Fat tire clone help

[rmcgill]

Just brewed my first batch (IPA) its really good and now I am eager to try round 2. Was thinking to use a Fat Tire Clone recipe but mix it up a little... Thinking to try for a little extra chocolate or caramel taste then fat tire... so clone recipe is below. Any suggestions from experts to change it up is great. I am also a hops fan but not sure if some hops (late in boil or dry) would really mess this up? Suggestions for the experts please!


Included Ingredients
Briess Golden Light Liquid Extract 3.3 lbs, 0 oz
Briess Golden Light Dry Extract 2 lbs, 3 oz
Crisp Crystal Malt 60L 0 lbs, 8 oz
Briess 2 Row Carapils 0 lbs, 8 oz
Caramel Munich 0 lbs, 8 oz
Biscuit 0 lbs, 6 oz
Crisp Chocolate Malt 0 lbs, 1 oz
Williamette Pellets 1 oz @ 60 mins
Fuggles Pellets, UK 0.5 oz @ 20 mins
Fuggles Pellets, UK 0.5 oz @ 0 mins
Wyeast Labs American Ale II 1 ea

 

[TopherM]

I'd leave it alone. A recipe is a recipe for a reason. Someone else has already done the trial and error on how well the malt, hop bitterness, and yeast contributions blend and compliment each other. Making changes to the recipe means you are the one that is now experimenting, so you need to be prepared for it to be an utter failure as much as you need to prepare for it to be an improvement on the recipe.

A Fat Tire is technically a Red/Amber Ale at it's base. Adding chocolate or carmel flavor to a red/amber ale sounds like a miscalculated experiment to me. There's only 8 oz of crystal 60 to get the red color, it doesn't add much carmel flavor. Chocolate and Caramel would be great in a style that those flavors compliment, like a porter or stout, but not a red/amber ale.

I would stick to the recipe, but if you are prepared to pay the price for experimenting, go for it, it's your beer! Who knows, you could create the next new beer style....

 

[plainbrad]

If I were you, I would go strait Amber LME to get the caramel taste up and Victory Malt instead of Biscuit for more nutty/chocolate taste. And go with the hops that New Belgium uses but more of them. Something like:

5# Amber LME
1# Munich
.75# C80L
.5# Victory Malt

1oz Target @60
.5oz Willamette @30
.50z EK Goldings @0

Wyeast 1056 (or WLP001 or US-05)