AHB changing recipes but keeping the same name

I just noticed that the Austin Homebrew Fat Tire recipe is completely different the one they were selling 2 years ago, different hops, different specialty malts, different extracts yet they still continue to fall it the same brew!

For instance - the Hops used to be

Perle
Mt. Hood
Glacier

and now they are
Target
Willamette
Kent Golding

Even the yeast has changed!

They may have come up with a better clone recipe, or received new information from the brewer. Also, hops characteristics change from year to year. I regularly change hop amount and variety based on availability and aa% without any problems. RDWRAHB. It's ok.

I brewed my first, a mini mash FT from AHS. Turned out wonderful!

We got it wrong so we changed it. There are many stores that use Belgian yeast in their clone. Fat Tire does not use Belgian yeast in Fat Tire.

We use the hops, grain and yeast they use, now. Can't really change the name of the kit when we are striving to make it as close to Fat Tire as possible.

Here is info from their site:


FAT TIRE
Named in honor of our co-founder's bike trip through Europe, Fat Tire Amber Ale marks a turning point in the young electrical engineer's home brewing. Belgian beers use a far broader palette of ingredients (fruits, spices, esoteric yeast strains) than German or English styles. Together with co-founder, Kim Jordan, they traveled around sampling their homebrews to the public. Fat Tire won fans with its sense of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.

Just the facts Ma'am...
ABV - 5.2%
IBU - 18.5
Calories - 155

Hops -
Willamette, Goldings, Target

Malts - Pale, C-80, Munich, Victory

OG - 12.6
TG - 2.2

Wait a minute - to play devils advocate - and remember - I love AHB - BUT - if you got it wrong and people LOVED it . . why change. And if it was wrong before and it tastes exactly the same now . . . . . why change. If it does not taste the same it should have it's own ratings in your comments.

This is like people saying GREAT recipe but I changed all the hops and added honey. It's no longer the recipe then is it?

What you SHOULD do is have Fat Tire "A" and Fit Tire "B" instead of combining all of the comments into one recipe since it's actually two different recipes. Is the first recipe that people loved worse then the one now?

See my point? Yea - I'm splitting hairs but if you have a grading system on your site and are combining two different recipes . . . . .

(I'm not angry . . . . I'm was a systems analyst which might explain things)

And BTW - Merry Christmas Forrest (sp?) well done and I've loved watching you grow your business over the past few years!

I have done that with our AHS kits... Then it would be a different kit. But I think people buy a clone kit because it is supposed to taste as close as we can to the commercial beer. When we have new facts straight from the brewery itself that tells us we could have the real ingredients we try to do that. So it wouldnt be a different recipe it would be a much closer recipe of the same beer.

If it is a matter of making the beer like the kit used to be, I am sure I can come up with an ingredients list. Let me know if you need the list.

Forrest

Merry Christmas back at ya. Yes, the name has 2 Rs and a group of trees has 1 r. Thanks for the support.

Forrest

Forrest, You're the best! Thanks for the explanation and merry Christmas. Good luck on your new endeavors (rougness) in 2012.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

I am thankful that you are on in reality NOT a group of trees as I wonder if that would be some sort of creepy cannibalism going on!

Of Note - when you tape the plastic extract containers try not to tape the labels as the label comes off and if for some weird reason a person opens multiple containers . . . . . . .

And I have all the recipes from AHB - it's how I saw this! thanks

I suppose you could always rename to old kit. Can't offer a clever alternative at this time.

I just wish they (or anyone else) would come up with a decent clone of Hoogstraten Poorter. I absolutely LOVE that stuff, and would love to have it on tap. None of the clone recipes I've managed to find were able to do it justice

Nightbiker said:

I just wish they (or anyone else) would come up with a decent clone of Hoogstraten Poorter. I absolutely LOVE that stuff, and would love to have it on tap. None of the clone recipes I've managed to find were able to do it justice

Click to expand...

Try emailing the brewery and straight up ask for the recipe. When you get the recipe, pass it on.

Forrest

seatbelt123 said:

Forrest, You're the best! Thanks for the explanation and merry Christmas. Good luck on your new endeavors (rougness) in 2012.

Sent from my iPhone using HB Talk

Click to expand...

Thanks for the support. My last name and the name of the brewery is Rogness Brewing Company. Pronounced Rog (as in frog) and ness (as in happiness).

http://tts.imtranslator.net/J4BJ

Austinhomebrew said:

Try emailing the brewery and straight up ask for the recipe. When you get the recipe, pass it on.

Forrest

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, I don't know dutch, and the site doesn't translate or have an english version (it has an icon for it, but it does not work -and google translator didn't work).

Austinhomebrew said:

We got it wrong so we changed it. There are many stores that use Belgian yeast in their clone. Fat Tire does not use Belgian yeast in Fat Tire.

We use the hops, grain and yeast they use, now. Can't really change the name of the kit when we are striving to make it as close to Fat Tire as possible. ( I realize it's not a huge difference, just target vs magnum and a different crystal and I'm sure a different amount of crystal)

Here is info from their site:


FAT TIRE
Named in honor of our co-founder's bike trip through Europe, Fat Tire Amber Ale marks a turning point in the young electrical engineer's home brewing. Belgian beers use a far broader palette of ingredients (fruits, spices, esoteric yeast strains) than German or English styles. Together with co-founder, Kim Jordan, they traveled around sampling their homebrews to the public. Fat Tire won fans with its sense of balance: toasty, biscuit-like malt flavors coasting in equilibrium with hoppy freshness.

Just the facts Ma'am...
ABV - 5.2%
IBU - 18.5
Calories - 155

Hops -
Willamette, Goldings, Target

Malts - Pale, C-80, Munich, Victory

OG - 12.6
TG - 2.2

Click to expand...

On top of that, NB has either changed Fat Tire, or gave out different info in the past. This is an old reply to an email from NB:

"As you could probably guess we can't give you the recipe but we CAN
give you the ingredients. Here is a list of all of our brews in case you
are interested. Fat Tire is at the top.

Fat Tire: 5.3% alcohol
Hops and Spices-Willamette, Goldings and Magnum
Malts: Pale, C-40, Munich and Victory

Sunshine Wheat: 4.8%
Hops and Spices: Coriander, Orange Peel, and Magnum
Malts: Pale, Carapils, Wheat

1554: 5.5%
Hops and Spices: Magnum
Malts: Pale, Carapils, Black, Munich, Chocolate

Blue Paddle: 4.9%
Hops and Spices: Saaz, Liberty, Magnum
Malts: Pale, Munich, Carapils, Aromatic

Abbey: 7.0%
Hops and Spices: Willamette, Magnum, Hallertau
Malts: Pale, Chocolate, Carapils, C-40, C-80, Munich

Trippel: 8.7%
Hops and Spices: Saaz, Liberty, Magnum, Coriander
Malts: Pale, Victory, Munich

Hope that helps! If you would like more information on any of our other
brews (Special Release beers etc..) please let us know. These are just
our 'full time' beers. Happy homebrewing! "

Looks like NB had the hops wrong as well. We switched to using the hops the brewery says are in Fat Tire. They also said that it is definately not a belgian yeast and heavily implied Wyeast 1056.

Forrest