Troeg's Rugged Trail recipe thoughts?

Hi all, I'm pretty new to home brewing (on my 5th brew right now, not counting a stout in secondary that may be contaminated but that's another subject entirely )

As is common my head turns to replicating some of my favorite commercial beers and while I've found recipes for most, one is proving elusive: Troeg's Rugged Trail Ale. It's a nut brown, but it doesn't taste like any other brown ale I've had, and I realize there's some variation (english, american, north, south, etc.) but it seems quite unique.

I usually taste heavy coffee notes, sometimes it seems more caramel, I just can't put my finger on it. But it's one of those "heaven in a bottle" beers for me and some of my friends.

I plan to try a basic nut brown ale kit and add some coffee at bottling time as a first trial, but I wonder if anyone here might have some more seasoned advice or tasting notes?

Thanks for any thoughts!

I'll have to go back and grab a bottle cause I don't recall it being anything outside a decent standard nut brown brown....I sure don't recall any heavy coffee notes.

Fortunately, Troeg's website gives homebrewers a little headstart:

Alcohol by Volume: 4.4%
Hop Bitterness (IBU's) : 28
Color (SRM) : Brown
Availability: Draft and Bottles Year Round
Malts: Pilsner, Crystal, Chocolate
Hops: Chinook, Target
Yeast: Ale

So knowing this, I can go into BeerTools and plug some things in....

8 lbs. German 2-row Pils
.5 lbs. Crystal Malt 60°L
.5 lbs. English Chocolate Malt
.35 oz. Chinook (Whole, 13.00 %AA) boiled 60 min.
1 oz. Target (Whole, 10.00 %AA) boiled 15 min.
Safale S-04 Top Quality Ale Yeast

Comes out almost exactly....

Original Gravity 1.045
Terminal Gravity 1.010
Color 21.74°SRM
Bitterness 28.8 IBU
Alcohol (%volume) 4.5 %

Maybe there's a better yeast choice? Rugged Trail has a very slight fruitiness.

Thanks, somehow I'd missed the malt listing on their website, I feel like a dope.

To me the coffee/caramel notes are quite strong, but I might just be predisposed to pick those up or something.

That's a nice start, I'll work from there and perhaps try bottling half a batch with some coffee just to see.

The chocolate malt will give coffee like flavors. Plus, if I remember correct, this is a dryer beer, which would lend itself more to the coffee notes (although I do not remember any coffee flavors). Good beer though.

Ryan_PA said:

Good beer though.

Click to expand...

Prb one of the two best beers in their variety case IMHO...that and hopback.