Port Brewing Hop 15

This thread mentioned Hop 15 a few times. I've had it once. I haven't found much information on Google about anyone attempting a clone, and I'd like to give it a shot. Obviously not anytime soon, as 15 different varieties of hops is going to cost me about $80-90 by itself. In any case I might just scale it back and make a Hop 10.

As far as I know one of the few beers on this forum that even comes close is Ohiobrewtus's Hopacles.

What I'd like to do is open up a running discussion for a recipe as well as hop selection, and especially how and when to add the hops to the boil. Maybe somebody else will be inspired to give this a shot as well. Obviously this is going to call for more research first, which means I need to see if I can find Hop 15 at a specialty store and sample a few bottles. I also think I need to do a bit more brewing and work on head appearance and retention, because an IIPA like this should have a thick, creamy white head.

The grain bill should be pretty straight forward based on the information from Port's site. Two row and a light crystal (I'm thinking 20L max). The hop addition is listed as 15 hops every 15 minutes. (Not sure if they add all 15 hops at each addtion).

Alright guys and gals, have at it. What would you do to make this clone and how would you plan out the hop additions? What changes would you make to the grain bill, if any? Thanks.

It's been a bit since I've had it but its so sticky with hops that its tough to pick out anything specific. If I can get it over here at the grocery store, you shouldn't have a problem finding it over there. I think the simple grain bill is the way to go, maybe throw in 1-2% wheat.

I'll have to pick up another bottle for "research". I'd guess that not all 15 hops go in every addition. Since their probably using some high aa hops for bittering, I bet those only go in at the beginning.

If it was me (and I might try something like this since I've got a bunch of hops), I probably wouldn't use more than 3-4 varieties at any addition and probably have at least 2 rounds of dry hopping with 2-3 varieties at each round.

I will brew up 5 gallons of it... even if it is $90... what the hell. My brew rig is worth $1500 or more... It will be a specialty beer, maybe I will serve it in special glasses

The Pol said:

I will brew up 5 gallons of it... even if it is $90... what the hell. My brew rig is worth $1500 or more... It will be a specialty beer, maybe I will serve it in special glasses

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Alrighty then. Look forward to your input. The earliest I will be brewing this beast is MAR-APRIL after taxes. That way I can get my BC, the hops I need, and maybe I'll get a 20G stockpot too so I can make 10G.

It's been a while since I've had one but I recall a good dose of simcoe in the flavor. I think I recall seeing a bottle last time I was at my local bottle shop...I should do some research!

Here is a listing of all hops available at my LHBS. I have selected 15 that I think would be most likely to be in this brew. I stuck with mainly US hops, chose Goldings because I know that he carries Yakima Goldings.

1. Amarillo(Whole Hop)

2. Cascade(Whole Hop)

3, Centenial(Whole Hop)

4. Chinook(Whole Hop)

5. Columbus(Whole Hop)

6. Crystal(Whole Hop)

7. Fuggle(Import Pellet Hop)

8. Fuggles(Whole Hop)

9. Goldings(Whole Hop)

10. Hallertauer(Whole Hop)

11. Hersbrucker(Import Pellet Hop)

12. Kent Golding(Import Pellet Hop)

13. Magnum(Whole Hop)

14. Mt Hood(Whole Hops)

15. Northern Brewer(Whole Hop)

16. Nugget(Whole Hop)

17. Perle(Whole Hop)

18. Saaz(Imported Whole Hop)

19. Saaz/Sterling(Whole Hop)

20. Simcoe(Whole Hop)

21. Spalt(Import Pellet Hop)

22. Styr. Goldings(Whole Hop)

23. Tettnanger(Whole Hop)

24. Warrior(Whole Hop)

25. Willamette(Whole Hop)

I will work on this... I will be brewing again in Feb... once I get my electric BK and control panel thingy built. I will use this beer to celebrate the birth of our baby in July. Thanks for the idea!!

I'll probably brew this end of jan or feb. I'll start working on a recipe when I'm traveling over the holiday. I think I'll do a 90 minute boil and FWH it

Of the hops in my inventory these are what I definitely will use:
Amarillo
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Cluster
Columbus
Magnum
Simcoe
Summit
Warrior
Willamette

If I want to really try to get close to 15 hops in I'll have to use some others I don't think fit well but with that much in there you probably only get slight notes from each

So I'd probably also use:
Fuggles
Glacier
Liberty
Northern Brewer

That would make 15 hops total. I've got some other hops I could use but I'm not sure they would be appropriate, plus I want to save them for specific beers (like saaz, hallertauer, tettnanger)

They also use a whirlpool addition of Centennial and Amarillo (unknown quantity) and dry hop with Centennial and simcoe (3 pounds per barrel total)...that is on top of the 15oz every 15 min for 3.5 hours for a 7 barrel batch.

This info is straight from the brewers fingers

That's a s-load of hops.

I'm thinking that once I do get this done, I might even construct a randall to pour everything through.

Also considering mash hopping on this one as well.

Port uses a 3.5 hour boil on this bad boy???

dstar26t said:

They also use a whirlpool addition of Centennial and Amarillo (unknown quantity) and dry hop with Centennial and simcoe (3 pounds per barrel total)...that is on top of the 15oz every 15 min for 3.5 hours for a 7 barrel batch.

This info is straight from the brewers fingers

That's a s-load of hops.

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Is that 15oz/15min per barrel?

I couldn't possibly do a 3.5 hour boil on my gear to come up with a 10 gal batch. The only other time I did a boil that long I started with 13 gal or so and boiled down to 6 for a barleywine

I can definately see some modifications are in order.

I like the 90 minute boil idea. I've read a few reviews on BA and it seems like the citrus and piney hops are prevelant in the flavor profile. I think the focus for most of the hops needs to be on the aroma side, so more hops concentrated to late addition and probably some hardcore dry-hopping as well. Based on that, if I only do a five gallon batch, I think I'll shoot for 7G post boil just to allow for absorbtion.

After next payday, I'll have to seek out more of this beer and get an idea of where I want to go with it. I think it would be interesting if a few of us brew this to go our own way and then do a small scale swap to see how we each perceived the beer.

Go visit Port Brewing Co. and try the Hop15 dry hopped on tap!!! Its a whole different level of spicy hops. Quite intense! I got to hangout with one of the brewers and watch them dry hop the hell out of it.

McKBrew said:

After next payday, I'll have to seek out more of this beer and get an idea of where I want to go with it. I think it would be interesting if a few of us brew this to go our own way and then do a small scale swap to see how we each perceived the beer.

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I'd be interested in doing a small swap of this.

When I made my pliny clone I fermented in plastic so I could get all the dry hops in. I'll probably do the same and do 2 rounds of dry hopping in plastic then transfer to keg and do another round in there.

From their website (I don't think anyone posted this so far in here):
Malts- Two Row and English Light Crystal
Hops- We use 15 Different Varieties on a strictly don't ask don't tell policy
Yeast- White Labs California Ale and Proprietary Yeast Strains

Original Gravity- 1.086
Terminal Gravity- 1.014
9.7 % ABV



A nice clean yeast would be good. If I do 10 gal, I'll pitch 2 packs of SafAle-05 in one fermenter and maybe a big starter of Denny's Fav50 in the other or perhaps some cultured Bell's Yeast

Is that 15oz/15min per barrel?

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it's 15oz every 15 minutes for a 7 barrel batch.

With my equipment, I'd probably have to do a 13 gallon boil in order to collect 6 gallons after the 3.5 hr boil. All the dry hops will soak up a bunch of beer too so I'd be lucky to end up with 5 gallons into a keg.

dstar26t said:

it's 15oz every 15 minutes for a 7 barrel batch.

With my equipment, I'd probably have to do a 13 gallon boil in order to collect 6 gallons after the 3.5 hr boil. All the dry hops will soak up a bunch of beer too so I'd be lucky to end up with 5 gallons into a keg.

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15oz/15 min just seems low to me for a beer that big and hoppy. Maybe their using more high AA hops then I would expect though

Edit: Though if you tack on a big whirlpool addition and dry hopping that could make the numbers work

I am definately not doing a 3 hour boil on this. I'll do a 90minute boil and adjust accordingly.

Edit: Though if you tack on a big whirlpool addition and dry hopping that could make the numbers work

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Yeah, they are using the equivalent of 7.75oz/5 gallon batch for just dry hopping and who knows how much during the whirlpool.
I get awesome results (for an IPA) with two 1.75 oz dry hop additions in a 6 gallon batch and they are doubling that.

I emailed Port about their dry hops when I was making a wipeout IPA clone. Here is what they said about Hop 15 dry hop... It never hurts to ask.

We dry hop them with one lb per bbl of hops for one week. Hop 15 equals
Simcoe and Centennial with Wipeout being Amarillo and Centennial.

Hope this helps and sorry for delay but I had to get info from brewer.

Cheers!
Ruby Johnson
Customer Service, PortBrewing.com/LostAbbey.com
[email protected]
ph: 800-918-6816 ext. 105

hmm...that's 1/3 the dry hops I was told by them. 3 lbs per barrel would be pretty ridiculous.

I haven't forgotten about this, will likely brew after tax time.

I've got a few things I want to try to brew in the next few weeks, not sure exactly what is going to be brewed when, but I'm going to try to brew this a weekend between 1/24 and 2/7.

I was planning on doing 10 gal of this but I might just do a 5 gal batch so I can have a double brew day and make 2 5 gal batches that I can ferment at the same temp in my chest freezer.

I just put together what I'm planning on doing. I'm going to shoot for brewing this on Sunday. I might still make some changes. I'm thinking of having a double brew day so I might up the grain and partigyle this or just get another mash going after I'm done sparging.

I've still got to decide what to do with the dry hopping. I'm either going to put in 2oz in the fermenter and 1oz in the keg or I'll put .75oz of each in the fermenters and then the left over in the keg.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 7.00 gal
Boil Size: 10.70 gal
Estimated OG: 1.088 SG
Estimated Color: 7.3 SRM
Estimated IBU: 182.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
21 lbs Great Western 2 Row Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 93.33 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 15L (15.0 SRM) Grain 2.22 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 2.22 %
8.0 oz White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2.22 %
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.60 %] (90 min) (FirsHops 23.8 IBU
0.50 oz Magnum [11.50 %] (90 min) Hops 17.1 IBU
0.50 oz Warrior [17.50 %] (80 min) Hops 26.0 IBU
0.50 oz Summit [18.50 %] (70 min) Hops 24.7 IBU
0.50 oz Chinook [13.10 %] (60 min) Hops 19.4 IBU
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (55 min) Hops 12.2 IBU
0.50 oz Simcoe [12.00 %] (50 min) Hops 16.7 IBU
0.50 oz Glacier [6.10 %] (45 min) Hops 8.1 IBU
0.50 oz Cluster [8.20 %] (40 min) Hops 9.3 IBU
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.60 %] (35 min) Hops 4.3 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [5.20 %] (30 min) Hops 3.9 IBU

0.50 oz Williamette [4.50 %] (25 min) Hops 2.7 IBU
0.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (20 min) Hops 4.4 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.60 %] (15 min) Hops 4.2 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [6.90 %] (10 min) Hops 2.0 IBU
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.60 %] (5 min) Hops 3.6 IBU
1.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Centennial [10.60 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.20 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Centennial [10.60 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
2 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL Yeast #S-05) Yeast-Ale

Since its supposed to be warmer tomorrow vs sat or sun, I'm going to try to brew this tomorrow. I changed up the recipe a bit. Total hops are now 15oz. I'm deviating a bit from the original plan of sticking with their alleged grain bill and adjusting based on my experience making IPA and IIPA. I dropped some of the 2 row in favor of turbinado sugar to help it dry out.

Since I don't want this to take too long tomorrow I just got finished bagging up each individual hop addition in its own ziploc. Took a while to sort through all my hops to find the ones I needed. When I first started I found a few oz of nugget I forgot I had so I subbed that in for the glacier. Later I found some galena but I'd already got my early additions bagged up so I decided against using it.

A few of my hop additions are leaf vs pellet and in the calculation they are all assumed to be pellets since I didn't have a record of which I had leaf vs pellet. With all this luplin, I don't think a few IBUs are going to make a difference

I was going to make my next brew day a double, but I don't want to be up too late doing this. I might also kick myself later for not making 10-12 gallons of this, but if it turns out awesome I've got plenty of ingredients to make another batch.

Batch Size: 7.00 gal
Boil Size: 10.70 gal
Estimated OG: 1.087 SG
Estimated Color: 8.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 244.9 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
18 lbs Great Western 2 Row Malt (2.0 SRM) Grain 83.72 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 15L (15.0 SRM) Grain 2.33 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 2.33 %
8.0 oz Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2.33 %
8.0 oz White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2.33 %
1.00 oz Simcoe [13.20 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Centennial [10.60 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.60 %] (90 min) (FirsHops 23.9 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 10 days) Hops -
0.75 oz Magnum [11.50 %] (90 min) Hops 25.6 IBU
0.75 oz Warrior [17.50 %] (80 min) Hops 39.0 IBU
0.50 oz Summit [18.50 %] (70 min) Hops 24.7 IBU
1.00 oz Chinook [13.10 %] (60 min) Hops 38.9 IBU
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (55 min) Hops 12.3 IBU
0.50 oz Simcoe [12.00 %] (50 min) Hops 16.7 IBU
0.75 oz Nugget [13.00 %] (45 min) Hops 26.0 IBU
0.50 oz Cluster [8.20 %] (40 min) Hops 9.3 IBU
0.50 oz Fuggles [4.60 %] (35 min) Hops 4.3 IBU
0.50 oz Liberty [5.20 %] (30 min) Hops 3.9 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [4.50 %] (25 min) Hops 2.7 IBU
0.75 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (20 min) Hops 6.7 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.60 %] (15 min) Hops 4.2 IBU
0.75 oz Cascade [6.90 %] (10 min) Hops 3.1 IBU
0.50 oz Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.60 %] (5 min) Hops 3.6 IBU
1.25 oz Amarillo Gold [8.90 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.25 oz Centennial [10.60 %] (0 min) Hops -
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 lbs 8.0 oz Turbinado (10.0 SRM) Sugar 6.98 %
2 Pkgs SafAle American Ale (DCL Yeast #S-05) Yeast-Ale

Awesome Bokonon. Save a couple bottles, as it might be worth a road trip for me later this year just to try the finished product.

McKBrew said:

Awesome Bokonon. Save a couple bottles, as it might be worth a road trip for me later this year just to try the finished product.

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I'm sure I'll be on that side of the state a few times. I'm hoping to make it out on 2/28 for the BJCP exam, the exbeerience festival looks like its on 4/4, and then the fathers day beer festival.

I'd love to make it to the cask beer fest, but I don't think that will happen since I'll be making a few other trips over around then.

I finally brewed this up today. I almost didn't brew since my garden hose was frozen. So instead of using it for my brew water I took my carbon filter inside and brought the water out 5 gal at a time. I had to take the garden hose inside to thaw and fortunately it was unfrozen by the time I needed it to chill. I made sure to drain it when I was done, which I must have forgotten last time I brewed.

Somehow I ended up with about a gallon extra wort. I'll have to dig through my notes and recipe to see how that happened. Maybe my boil off wasn't as high as normal, which I kind of doubt.

I also had a casualty of one of my probe thermometers that I use in my BK to see when I've chilled enough. I ended up way over chilling, which I don't think I've ever done before. So the wort is sitting in my chest freezer with the heating element on to warm it up before I pitch my yeast. I'll probably pitch when I hit 60 and my target temp is 66

This is one of those EVEREST beers! I'd love to brew this.

Just racked this beer into a keg. First taste from the hydro sample seemed extremely bitter, second taste it didn't seem as bitter (maybe my taste buds had been stickyified), I think it tastes pretty awesome. I put some of my dry hops in the fermenter and they sat for about 10 days, I'm going to finish up the dry hopping in the keg.

FG was 1.010. Didn't really expect it to drop this far. SafAle-05 always seems to go a lot farther than I expect. Port's website says the real one drops to 1.014

Unfortunately the last time I was at the store I could get the real one from they were all out, so it might be a while before I can do a taste test of it. Not that I was trying to clone it exact, I just wanted to make something crazy like it

I've got to fill a few bottles of this tonight so I'll have another taste then. I found some of the real thing so I might do a side by side taste, though I'd almost rather wait to do that till I have some other people around to share in it.

My FG didn't really go down to 1.010, I forgot that I never calibrated the newest hydrometer and it reads 4 points low. So my FG was 1.014

Heres the dry hopping I really did:
In fermenter for 6 days:
.25oz simcoe
.5oz centennial
1oz cascade

Dry hopping in keg:
.75oz centennial
1oz simcoe
.75oz cascade

Originally I was shooting for 15oz total to keep everything in 15s, but my new total was 17.75oz. 13.5oz in the kettle and 4.25oz dry hops

I spent so much money on equipment recently, that I'll be putting this brew off for a while longer. Glad I inspired someone else to do it.

How close do you feel you got on the malt profile?

I just got a chance to taste this the other weekend when Port did a brewery opening with Lost Abbey, a bit much for me, but SWMBO loved it. how's the bottled version stand up to being served from the keg?

I haven't had a chance to crack the real and do a side by side yet. I'd like to do it with some others around that can give good feedback, but I'm not sure when that will be.

I just had a bottle of the real thing last week, and perhaps it was a mistake tasting it blind with PtE (I'd never had Hop 15 or PtE before) but man, it was just awful. A syrupy hoppy mess with no redeeming qualities. Hope you get something better out of this brew. I usually love hop bombs, but this didn't do me any good.

Any updates? I'm going to brew this before too long

I bought a case of beer from Bev Mo. I love hop 15. The heaviest flavor I had was grapefruit. I would say load up 2ozs of Cascade, Centennial, Falconers Flight, and Warrior to start. Any citrus explosion should be considered. Just a thought