Hair of the Dog - Blue Dot IIPA Clone

I emailed Alan Sprints, the brewer at Hair of the Dog and asked him for grain bill help in trying to recreate Ruth and Blue Dot. He was very kind and gave me some good info that I was able to turn into some recipes.

I brewed the Ruth 3 weeks ago and it is bottle conditioning now. Today I am using the yeast from that batch and brewing the Blue Dot. Here is what Alan said about the recipe:

For 10 gal Blue Dot, 30lb Organic Pilsner and 5 lb flaked rye. 7oz hops 75 min, 7oz 30min and 7oz end of boil. 12oz in the secondary fermenter
I like strong hops, any will do.

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This is the commercial description:

Blue Dot is named after our planet: we are only a pale blue dot in this universe. A Double India Pale Ale made with Rye malt and a combination of intense hop varieties.
O.G. 1074, 100 IBUs.

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Here is what I came up with for 5.5gal at 78% efficiency. Mashing at 153:

IBU = 108
OG = 1.074

Amount Item Type % or IBU
12 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (2.0 SRM) Grain 82.76 %
2 lbs 8.0 oz Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 17.24 %
1.00 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (75 min) Hops 24.1 IBU
2.50 oz Goldings, US [5.00 %] (75 min) Hops 45.3 IBU
1.00 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (30 min) Hops 12.3 IBU
1.00 oz Ahtanum [8.00 %] (30 min) Hops 16.4 IBU
0.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (30 min) Hops 10.3 IBU
1.00 oz Ahtanum [8.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
1.00 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
1.50 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma Hop-Steep) Hops -
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
2.00 oz Cascade [6.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
2.00 oz Amarillo [9.00 %] (Dry Hop 7 days) Hops -
1 Pkgs Scottish Ale (Wyeast Labs #1728) [Starter 4000 ml] Yeast-Ale


I'm really psyched about brewing this. It is a beer I love and also one that is very expensive! Will be great having a bunch of this on hand. The hops are a little strange because I'm trying to use up inventory. Same story with the Rye Malt instead of flaked.

That recipe looks awesome. The Ahtanum and Amarillo are a favorites of mine. Does HOD use Scottish Yeast?

TimBrewz said:

That recipe looks awesome. The Ahtanum and Amarillo are a favorites of mine. Does HOD use Scottish Yeast?

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Yep, all of their beers use it, according to Alan. I just pitched the yeast. Was a little short on volume because I boiled down too much and there was a crazy amount of hops.

This is going next on the list. SWMBO loves the stuff. Actually maybe I need to wait till I harvest my hops or I'll have to take out a loan...

Hi,

Thanks for posting this info. Blue Dot is my absolute favorite beer ever and I'm trying to figure out how to convert this into an extract or partial grain recipe. Any suggestions?

Liz

hopedespair said:

Hi,

Thanks for posting this info. Blue Dot is my absolute favorite beer ever and I'm trying to figure out how to convert this into an extract or partial grain recipe. Any suggestions?

Liz

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I'll try to convert this in the morning. How much grain can you mash?

I dry hopped this today. In a better bottle... with a funnel. It was pretty crazy shoving 6oz of hops in there.

Just drinking the first bottle of this. Aww damnit, it isn't carbed yet. It has been a week . Very promising though.

It was dry hopped for 2 weeks. Only got 4 gallons (out of 5.25) because all the hops absorbed it. Next time I would definitely use a hop bag for the dry hopping, and do it in a bucket or keg instead of better bottle.

Edited title of thread to reflect the name I've given it. It's named after one of the other Apollo photos of Earth, Blue Marble.

Seems like you would use pellets for your dry hop just to make it easier.

I had a Blue Dot on tap the other night and it has a real Apricot finish going on. I wonder what that comes from.

How did this beer turn out in the end - like Blue Dot or not?

I'm giving it another week before I dip in. Yes pellets would be easier, but so far I have used mostly whole hops, so I didn't have any pellets.

I think you mean whole leaf. I used to use them almost exclusively but nowadays I like pellets cause I seem to get more bang for the buck and they are so much easier to deal with. They make it really easy to dry hop too - just toss them in and after a few days you can cold crash and they sink right to the bottom and they don't even seem to soak up much beer.

oswegan said:

I think you mean whole leaf. I used to use them almost exclusively but nowadays I like pellets cause I seem to get more bang for the buck and they are so much easier to deal with. They make it really easy to dry hop too - just toss them in and after a few days you can cold crash and they sink right to the bottom and they don't even seem to soak up much beer.

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Yah I meant whole leaf, ha! The things beer will do to your brain...

now, if you were going to buy hops for this what would you recommend? I think the strongest I have on hand are perle. I might just order a lb each of amarillo and centennial, I'm sure i could find a use for whats left over.

I would definitely go with amarillo and centennial, maybe cascade. Perle is a bit off, but you could use them for bittering.

Ok, I brewed this last week (dry-hopped yesterday). Here's my recipe (altered for what I could find, what I already had etc...):

Malt:
30lbs German Pils malt
3lbs Flaked Rye

Hops:
75 min:
2oz cascade
4oz centenial

30 min:
2oz cascade
4oz centenial

knockout:
2oz cascade
4oz centenial

dry hop:
2oz green bullet
2oz chinook

yeast:
White Labs Edinburgh

Fermented in blichmann 14g conical @ 69-70 deg.

The recipe calculator at beercalculus.com estimates it @ 117 IBU & 8.5%ABV.... we'll see.

Any word on how this turned out Picobrew? Also curious about the the Ruth recipe.

Beernip said:

Any word on how this turned out Picobrew? Also curious about the the Ruth recipe.

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This turned out pretty good. It is still pretty young but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm buying a bottle of blue dot today to conduct a blind tasting and will share notes from my (not so beer geeky) friends.

It is surprisingly pink/brown and very cloudy from all the hop debris. I think dry hopping with pellets would have been preferable. Others who have had it really like it. Due to my water profile (un modded pdx water) I think it is not as bitter as expected, but that fits my tastes.

The ruth recipe is my favorite recipe I have done so far. It is an awesome beer if u like hop aroma and flavor. Same story on the bitterness for my rendition. I highly recommend the ruth recipe if you are at all intrigued. In a blind tasting of that, the nonexperts (who knew of ruth but couldn't remember the taste exactly) assumed that mine was the "original" in the blind tasting. It had a lot more hop flavor and aroma than the commercial version. This could be attributed to freshness, or a variety of tother things. Anyway, both recipes are quite good.

I did www.brewheads.com calculators for this recipe and the IBU's only came out to 54....

I'm fixing to try this.

wat?

10wats

Thor the Mighty said:

I did www.brewheads.com calculators for this recipe and the IBU's only came out to 54....

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Not sure how you got that, it has at least 100 ibus.

I have gotten some bjcp feedback on this beer. The notes I have from tasters/judges says that it needs more mouth coating hop resins, so more mid to late additions. Also, the way I made it, it is quite cloudy and not as clean as it could be (I dry hopped in primary...). If I made this again I would add more hops at 30m 15m and 0m, and I would probably use flaked rye instead of the malted rye I used (cuz thats what HoTD uses). I think fermenting at 70 was a bit warm too, I would drop it down to 68 or 66.

Can you post the Ruth recipe?

Cheers!
Kevin

I just tried HOD Ruth bottled for the first time, WOW...that is a tasty beverage. Love the scent, would be interested to know the recipe you used for the Ruth you made as well.

Ed,

Here is the recipe Pico shared with me.

5.5 gal @ 80% eff

11.5 lbs organic pilsner

.25 cascade (6%) @ 75 min
.75 Amarillo (9%) @ 60 min
1.0 Amarillo (9%) @ 30 min
1.5 Amarillo (9%) @ 0 min (steep)

Pico mentioned that it had a little more hop flavor that Ruth.

Cheers!
Kevin

beerandcoding said:

5.5 gal @ 80% eff

11.5 lbs organic pilsner

.25 cascade (6%) @ 75 min
.75 Amarillo (9%) @ 60 min
1.0 Amarillo (9%) @ 30 min
1.5 Amarillo (9%) @ 0 min (steep)

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did you brew this? I am interested in hearing how it compares to Ruth. On HoD's site they said they use Crystal hops, not Cascade/Amarillo. How is the maltyness with just pilsner? What yeast?

Thanks!

kuips said:

did you brew this? I am interested in hearing how it compares to Ruth. On HoD's site they said they use Crystal hops, not Cascade/Amarillo. How is the maltyness with just pilsner? What yeast?

Thanks!

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I did not brew this, just got the recipe from Pico. I haven't looked at the HotD website in a while, but I remember the info being pretty outdated. I'm sure if you shoot Alan an email, he will let you know what he is currently using. As for yeast, Alan uses Wyeast 1728 (Scottish Ale) for all his beers.

Hope that helps a little.

Cheers!
Kevin

next batch for me