Kona Brewing - Lavaman Red Ale AG Clone?

I'm trying to clone Kona's Lavaman Red Ale, all grain. It's only available as a draft beer in Hawaii, and I've never had it, but a friend is dying to have it again, but we live in Texas!

So, this is from their site, it's quite a bit of info, but looking to get close, any help is appreciated...

"Lavaman Red Ale is a malty, red ale with strong caramel notes and a subtle chocolate malt flavor. The pronounced maltiness is balanced by the delicate blend of Pacific Northwest hops resulting in a smooth, full-bodied beer.

Bitterness: 30 IBU
Alcohol by Volume: 5.6%
Original Gravity: 13.5 P
Malts: Pale (Premium 2-row), Munich, Honey, Caramel, Chocolate
Hops: Cascade, Mt. Hood, Hallertau"

That is a tasty beer, I really enjoyed all the Kona brews in Hawaii. Here's my idea to get you started, maybe some other people can chime in:

8 lb Standard 2-Row
2 lb Munich Malt
1 lb Honey Malt
8 oz Caramel Malt 60L
2 oz 2-Row Chocolate Malt

1 oz Cascade (5.5%) - 60 min
.5 oz Cascade (5.5%) - 15 min
.5 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - 15 min
1 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - 1 min
1 oz Hallertau (4.5%) - 1 min

US-05 or Wyeast 1056/WLP001

That should get you pretty close. Keep in mind everything tastes better in Hawaii. Hm, I think I might just make a batch of this...

Cool, thanks, that's pretty close to what I came up with as well. You have some Hood as aroma hops, which I think is a good idea.

Any thoughts on the mash temp and time? I'm thinking 150F for 60 mins...

Yeah, 150 sounds good. You can go a little low because the honey malt is going to add some sweetness. I might shoot for 152 for a touch more body.

The brewmaster at Kona emailed me about their recipe, very cool!

Aloha Brian,

Mahalo for the feedback!

Our specific recipes are proprietary, but I can certainly give you more info.

Malt - leans more heavily towards the dark Munich 30L (abt 10 - 11% of total); rest of specialties are less than 5% each of total and very little chocolate malt (a little goes a long way!).

Hops - Cascade & Mt Hood (bitter/flavor); Hallertau, Mt Hood, Cascade (aroma/late addn).

ABV ~ 5.5%
BU ~ 32
Color ~ 30L (finished beer)

Mash in takes abt 15 minutes followed by 40 min rest, 10 min vorlauf, 1:30 - 2:00 hr lauter, 90 min boil. Fermented with our house ale yeast @ 68 F.

Thanks again for the feedback and hope this helps!

Cheers,
Rich

Rich Tucciarone, Brewmaster
Kona Brewing Company

Click to expand...

Hey all, amateur here. Wanted to try my own clone of this, but I am limited to extract brewing for now. What do you think of this recipe? I made a few adjustments based on my research into converting to extract brewing. Source

Malts
10 lb - 2-Row (1.8L) = 7.5 lb Malt Extract (Recommendations on type?)
2lb - Caramunich III (57L)
4oz - Chocolate Malt (350L)
12oz - Munich Light (6L)
8oz -Honey Malt (2L)
12oz - Caramel (20L)

Questions:
1) Will these malts cause it to be too caramel flavored?
2) Which extract should I use to complement recipe in terms of flavor?

Hops: (Same as Bil)
1 oz Cascade (5.5%) - 60 min
.5 oz Cascade (5.5%) - 15 min
.5 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - 15 min
1 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - 1 min
1 oz Hallertau (4.5%) - 1 min

Yeast (Same as Above) Wyeast 1056/WLP001

I tried to take the advice of Mr. Tucciarone from Kona to get the percent of Caramunich to about 14%, and then I adjusted the chocolate malts down to reduce my SRM in order to account for the darkening of beer due to the malt extract, though that will largely depend on the type of extract which I haven't chosen yet.

Calculated SRM = 19.9 (Target = 30, not sure how significantly the extract will darken)
Volume = 5.5 Gal
Extract to Volume Ratio(lb/gal) = 1.36 (I read that this ratio gives a fuller body at 1.5 and light-bodied at 1, and wanted something around 1.4

ABV ~ 5.5-6.5% (Not too worried about this, more concerned about flavor)

Xygon214 said:

Hey all, amateur here. Wanted to try my own clone of this, but I am limited to extract brewing for now. What do you think of this recipe? I made a few adjustments based on my research into converting to extract brewing. Source

Malts
10 lb - 2-Row (1.8L) = 7.5 lb Malt Extract (Recommendations on type?)
2lb - Caramunich III (57L)
4oz - Chocolate Malt (350L)
12oz - Munich Light (6L)
8oz -Honey Malt (2L)
12oz - Caramel (20L)

Questions:
1) Will these malts cause it to be too caramel flavored?
2) Which extract should I use to complement recipe in terms of flavor?

Hops: (Same as Bil)
1 oz Cascade (5.5%) - 60 min
.5 oz Cascade (5.5%) - 15 min
.5 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - 15 min
1 oz Mt. Hood (5.0%) - 1 min
1 oz Hallertau (4.5%) - 1 min

Yeast (Same as Above) Wyeast 1056/WLP001

I tried to take the advice of Mr. Tucciarone from Kona to get the percent of Caramunich to about 14%, and then I adjusted the chocolate malts down to reduce my SRM in order to account for the darkening of beer due to the malt extract, though that will largely depend on the type of extract which I haven't chosen yet.

Calculated SRM = 19.9 (Target = 30, not sure how significantly the extract will darken)
Volume = 5.5 Gal
Extract to Volume Ratio(lb/gal) = 1.36 (I read that this ratio gives a fuller body at 1.5 and light-bodied at 1, and wanted something around 1.4

ABV ~ 5.5-6.5% (Not too worried about this, more concerned about flavor)

Click to expand...

Did you execute this one? How did it turn out?

I was looking for my next brew...this might be in the line-up. Had it ages ago when we went to Hawaii.

I'm glad this one was resurrected. Hopefully someone who brewed it up can answer your question. Either way, it's cool that the brewer at Kona responded to the OP and gave us a cheat-sheet on how we can recreate it if nothing comes back.

Okay...so I had some downtime tonight. I checked out the Kona Brewing website and it lists the hops as: Cascade, Columbia and Hallertauer. Bitterness at 30 IBU, ABV at 5.6%. Grains were listed as 2-row, aromatic, Caramel 120 and Chocolate. I'm going to plug it in and see if I get close to their #'s.

Okay. So combining what the brewer advised the OP, and what their website has...and plugging it into BrewersFriend...this comes up pretty close to the #'s:

8 lb 2-Row
1 lb Munich Dark 20L
.5 lb Aromatic Malt
.5 lb Chocolate Malt
1 oz Cascade (60 mins)
.5 oz Willamette (15 mins) or Fuggle or Columbia
.5 oz Hallertauer (15 mins)
1 oz Cascade (Flameout)

The original has 5.6% ABV; this clone is 5.7%
The original has 30 IBU; this clone has 30.6
The original is 172 calories; this clone is 182 calories (for us f@t a$$es)

That settles it...I'm buying ingredients for the upcoming week. The only thing that stinks is that it's been so long since I had this brew in Hawaii, that I won't be able to confirm it is true to taste for the draft version...haha. Oh who cares!