American Strong Ale Arrogant Bastard clone

I just made a 2.5 gallon scaling of this recipe, my first all-grain(or indeed any grain at all) attempt, and my first attempt at a beer this strong. I was worried at first when my mash temperature ended up being considerably too high, but I got it down and managed to hit the target OG with just a little added extract. Just tasting the wort I can tell this stuff is going to hit hard if all goes well from here.

I feel that Arrogant Bastard has a quite pronounced roasty flavor. Is the Special B roasty enough? The Chinooks may add smokey-like notes as well perhaps...

I tasted my Oaked version of this recipe for the first time last night and WOW!! I was afraid it was too oaky at bottling time but that has mellowed. I was suprised it was fully carbonated after less than two weeks in the bottle, and it tastes amazing. This is an awesome brew, very close to the original. Guess it's about time to sample side by side with the original. My efficency was my usual upper 60's, so my version was a bit on the weak side at 7.7%.
And upon further investigation I see the original is only 7.2%. Odd, mine seems to taste about 85% as bastardly as the original.

When the pacmans are done eating my APA that's in primary, I'm brewing this one. Played around in Beer Smith to convert it to a PM. Think I've matched everything pretty well, except for the color, but that's close enough for me.

Here's what I came up with.

Arrogant Bastard Clone PM
Brew Type: Partial Mash

Batch Size: 5.25 gal
Boil Volume: 3.54 gal Boil Time: 60 min
Brewhouse Efficiency: 69.00 %

Ingredients Amount Item Type % or IBU
7.00 lb Pale Liquid Extract [Boil for 5 min] Extract 48.28 %
5.50 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 37.93 %
0.50 lb Aromatic Malt (26.0 SRM) Grain 3.45 %
0.50 lb Biscuit Malt (23.0 SRM) Grain 3.45 %
0.50 lb Caramunich Malt (56.0 SRM) Grain 3.45 %
0.50 lb Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 3.45 %
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 22.1 IBU
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (45 min) Hops 20.3 IBU
1.00 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (2 min) Hops 1.9 IBU

Beer Profile Estimated Original Gravity: 1.083 SG
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.021 SG
Estimated Color: 18.7 SRM
Bitterness: 80.4 IBU
Estimated Alcohol by Volume: 8.10 % (7.50-10.00 %)

After some consultation with eviltoj a few months ago I decided to brew this, as Arrogant Bastard is one of my favorites. Tonight as me and my buddy wept as the keg sputtered its last breath, I realized that this was the best beer I have ever brewed. There is really a pronounced roastiness and solid malt backbone that stands up to that great chinook pop. This beer is so well rounded and absolutely delicious that I ordered a pound of chinook today and it will definitely be in constant circulation in my keezer.

I was wondering however if some that have brewed this recipe may have found it a bit lacking with the hop punch that I look for in my AB. For sure the chinook is there, but I wonder if stepping up each addition by a half ounce might give it a bit more of a kick. I dont know if I am misinterpreting the flavor of the original, but it seems like there is a quite a bit more bite.

Finally if your reading this to figure out if this should be your next brew, it should! This stuff is the sickness!

I'd say if you want more hop punch, dry hop it with more Chinook. I have a batch going in the basement right now, and I've forgotten how aggressive the Chinook is. mmmmm.....

Glad you like the recipe!

I racked mine off the oak chips tonight into another carboy to clear up further. I didn't want to leave it on the oak more than a week or so. In the process, I stole a liter of it and carbed it with my carbonator cap. This stuff is amazing. I am thinking about dry hopping it for a week or two with a half ounce of chinook before I keg it. Any input?

How many ounces of oak did you use? I used 2.5oz for one week and it was a bit much so I could see how a strong dose of oak could benefit from a dry hop. If you didn't use too much oak, or if the oak isn't very pronunced, I would fear a dry hop would only overpower the oak.
So I say dry hop if the oak can stand up to it!

Brewed 5 gallons of this today. Scaled back on the 2-row to get an OG of 1.073, which should get closer to the "true" 7.2% ABV.

portlandbeergeek said:

How many ounces of oak did you use? I used 2.5oz for one week and it was a bit much so I could see how a strong dose of oak could benefit from a dry hop. If you didn't use too much oak, or if the oak isn't very pronunced, I would fear a dry hop would only overpower the oak.
So I say dry hop if the oak can stand up to it!

Click to expand...

I used about .80 ounces of toasted oak. It originally was an ounce of untoasted oak but I toasted it in the oven for 20 minutes and it weighed about .8 when I put it in. It's about as oaky as the real thing. I kegged and force carbed it yesterday after crash cooling and adding gelatin earlier in the week. We were drinking it last night and it was good. I pulled a half pint a few minutes ago, the carbonation is more balanced now, and it is GREAT! I need to get another batch going ASAP. I just used 13.5# of 2 row and 1.5# of C120. The color is a little light but the taste is great. I have one bottle of OAB in the fridge and I might do a comparison later on today. I really like the balance between the maltiness and the hops. The chinook is right on. I did not dry hop this.

Just fired this bizatch up! I'll keep everyone posted.

I made this batch yesterday. My OG was 1.083. My first AG! It just started to bubble My next question is what sould i use for priming sugar when I bottle. I am not set up for kegging yet. Thanks for the recipie.

Priming sugar doesn't change whether you do extract or AG.

Texas Redfish said:

I made this batch yesterday. My OG was 1.083. My first AG! It just started to bubble My next question is what sould i use for priming sugar when I bottle. I am not set up for kegging yet. Thanks for the recipie.

Click to expand...

I like to use 4 ounces of corn sugar (dextrose) for 5 gallons for most of my American ales. It's easiest to do if you weigh it- it's more accurate.

Thanks for the responses! After a suggestion from my HB store I pitched with White Lab Pacific Ale Yeast. Should it be classified as a American Strong Ale? Do you think this will get me close in flavor? I am going to dry hop it with 1oz of Chinook in the secondary.

I've had a few bottles of my PM incantation of this and I have to say that I might need to readjust the hops. I don't think they translated correctly. It's a very tasty beer, but it's just not quite... arrogant. More of a moderately pissy bastard in this case. I'll make some adjustments next time I brew it and try to bring it up the the level of the AG clone. Still good stuff though and I'm happy to dispose of my mistake in this case.

ChesreCat,

Try doing 2oz of chinook for bittering, I found found it makes it more bastardly.

I brewed this over a month ago, only a few days bottled and it was great. It's been a while so I need to buy a sixer for comparison. I followed some advice by zac and dryhopped an oz of chinook but when you get the recipe dialed in let I'll do this one again. Great beer nonetheless.

The longer mine sits in the bottle, the more arrogant it is becoming. Still not as in your face as the original, but closer.

Racked over to secondary and added 1oz Chanook to dryhop. When I checked the gravity it was 1.021. I cant wait for two weeks to bottle this!

1.021 seems rather high. I hope it drops a few more points before you bottle.

It is still doin its thang. the airlock is still going about 8 times a minute. Your origional post has a FG of 1.020. I know this may be a dumb question, and please forgive me if it is, but how much difference is .001. How will it change the flavor.

I used Pacman yeast (with a starter), 1.075 OG; 1.015 FG. Took several days for fermentation to really take off, had trouble with my swamp cooler keeping it under 70F.

I have tried mine with only 1 week in bottle (I'm usually patient) but the sample I had when bottling was great so was worth trying. More like a bock, not enough 'bastard' in it yet and is a great beer.

Drinking one right now...Excellent clone and close to the original...I'll brew this again but I think I'll double up on bittering additions and dry hoping...

I am going to brew this one on Saturday. How big a yeast starter do you guys recommend? WY1056 a good yeast for this?

Also - I only have Marris Otter on hand for base grains - think that will over-malt the taste?

How will this be in 6 weeks? I was planning on brewing this Saturday for a Party on Dec 12. I guess that seems so far away, but it's only 6 WEEKS!

I'm going to go MO because I have it on hand as well and will double up on the bittering and and extra .5oz at KO.

Marris Otter will work fine for it. The Chinook is really aggressive, so the maltiness really won't overpower the hops at all. I think six weeks will work out just fine! That's about how long I go from brewday to drinking it.

I ended up using US 2 row. I just kegged it last night, force carbed tonight and poured my first pint (only 5 weeks from grain to glass!). I have to say tho, it really needed 2 oz of chinook dryhopped for 5 days before it actually tasted like the original.
Without the dryhop, it simply tasted like a nice ale - but definitely not arrogant.

My hop schedule:
1oz 60 min
1 oz 45 min
1.25 oz 2 min
2 oz dry-hop 5 days.

I am impressed - truly impressed - with how similar the beer is to actual AB. Kudos to this recipe!!! I will make this again thats for sure! Having Arrogant Bastard on tap is, however, very dangerous for me... lol

I'm going to brew this one up tomorrow. I'm going to use Pacman yeast and will modify the hopping schedule somewhat. I am trying to get rid of some year-old leaf hops so I'm assuming some degradation in AA%.

Here's the hop schedule I'm going to use:
1 oz. Chinook - 60 min.
.5 oz. Simcoe - 45 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 30 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 20 min.
.5 oz. Simcoe - 15 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 8 min.
.5 oz. Chinook - 2 min.
1 oz. Chinook - Dry Hop

I should get upwards of 88 IBUs and a nice bastardy flavor.

I like the flavor hop additions at 30-8 mins - I will probably do the same when I brew this again to get more of the arrogant flavor mine was missing.

That's a lot of hops! Hoppy New Year Bastard Ale is more like it.

This aged so well I brewed it again yesterday and pitched with Notty. I have oak chips and will use those in a few weeks.

A few posts in this thread mention "oaking". I've had the oaked Arrogant Bastard and it was awesome. Can someone explain the process of oaking in a home brew?

Thanks,

euRC51

I've oaked this recipe and it is awesome!!!

Your homebrew shop should sell oak chips, probably in 4 oz and/or one pound quantities. It's really more of a wine-related thing, so look in the wine making section at your LHBS.

After primary fermentation is done, rack your beer into secondary as normal but add some oak chips. Let the beer sit in secondary for a week or so, the fewer chips the longer it can sit. If you think you can bottle in a week, go heavier. If you prefer to let it sit in seconday for a few weeks or longer, use less. I used 2.5oz Toasted American oak for one week. The oakiness was very well pronounced and the next time I oak a beer I'll shoot for one ounce for maybe two weeks in secondary. Even after 6 months the oak is very dominant at these quantities (haven't tried one in a couple months)
Some people say to soak your chips in bourbon to sanitize, or to boil them. I did neither and got great results from a clean bag of chips that had been open and tightly re-sealed for a couple of months.

Ultimately i would advise to start with a small amount of chips (say, an ounce to five gallons) and go from there. Hope this helps, and please post your results if you try Oaking the Bastard!

I brewed my 2nd batch of this (1st was excellent!) and plan on oaking this one. Following your advice, I have the chips so will probably add 1 oz and let sit for a week, dry hop with 1 more oz of chinnok for 1 week and then either bottle or keg (depends on if I clear a keg or not) for a total of 2 weeks oaking and only 1 dry hopping.

Thanks for the help beergeek

So...I'm still a little confused about the volume of the original recipe.

The 5.31g of mash water is drained and discarded. The grains still in the tun are then sparged with 3g hot water, followed by two more sparges at 3g each? This would bring the total volume to 9g?

Thanks. looking forward to my first AG batch.

rainingbullets said:

So...I'm still a little confused about the volume of the original recipe.

The 5.31g of mash water is drained and discarded. The grains still in the tun are then sparged with 3g hot water, followed by two more sparges at 3g each? This would bring the total volume to 9g?

Thanks. looking forward to my first AG batch.

Click to expand...

On the sparges, he's saying "once...twice" for two sparges. Two 3g sparges. And definitely do NOT discard your first runnings from your mash or you're going to end up with a very light brew.

Mash... drain into kettle.
Sparge... drain into kettle.
Sparge again... drain into kettle.

ChshreCat said:

On the sparges, he's saying "once...twice" for two sparges. Two 3g sparges. And definitely do NOT discard your first runnings from your mash or you're going to end up with a very light brew.

Mash... drain into kettle.
Sparge... drain into kettle.
Sparge again... drain into kettle.

Click to expand...

Ah of course. Should have made that connection. This would put the total brew volume to 11.31g.

As I said, I'm looking at this recipe for my first AG.

Next question: what if I normally use the brew kettle to steep grains in a grain sack? In other words, the brew kettle is the mash tun....

Remember that you won't get all that water out that you put in the mash so you won't end up with over 11 gallons. Quite a bit of it will get sucked up by the grain.

rainingbullets said:

Next question: what if I normally use the brew kettle to steep grains in a grain sack? In other words, the brew kettle is the mash tun....

Click to expand...

How big is your kettle? You'll need a fairly large kettle to brew AG, especially this recipe with all that volume pre-boil. You may want to look into building a picnic cooler mash tun (or mash tun design of your choice) before diving into AG. It'll be very hard to both mash and boil in the same kettle, especially if the kettle is smaller than 30 quarts. That's the size of my kettle and sometimes just isn't big enough.

I didn't get around to oaking this until last night. I boiled 1 oz of chips and added to my primary and added another 1 oz of chinook. I'll post back in about 6 weeks after I bottle and let age.

Not to get too far off topic, this is not a beer to brew for first AG.