American IPA Firestone-Walker Union Jack "inspired" IPA

I have been putting together a recipe based on Firestone Walker Union Jack. It has turned into my go-to IPA (when I am out of homebrew and there isn't anything new to try at the bottle shop). I am hesitant to call it a clone, but I put this together based on information about the beer from their website as well as stuff I have read about their brewing methods on the web.

10lbs Pale Malt, 2 Row
1.5lbs Munich Malt
1.0lbs Crystal 20L
0.5lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine
.25lbs Acid Malt*
*Acid Malt used to adjust mash PH based on the Water Chemistry Primer. If you aren't adjusting your water, skip the Acid.

Mash at 149. (I did my mash for 75 minutes based on this thread. If you don't have attenuation issues you can probably do a standard 60 minute)

60min 1.25oz Magnum
15min Whirlfloc Tablet Firestone's beers are nice and clear.
Hop Stand- 1.00oz Centennial (30 Minutes)
Hop Stand- 1.00oz Cascade (30 Minutes)
I put in my hop stand additions at flame out.
Dry Hop- 0.5oz Amarillo
Dry Hop- 0.5oz Cascade
Dry Hop- 0.5oz Centennial
Dry Hop- 0.5oz Chinook
Dry Hop- 0.5oz Citra
Dry Hop- 0.5oz Simco

Firestone says they do a double dry hop on their Union Jack. I haven't decided whether I am going to split all 6 dry hop additions in half, put in 3 of the hop additions for the first round of dry hopping, then the other 3 for the second round, or if I am just going to do a single dry hop.

Also Firestone doesn't keep their beer on the dry hops for longer than 5 days. So I will either do a single 5 day dry hop, or if I do a double dry hop, each one will be 4 days.

Other Notes:
I put "about 70 IBU's" because I don't have a good calculation for what I will get out of the hop-stand. People have said/guessed it is similar to if the hops were a 20 minute addition.

The color is a little off, I get 6.8 SRM from Beersmith. Firestone says the Union Jack comes out at an 8 SRM. I may tweak the next batch with some Crystal 40L to get it closer, but was going to wait to see how the first batch looks first.

I wasn't sure if I should throw up a recipe until I had tasted the final results, but I wanted to update the status of my beer pipe-line in my sig, so here it is. Questions/comments/suggestions are of course welcome.

If you stick with your current dry hop schedule, I wouldn't bother doing two rounds of dry hopping. Union Jack is dry hopped at about double the rate you have here, so if you decided to double all your dry hops, it might make sense to split it then.

This thread seems to have a lot of good info:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/can-you-brew-recipe-firestone-walker-union-jack-188929/

I'm pretty sure there is a published recipe for Union Jack in Mitch Steele's IPA book too.

I appreciate the feedback. I probably will stick to the single dry hop (this time around) for simplicity's sake. Funny, I searched for a Union Jack recipe before I started putting together my own, but that thread never showed up. Ah well, it was fun putting together my own.

I will also look into that book. I hadn't really bothered buying recipe books because we have such a great source of info here at HBT.

Look up a member on here's blog: bertusbrewery.com. Besides being super knowledgable and selfless in sharing his recipes, he's got some killer clones of the best ipas out there including Union Jack and double jack. I think he's one if the best ipa homebrewers out there.

I made a slightly modified version of his double jack, and it was fantastic.

DocScott said:

Look up a member on here's blog: bertusbrewery.com. Besides being super knowledgable and selfless in sharing his recipes, he's got some killer clones of the best ipas out there including Union Jack and double jack. I think he's one if the best ipa homebrewers out there.

I made a slightly modified version of his double jack, and it was fantastic.

Click to expand...

I'll second this recommendation. Also check out his Stone Enjoy By recipe.

Yup, I checked out and love bertusbrewery.com. Currently have a double IPA in a keg cold-conditioning that is based on his Double-Jack clone recipe.

As far as the original recipe, first one ended up all estery. I was trying to swamp-cooler it in a bathtub but I just wasn't able to control the temp well that way. I basically didn't brew all summer because of my lack of temp control but have since gotten a fermentation chamber all set up.

Second time around I doubled the dry hop and it turned out great. Not quite the same as Firestone, mine had more pine aromas and notes up front. Good citrus flavors as well but almost lost in the huge pine character. It was a huge hit among my IPA hop-head friends, we killed 5 gallons of it in one night. It is going to become my 'house' IPA. I may try upping the flame-out additions to hopefully let the citrus flavors and floral aromas to fight through pine, but we will see. I did love it as is.

Sub'd. Brewed a version of this on 6/1/15. Bottled yesterday. Need to look at my recipe and see how similar they are.