Sierra Nevada Imperial Red Ale

I hate when this happens.

I got a few 12s of the Beer Camp series this year. I loved the Imperial Red Ale. Unfortunately I can't get any more. I liked it because it was a little hoppier than other Red Ales and had a slightly different finish.

Is there a similar beer out there? Does someone have a good clone recipe for it?

Lagunitas Red was kind of similar, if not a bit hoppier. Unfortunately that is also a seasonal, but I'd still keep your eyes out for it if I were you.

Thanks I've got a few places around here I can look for that.

I hate seasonal beers! Just when I get hooked, they're gone.

If you find a good recipe for it you should post it. That stuffs great.

Ok, this is going to sound pretty stupid because I have never tried EITHER of these beers, but you might try Green Flash "Hop Head Red" if you can find it. I HAVE had a couple of Green Flash's beers before and they are really good, so I imagine this Red is nice as well. I think I'll go grab one this weekend for fun

Great Lakes Brewing,Nosferatau I think it is. I thought it was very good. Sorry I think they may have limited distribution,I know I cant get it without driving a few hours into Illinois,near Chicago. Probabably same situation for you since its in Ohio.
I think you should try a founders red rye ale alsne of my favorates.

Whippy said:

Ok, this is going to sound pretty stupid because I have never tried EITHER of these beers, but you might try Green Flash "Hop Head Red" if you can find it. I HAVE had a couple of Green Flash's beers before and they are really good, so I imagine this Red is nice as well. I think I'll go grab one this weekend for fun

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Damn how did I not think of HHR! What an amazing beer. I love Green Flash, so I am planning on going on a tour of their brewery for my birthday.

Whippy said:

Ok, this is going to sound pretty stupid because I have never tried EITHER of these beers, but you might try Green Flash "Hop Head Red" if you can find it. I HAVE had a couple of Green Flash's beers before and they are really good, so I imagine this Red is nice as well. I think I'll go grab one this weekend for fun

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As a follow-up the Hop Head Red was very good, but had a much different taste than the SN Beer Camp Imperial Red.

The Hop Head was definitley an IPA. A very good one!

The SN Beer Camp Red was more malt-centric. It was definitely closer to an Amber than an IPA. Kind of a combination of both. The hops were there, but the malt was a little more pronounced in the SN Red.

My search continues. This will give me an excuse to buy more Red Ales. I'll just say I'm doing research.

jonmohno said:

Great Lakes Brewing,Nosferatau I think it is. I thought it was very good. Sorry I think they may have limited distribution,I know I cant get it without driving a few hours into Illinois,near Chicago. Probabably same situation for you since its in Ohio.

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I can get this. I live about 4 hours from Cleveland. I like their beers a lot. I'll give it a try. Thanks.

I'm going to take a shot at this beer. Here's some information I found online regarding the origin and a basic description from SN's website. I'll try to put together a basic recipe in a day or so. Any help would be appreciated since I'm fairly new to creating something from scratch.

I'll probably try to brew it this weekend. I'm going to use PacMan as my yeast. The experimental hops has me a little confused. Not sure about where to go with that.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...e5ef62c-0450-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_blog.html

From Sierra Nevada’s website:

Red-Oric:
ABV: 8.5%
OG: 18.0 Plato
FG: 2.8 Plato
Bitterness: 65 IBU
Color : Red
Bittering Hops: Magnum, Experimental
Dry Hops: Magnum, Chinook, Experimental
Malt: Pale 2-row, Patagonia, Caramel (45L), Chocolate
Yeast : Ale
Description: This imperial Red Ale takes the bold hop profile found in a traditional IPA and turns up the malt. It has big aromatic hop notes of grapefruit, peach, and melon balanced by very smooth and surprisingly robust malt body. Hops take the lead on this beer, but the malt tames the bitterness and adds unique drinkability.

I couldn't find any of the info you pulled off the site, I actually couldn't find the Red on their site at all. I'm sure pacman would work well but I'm assuming they use Chico yeast on this recipe as that's what they use in majority of their beers. Now the 'experimental' hops is a hard guess, Sierra Nevada grows all its own hops and barley so for all we know it's a new hybrid strain they developed. If I had to guess on a strain to use though I'd probably go with Cascade, I doubt it's what they use but it looks like they'd fill that hole well.

b-boy said:

I can get this. I live about 4 hours from Cleveland. I like their beers a lot. I'll give it a try. Thanks.

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You won't be disappointed. It's a phenomenal beer. IIRC, it is seasonal but I could be wrong. Good news is I think it's a fall beer!

KeyWestBrewing said:

Now the 'experimental' hops is a hard guess, Sierra Nevada grows all its own hops and barley so for all we know it's a new hybrid strain they developed.

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Do you have a source for that? I know they grow some of their hops and barley but all of them? Pardon me for being incredulous but Sierra Nevada is a pretty prolific brewery so the thought of them producing all of their own barley and hops is pretty incredible.

KeyWestBrewing said:

I couldn't find any of the info you pulled off the site, I actually couldn't find the Red on their site at all.

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It's on the Beer Camp site. It's called Red Oric.
http://www.sierrabeercamp.com/#/camp-beers

Ithaca Cascazilla. I know you can get this where you live.

http://ithacabeer.com/cascazilla/

gcdowd said:

You won't be disappointed. It's a phenomenal beer. IIRC, it is seasonal but I could be wrong. Good news is I think it's a fall beer!

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I was ice fishing in Temagami Canada and I took a bunch of Great Lakes beers with me. I'm a big fan of Burning River Ale. The old guy that ran the Lodge was strictly a Labatt's drinker - when he wasn't drinking Rye.

I gave him an Edmund Fitzgerald Porter to try. He looked at the bottle, took a swallow, grimaced, and gave me the bottle back. I asked him how he liked it. He said "Yea - that's about right. It tastes like a rusting hulk".

That's my favorite beer quote of all time.

thughes said:

Ithaca Cascazilla. I know you can get this where you live.

http://ithacabeer.com/cascazilla/

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Another great one. One of my favorites!

gcdowd said:

Another great one. One of my favorites!

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That's 2 recommendations for Ithaca Cascazilla. I'll have to pick that up sometime this week.

KeyWestBrewing said:

Now the 'experimental' hops is a hard guess, Sierra Nevada grows all its own hops and barley so for all we know it's a new hybrid strain they developed. If I had to guess on a strain to use though I'd probably go with Cascade, I doubt it's what they use but it looks like they'd fill that hole well.

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What abour Citra as opposed to Cascade? Maybe a little of each?

The experimental hop could be the HBC 342 that More Beer has for sale. Check it out, uses some of the same words in the description as on the SN website, notably "melon notes". I'dlink to it but I'm on my ipad and copying & pasting is a pita. Sorry.

b-boy said:

What abour Citra as opposed to Cascade? Maybe a little of each?

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I was actually thinking the same thing. I think you used Citra you would have to be careful not to use too much or it would dominate the aroma and flavor.

keesh said:

Do you have a source for that? I know they grow some of their hops and barley but all of them? Pardon me for being incredulous but Sierra Nevada is a pretty prolific brewery so the thought of them producing all of their own barley and hops is pretty incredible.

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I correct myself, your right they don't grow all of their hops and barley. I went to a Sierra Nevada sponsored beer dinner and the SN reps gave us some pamphlets with some cool info on the brewery. They have a hop yard that's over 9 acres(biggest in the Cali) and a 26 acre 2 Row barley field they have custom malted to their requirement. They also have a solar energy farm of over 10,500 panels and four 300-kilowatt co-generation fuel cell units. If that wasn't green enough they also installed a system to recover all the CO2 produced during fermentation that's then used for bottling and kegs. As well as a hybrid diesel electric vehicle used to distribute products locally. Sorry, I got a little carried away, just thought I'd share the info as it makes me respect their operation that much more.

hogwash said:

The experimental hop could be the HBC 342 that More Beer has for sale. Check it out, uses some of the same words in the description as on the SN website, notably "melon notes". I'dlink to it but I'm on my ipad and copying & pasting is a pita. Sorry.

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I'll check that out.

Here is my first pass at a recipe. I went with the HBC 342 experimental hops. The hop aroma profile seems to match pretty closely to what was described by SN. I got the IBUs and ABV as close as I could based on BeerSmith. Took a shot at the hop profile based on some other recipes I found for IPAs and Imperial Reds.

Any comments?

Imperial Red - Version 1
American IPA
Type: All Grain Date: 9/24/2012
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 6.98 gal
Boil Time: 60 min
Equipment: My Setup (10 Gal Cooler/15 Gal Pot) - All Grain
End of Boil Volume 5.98 gal
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 4.60 gal
Est Mash Efficiency 82.8 %
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage

Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
13 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 86.3 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 2 6.6 %
1 lbs Patagonia Medium Crystal Malt (60.0 SRM) Grain 3 6.6 %
1.1 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 4 0.5 %
1.00 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 40.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 6 15.6 IBUs
0.50 oz HBC 342 [12.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 7 8.6 IBUs
0.25 oz HBC 342 [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 8 1.7 IBUs
1.0 pkg American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 ml] Yeast 9 -
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 10 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz HBC 342 [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Magnum [14.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days Hop 12 0.0 IBUs


Beer Profile
Est Original Gravity: 1.078 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 8.1 %
Bitterness: 66.4 IBUs Calories: 151.6 kcal/12oz
Est Color: 14.0 SRM

Edit: Adjusted the chocolate malt and Patagonia to lighten up the color. Also, lowered IBUs on HBC 342 to 12 from 15. Decided to go with Wyeast 1056 over PacMan.

keesh said:

Do you have a source for that? I know they grow some of their hops and barley but all of them? Pardon me for being incredulous but Sierra Nevada is a pretty prolific brewery so the thought of them producing all of their own barley and hops is pretty incredible.

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Their Hops and barley are mainly for their Estate Ale. They import from Wash Oregon just like everyone else.

jonmohno said:

Great Lakes Brewing,Nosferatau I think it is. I thought it was very good. Sorry I think they may have limited distribution,I know I cant get it without driving a few hours into Illinois,near Chicago. Probabably same situation for you since its in Ohio.
I think you should try a founders red rye ale alsne of my favorates.

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Got a 4-pack of this. Really, really good. It is just what I was looking for. The beer is nice and bitter, but not overly hoppy. Really well balanced.

Only problem it's only available for another month so I'm back to the drawing board.

b-boy said:

Got a 4-pack of this. Really, really good. It is just what I was looking for. The beer is nice and bitter, but not overly hoppy. Really well balanced.

Only problem it's only available for another month so I'm back to the drawing board.

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Glad you liked it. Now get some Ithaca Cascazilla

gcdowd said:

Glad you liked it. Now get some Ithaca Cascazilla

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I couldn't find it. They had all the other Ithaca beers, but not that one. Is it seasonal?

No, it's year round.

This thread influenced me to get another 4 pack of GreenFlash Hop Head Red,as I havent had it for some time,yep its still great. Now I have a hankering for some Founders RedsRye again also for some reason. Oh wait,I forgot,its pretty much my favorate style ever. I also recently picked up a 4 pack of Hoprod rye. Its what makes the good life-great.