Bear Republic XP Pale Ale recipe/clone?

Hey All!

First official post after lurking these forums all through Christmas. Just brewed my first batch of beer (making a Wit) which I bottled last night. I also have 5 gallons of EW's Apfelwein and 2 gallons of cider brewing.

Anyway, I did a bunch of searches on these forums and can't find any mention for Bear's XP pale ale recipe clones. Does anyone have something that would work or is close?

I like the XP a lot more than Sierra Nevada, which is abundant. Definitely the hop difference, which I could probably get decently correct, but I'm not sure on malts or anything else special...

Any help would be awesome, thanks!

Has anyone else tried this beer yet? It is awesome. I'm not into IPAs but this is stronger than a regular pale ale and is probably a good introduction to them.

Really want this recipe!

Great beer as are all of Bear Republic's. It seems that they are pretty tight lipped about their recipes so it's hard to find clones.

It's been awhile since I've had it so this is a stab in the dark but I would do something like 6lbs light DME (I assume as a new brewer you're using extract), steep a pound of Crystal 10, then use Cascade and Centennial for your hops. I would do .5oz Centennial at 60, .5oz of each at 10 & flameout, dry hop with an ounce of each. Add half of the DME at the beginning of the boil and the other half in the last 15 minutes. US-05, Wyeast 1056, or WLP001 for the yeast. This will give you a very pale beer with 5.4% ABV and 35ish IBUs, depending on AA%s, and those are the numbers they give for the beer on their website.

I'm just guessing on the hops but they seem to really like those two varieties.

Thanks for the reply, Hogwash. I am actually a BIAB brewer, I find it is a good mix of easy and hard (no sparging so less brew time, don't feel like I'm cheating by using extracts).

The bottle mentions this:

"This beer is brewed with American Two Row, English wheat, Belgian and Dextrin malts. Mix this with just the right amounts of Cascade and Centennial hops and you've got a winner!!"

I'm just not sure on ratios for the grains or malts, or if all the hops are added during brewing, or some dry hopping.

Ah, I was pretty off on the grains then, heh. I think I would go fairly low on the dextrin and it's hard to say what to do with the wheat & belgian (i assume belgian pils?) malts. But I reckon that's part of the fun, pick some ratios & go for it! I'd do at least half 2-row to start but heck, you could do just about any combo with those 3 malts. I've done a couple recipes but I don't have nearly the experience with recipe creation that others on here do, hopefully someone with more knowledge will chime in.

I might get crazy and attempt it, but I'm mostly set up for 5 gallon batches and I don't have confidence I won't end up with a lot of undrinkable beer...lol.

I'm just inexperienced with the recipe part of things, I know some of the ingredients but not when to add them (hops) or how much grain, etc.

Don't let it intimidate you. Check out some other pale ale recipes and you'll get the general idea of what's going on. I would think a mix of those 3 grains, all base grains really (not including the dextrin), will produce a drinkable beer no matter the ratios. BUT, as I said before, I'd go with at least half 2 row given that it's an american style beer. I think 8oz of dextrin would be a good place to start. The general hopping schedule for a hoppy APA would be a quantity at 60 (I'd go with the higher AA Centennial) for bittering and then 2 or 3 additions from 15 to flameout for flavoring and aroma. Dry hopping only gives the beer more aroma so you can do whatever you want there. I would do a mix of the Cascade & Centennial for the later additions & dry hopping. Use beersmith or brewpal or one of the online calculators to help with hitting the right numbers. And I would mash and boil for 90 minutes given the Belgian Pils, assuming that's the belgian grain to which the label refers. Have some fun with it, you might produce something you like even better than the XP Ale.

Couple other things. Mash low, say 149, it will help dry it out. And once you come up with something, post it here and ask people what they think. It's a great way to learn how to put a recipe together.

Okay, spent some time playing around in BeerSmith tonight to try and get something that matched the ingredients and numbers listed on the label. Here's what I was aiming for:

Using Centennial & Cascade hops, American 2-Row, English wheat, Belgian and Dextrin malts, 35 IBU and 5.4% ABV.

Recipe might be a bit funky but I had to mangle the weights a bit to get darn close to the above. And I actually inferred the Belgian malt to be something like Special B, given it is listed at the end of Bear Republic's description with Dextrin, so I figure it is used very sparingly (plus it added the color I needed). I'm really uncertain on the flaked wheat, as Bear Republic lists it as an English wheat. Any idea what ingredient that might be specifically? My local brew shop sells a "Wheat Malt" which might qualify..


Ingredients
7.75 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 77.5 %
1.75 lbs Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) 17.5 %
8.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) 5.0 %
0.75 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 25.7 IBUs
0.25 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min 4.7 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min 3.4 IBUs
0.25 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min 1.7 IBUs
8.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 mins)
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.046 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.4 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 4.7 %
Bitterness: 35.5 IBUs
Est Color: 11.2 SRM

How does that look?

I think your SRM is too dark. That beer is REALLY pale, that's why I think the "Belgian" malt referred to on the label is Belgian Pils. Also, I think the dextrin referred to is carapils and not maltodextrin. The carapils will give the beer a little more body/mouthfeel to offset those pale malts...now that I think about it, it could be that they use Belgian carapils, that would knock out both the dextrin & the Belgian malts on the label. I wouldn't bother using both Cascade and Centennial for the 60 minute addition. You only get bittering from that addition and no flavor or aroma. I would move that .25 oz of Cascade as well as your 5 min Centennial addition to flameout, then add enough Centennial to the 10 min addition to make up for the IBU loss. Keep in mind that I haven't had this beer in a couple years but I remember it being very crisp with a nice hop aroma. The flameout will give you the aroma, as will a dry hop addition, but no/minimal IBUs. Dry hopping is obviously not necessary but I like to do it with any pale recipe. Heck, I dry hopped BierMuncher's Centennial Blonde when I did that one.

Think the WLP001 is fine for this? Also any idea about the "English Wheat"? Think flaked wheat works?

I'll update in Beer Smith and post in a bit.

I'd definitely go with 001 or the like. I think the english wheat would just be Munton's brand wheat malt. I doubt there's much, if any, difference between it and a regular pale or white wheat.

Well, I ended up just getting Flaked Wheat. This is how I ended up landing:

6 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) 59.6 %
2.5 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) 24.9 %
1 lbs Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM) 9.9 %
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) 5.0 %
1.0 oz Carafa III (525.0 SRM) 0.6 %
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 34.1 IBUs
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale #WLP001 Yeast

Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.052 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.010 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 5.6%
Bitterness: 34.1 IBUs
Color 6.7 SRM

I plan to brew on Saturday. I may cut the bittering hops a bit just so I don't end up with 5 gallons of ale the wife won't touch. Might drop it to around 30 IBU or so, we'll see. I also added the Carafa Special III to get a bit more color. I drank another XP tonight and it is more the color of Sierra Nevada than I had remembered (but nearly so much Cascade hops - I certainly plan to balance the aroma hops more between Centennial and Cascade than going heavy handed on Cascade).

Thanks for all the assistance! This is my first "from scratch" recipe.

Cool and you're welcome! I think it will be a great beer, whether it's an xp clone or not. Let me know how it turns out.

If you're interested, Brewing Classic Styles is a great resource in developing an understanding of how to put together a recipe. Ray Daniels' Designing Great Beers is a little more in depth but not as hands-on, recipe oriented as BCS. I'm still wading through the Daniels book...course I'm still working through BCS as well.