion bit seems to linger on the tongue. It seems to be magnifying itself by an order of magnitude with every sip. This is the first Oskar Blues beer that I haven't absolutely loved. It's a bit strange, and I'm undecided as to whether I like it or not!

Back to the topic at hand - I think you need to focus your hop additions in the last 20 minutes of the boil. This beer is VERY hop forward, so you cannot recreate it without flavor/aroma additions. Try something more like this:

0.25 oz Summit 60 min
2.0 oz Summit 20 min
2.0 oz Summit 10 min
2.0 oz Summit 5 min
2.0 oz Summit 0 min
2.0 oz Summit Dry Hop

Thanks for the input! I actually brewed this last night before seeing your post and ended up going with this hop schedule.

2oz at 60
1oz at 20
1oz at 5
1oz at 0

Then I'll do a 2oz dry hop for 14 days.

We'll see how it turns out. I'm definitely not happy with the color as it's a lot darker than expected, but I guess I should've known that would happen using 1lbs of caramunich. But this is my first time putting a recipe together on my own, so I never expected it to be perfect. Also, my OG was a bit higher than expected, but that's not a huge problem in my opinion, hahaha.

I think you're right about the late additions though. I was so focused on trying to hit the correct IBU level that I didn't focus enough on the late additions. Oh well, there is always next time!

How did this turn out? I was at the brewery on Sunday and tried this for the first time and I'm thinking about trying to make a clone of my own.

It turned out more like a weird barleywine. It's still conditioning in the keg and I take a sample every once in a while to see how it's coming along. It's not necessarily a bad beer, just not at all like GUBNA.

If I had it to do over I would do massive late addtions per Yuri's advice and cut the specialty grains to maybe 4oz each rather than a pound. I'd also add a pound of corn sugar to the fermentor once primary fermentation had slowed in order to dry it out a little.

This was the first recipe I ever came up with myself and I've learned a ton about recipe formulation since then.

Thanks for the update. Are you getting any of the onion flavor that the summit hops are expected to produce? Or do you think you under-hopped late in the boil?

I definitely got some of the "onion" flavor but to me that is not a bad thing. I do think I underhopped late in the boil because the beer is not as hop-forward as it should be.