Project Thors Hammer - Odell Myrcenary Clone

[poptarts]

Project Thor’s Hammer

Okay so lets talk about whats going on here. I like Odell and their beers, I super enjoy their IPAs and in this blog post is going to be my story of how I cloned Mycenary, their DIPA. For those of you that suck and havnt tried it yet you are missing out. Odell Myrcenary is the beer that made me like beer. Unlike most beer drinkers that start off with some sad American Lager and slowly moved into craft beer and then further toward the outer bounds of double IPAs and Russian Imperials I pretty much did the opposite. For me there was just something I Liked about bitter beer and full hop flavors, Myrcenary provided both. The best way I can describe Odell Myrcenary is green, and not green as is bad tasting young beer but green as in someone just shoved a hop garden into your mouth while you were relaxing out in the summer sun. So years later from after starting to enjoy all types of beer and learning how to make my own, Myrcenary is still my favorite. I have not been able to make a beer anywhere near its level.

My brewing processes have changed over the years from extract to all grain, I’ve picked up tons of tips and tricks, read lots of material and now I have enough confidence to say I’m a decent home brewer. Decent as in my last few batches don’t taste like plastic and band aids. I currently have a HERMS system, use temp controllers to monitor fermentation, brew with RO water and salts, monitor my mash PH and mill my own grain. I love this beer, want this beer and have decided that I can and will make this beer, and because of this I have decided to create project Thor’s Hammer.

So why Thor’s Hammer? Because the name is awesome and it makes it sound like I’m doing something super cool, cause after all I am. Furthermore Thor is a bad ass just like this beer and this beer will hit you harder than Thor’s Hammer if you are not careful. Now let’s get down to my process and progress of this Mercenary clone.

So I began doing research on Myrcenary a few weeks ago. I was able to find one thread on HBT that might be related to cloning Myrcenary but it’s just a cluster of people talking about “Pro dry hopping technique” with no one with the balls to even try cloning this beer. So I went straight to the source asking Odell for info on the beer. After several emails to them and after getting a decent amount of info they basically told me to have fun go fly solo because they were not going to hand hold me through this recipe.

Here are the emails I received from them that have info that will be helpful to my project.

Hi Sam,

I checked in with our pilot brewer and here’s what he had to say:

It is humbling to hear that our monster double IPA got you into the beer world. Thank you! As far as a recipe goes it is quite difficult for me to give any specific advice without a batch size and specific questions. We use a blend of 2-row pale malt, pilsner, caramalt, honey malt, and carafoam. Lots of different hops; We hit it lightly with Columbus early in the boil and finish heavy with blends of Cascade, Bravo, Centennial and Chinook post boil and Hop Back. We then dry hop it with over 1# per barrel (31 gallons) of Bravo, Centennial, and Chinook. That’s about all the secrets I can give out. Good luck and thanks for all the continued support.

Cheers!

Hi Sam,

Here’s the info from our pilot system manager:

Our OG is around 21-22 (1.087 – 1.092) plato and finishes at 4-5 (1.016 – 1.020) plato. Mash temp is around 151 and a fermenting temp of 67f°. We do not use any sugar. It is 100% malt.

Hi Sam,

We’ve given out all the secrets we can. Best of luck!

From their website we can get a few extra bits of information, the IBU is 70 and a nice fancy picture so we can aim the SRM and maybe help us get the malt bill.

Further research and google fu, lead Ryan and I to some US Customs page that showed Odell gets lots of deliveries from Thomas Fawcett, a company that makes delicious malts. Also other sources online point to Odell claiming to really like Fawcett caramalt, and since that has a pretty unique taste and they said they use caramalt in the beer I will be specifically using that brand. I also have a suspicion that they use Fawcett for their base grain but until my clone gets close I’m going to use a nice maris otter because its about half the cost of Fawcett pale ale. As for yeast Odell has a house strain that I plan on harvesting out of their easy street beer since that is unfiltered.

I will be brewing up 1 – 2 gallon batches, 2 if I want to split it and try different dry hops or yeast but otherwise probably just 1 gallon batches so I can drink the full batch faster and be able to brew it many times slowly tweaking the recipe till I have cloned the beer or somehow managed to make something even better. And so the journey begins.

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DctbNz5J32k[/ame]​

Here is Version 0.1 that I will be brewing up on my next brew day, I will post all of these in 5 gallon recipes. I plan on making a 2 gallon batch and splitting yeast between something I can harvest from Odell and some Nottingham.

Beersmith thinks it will look like this, so I think we are somewhere in the right ballpark… maybe.

Please let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions or think I should make any tweaks to version 1 recipe before I brew.

 

[Pappers_]

Sounds like a nice IIPA, let us know how it turns out.

One comment on your recipe - am I reading it correctly that you are doing four hop additions: fwh, 60 min, 30 min, and dry hop? If so, that would be very unusual for an IIPA, in my experience. Usually there would be later additions to the boil, say at 15, 10, 5 and flame out. And the pro brewer seems to mean that, too, in his comments about adding massive amounts late. Also, the IBU calculations on your Beersmith page are way off, but I can't tell why.

As for the Thor's Hammer name, I thought about having my legal counsel at Dewey Cheatham and Howe send you a cease-and-desist letter. I made an imperial porter that was aged in a bourbon barrel that I call Mjolnir, which is the actual name of Thor's Hammer. But, upon reflection, I think there is room for both of these names and no need to involve the judicial system.

Seriously, good luck with the brew. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[poptarts]

Well my IBUs are off because beersmith isnt calculating any for the flameout additions but they will be held above 180 im assuming for the first 30 minutes so a lot of ibu will come from them. I read the email more like this
We hit it lightly with Columbus early in the boil
and finish heavy with blends of Cascade, Bravo, Centennial and Chinook post boil
and Hop Back.
We then dry hop it with over 1# per barrel (31 gallons) of Bravo, Centennial, and Chinook.
where only the columbus are in the acutall boil
then my 60 minute aroma would be the post boil
and my 30 minute at a cooler temp would be equivalent to the hop back, since i don't have one of those I'm going to have to just play around.
then the dry hop.

Im assuming your reading it more like they finish heavy, post boil and hopback with the mentioned hops. hmmmm

 

[poptarts]

Project Thor’s Hammer – Yeastie Beasties​

So begins the journey of becoming a yeast cowboy and finding enough of the right yeast for my beer. I know Odell’s easy street wheat can be harvested for its yeast and I’m fairly sure that is their house strain and I’m fairly sure that’s the same yeast used in Myrcenary. But not 100% positive, so I figured I could just try to get yeast from Myrcenary itself then I would know for sure that that is the correct yeast. I have successfully harvested yeast from bottle dredges before, however this beer was bottle conditioned and there was noticeable amounts of sediment on the bottom of the bottle. This beer on the other hand is like crystal clear, meaning there is very little to no yeast in these bottles at all. My hope is that Odell does not filter their beer and like many craft breweries just uses bright tanks and cold crashing to achieve clarity. To get started I brewed up a 1 liter starter of 1.020, looking back I should have probably made it more like 250 – 500ml but its too late for that now.

I cooled it down to the 70s and than began the fun part of harvesting the dredges from the bottles. I figured I should probably harvest as much dredge material as possible since I literally cant even see if yeast are in there. So I poured a glass and left the last 1-2 inches in the bottle and dumped it into the starter.

Admired the beer for color and thought really hard about the recipe as I drank it.

Then I repeated that process a bit.

So after 2 days of letting it sit there, I woke up to what I hope is baby krausen and not some sort of infection. The picture is super garbage but its a dense cluster of tiny white bubbles.

So the plan is to let this sit a few days and to see what happens. If not I will probably choke down a pack of east street since I know I can harvest yeast from there.

Its alive! Smells nice a fruity, this is the right stuff. So note to all on the internet, you can harvest yeast from Odell Myrcenary.

Since this beer is yeast, hops, grain and water I can happily say that we are 25% cloned.

 

[Homercidal]

As for the Thor's Hammer name, I thought about having my legal counsel at Dewey Cheatham and Howe send you a cease-and-desist letter. I made an imperial porter that was aged in a bourbon barrel that I call Mjolnir, which is the actual name of Thor's Hammer. But, upon reflection, I think there is room for both of these names and no need to involve the judicial system.

Funny. I was going to send YOU a cease and Desist letter because I was going to make a TRIPLE IPA and name it Mjolnir (And have a hammer for a tap handle!)

But I changed my mind since my beer would be WAY hoppier than a whimpy bourbon barrel porter.

Plus, since I can't sell my beer, and I REALLY dislike lawyers, I am going to let it ride this one time.

 

[slcalex]

Subscribed. Love Myrcenary! One of the best double IPAs I've tried.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[poptarts]

Batch v.01 in the fermenter, pretty much did the recipe i posted in the first post. Ill upload exact beersmith file once i take FG.

 

[grizzly2378]

This thread is awesome! I love Myrcenary. Definitely my favorite DIPA and one of my favorite beers of any style.

I don't have much insight other than I took a tour of Odell back in May and they said that they don't filter any of their beers, just whirlpool and bright tank, so you can probably harvest yeast from anything they make (as you discovered).

Also, I asked about their yeast strains when I was there and was told they have 4 house strains they use. So, it's good that you were able to harvest some yeast directly from Myrcenary since the strain used for Easy Street may not be the same (could be, but better safe than sorry).

Good luck! I look forward to seeing how this turns out (and stealing your recipe if it's successful).

Oh, and it's funny that the names Thor's Hammer and Mjollnir have both been mentioned in this thread. My local brewery (Crow Peak) makes a seasonal brown ale with spruce tips. Originally, when it was only available on tap, they called it Thor's Hammer but last year when they brewed it and released it in cans for the first time, they changed the name to Mjollnir. So, you're both in trouble!

 

[poptarts]

Thanks for the info, thats more than I could dig up on the yeast. The plan is to bring it to my brew club and side by side taste it with the real deal on the 6th then decide where to go from there.

 

[poptarts]

The krausen has fallen today, 4 days in, took a reading with refractometer and used a conversion calculator so this might not be the most accurate but looks like 1.021 so a few more days should lower it down the last few steps, ill take a real hydrometer reading on bottling day.

 

[finsfan]

Awesome work here poptarts! This is one of my favorite DIPA's and would love to make a clone of this. Good luck in your experiments!

 

[poptarts]

Thanks, Im hoping i can get it cloned, I love this beer. I have like 100lbs of grain and 6lbs of hops set aside for this experiment so I think i should be able to get close making 2 gallon batches. Thanks like a solid 10 tries.

 

[finsfan]

Thanks, Im hoping i can get it cloned, I love this beer. I have like 100lbs of grain and 6lbs of hops set aside for this experiment so I think i should be able to get close making 2 gallon batches. Thanks like a solid 10 tries.

Haha that should get you there.

 

[poptarts]

its at 1.020 bottles last night, turns out bottling 2 gallon batches is the same amount of time and work as 5 gallon so that was fun. tasted like a bitter mess so we will see if it tastes any better once its carbonated.

 

[poptarts]

Okay did some side by side last night with the real deal. It is not cloned .

The good
Color was super close as was head retention.

The not so good
Mine tasted a lot more like honey, I blame honey malt as it makes sense in my book.
The real Myrcenary smells way more dank / earthy / spicy as where mine smells like centennial / cascade.
Mine had a sweet taste to it kind of fruity, real one is a piney monster of delish.

So I shifted pilsner and MO to be equal, cut honey malt in half, upped the total hops, split the dry hop into to stages and am leaning heavy handed toward Chinook and bravo and less on centennial and cascade. Despite all the negative, I'm defiantly on the right path. I'm going to try to re culture yeast from the bottle again via petri dish so this batch I will be using 1056. As far as I can tell the yeast doesn't have much impact on this recipe and my expected attenuation with 1056 seems to line up properly with target FG. Last batch hit 1020 and I want more like 1018 I believe.

I will brewing v0.2 tomorrow http://files.samfoust.com/uploads/myrcenaryv2.html

 

[poptarts]

Brewday went pretty well, no major issues, hit 1090OG and its fermenting away.

Edit: Second whirlpool happened at 140 not 165 as recipe states.

 

[poptarts]

FG 1016, crashing for 24 hrs before starting the dry hop. Taste appeared to have a lot more hop flavor and more so in the Myrcenary direction over the previous batch. Sweetness was dialed down too, defiantly more pleased so far over the previous batch.

 

[slcalex]

Awesome, thanks for all the updates! I think I may have to try a 2 gallon batch here soon.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[poptarts]

For sure, should have another side by side tasting comparison on the 12/13 give or take. Should know a bit more on where to go form there.

 

[PoneTony]

I fell in love with this beer when I visited Fort Collins a couple years ago. It's unavailable here in IL, so I'd love a good clone recipe. Thanks for doing this.

 

[poptarts]

I fell in love with this beer when I visited Fort Collins a couple years ago. It's unavailable here in IL, so I'd love a good clone recipe. Thanks for doing this.

For sure! Its going into my new kegging system tomorrow! so should be able to get a taste by the end of the week.

 

[poptarts]

This is officially my first ever kegged beer! Ill git it nice and carbed and probably sneak a taste over the weekend.

 

[poptarts]

Still waiting for it to clear a bit more but, the plan for v.3 is to switch to 2 row instead of MO and dial down the caramalt to .5 instead of .75 the beer is just too sweet tasting still. debating on upping the hops more as well as well as getting it kegged much faster. V2 was much closer but still not it. I believe kegging and getting the hops off O2 faster and dry hopping in the keg will help out a lot with this beer. Next brew date is set for like the 3rd or 10th. I will do a side by side before then though and post official plans for v.3

 

[poptarts]

Im going to dry hop SNPA bottles tonight and open them up after a few days, tyring to get a dry hop ratio feel. this is what im going to do the the 6 pack I think. Based on results I hope to (scale to a full batch) worth of dry hops.

2g chinook (4oz chinook) //getting a feel for these 2 hops, i know there is a combo but I know centennial and know its not that strong in the beer aroma
2g bravo (4oz bravo)
1g chinook 1g bravo, .25 centennial (2oz chinook 2oz bravo, .5oz centennial)
1.5g chinook 1g bravo, .25 centennial (3oz chinook, 2oz bravo, .5oz centennial)<- my bet is on this
1 chinook, 1.5 bravo .5 centennial (2oz chinook, 3oz bravo, 1oz centennial)
1.5 chinook, 1 bravo .5 centennial (3oz chinook, 2oz bravo, 1oz centennial)

 

[poptarts]

 

[poptarts]

Homebrew on the right.
Mine is darker and sweeter, going to cut back caramalt, and use 2row not MO.
Dry hops will be 3oz chinook, 2oz bravo, .5oz centennial. I will probably up the amount of base grains to compensate from the loss of switching to standard 2 row over MO and cutting back the caramalt. Its closer but positively not a clone, the malt is very much off still.

 

[poptarts]

BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: Myrcenary V0.3
Brewer: Sam
Asst Brewer: 
Style: Imperial IPA
TYPE: All Grain
Taste: (30.0) 

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 8.30 gal
Post Boil Volume: 5.98 gal
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.50 gal   
Bottling Volume: 5.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.088 SG
Estimated Color: 5.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.1 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 73.2 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt                   Name                                     Type          #        %/IBU         
1.00 Items            Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins)        Fining        10       -             
9 lbs                 Pilsen Malt 2-Row (Briess) (1.0 SRM)     Grain         5        47.4 %        
9 lbs                 Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)           Grain         4        47.4 %        
4.0 oz                Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)                    Grain         8        1.3 %         
8.0 oz                Carafoam (2.0 SRM)                       Grain         6        2.6 %         
4.0 oz                Caramalt (Thomas Fawcett) (15.0 SRM)     Grain         7        1.3 %         
0.75 oz               Columbus (Tomahawk) [14.00 %] - First Wo Hop           9        29.1 IBUs     
0.50 oz               Cascade [5.50 %] - Aroma Steep 30.0 min  Hop           17       0.0 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Bravo [15.50 %] - Aroma Steep 30.0 min   Hop           11       0.0 IBUs      
0.50 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Aroma Steep 30.0  Hop           18       0.0 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Chinook [13.00 %] - Aroma Steep 30.0 min Hop           14       0.0 IBUs      
1.00 oz               Cascade [5.50 %] - Aroma Steep 60.0 min  Hop           15       0.0 IBUs      
1.00 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Aroma Steep 60.0  Hop           16       0.0 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Bravo [15.50 %] - Aroma Steep 60.0 min   Hop           12       0.0 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Chinook [13.00 %] - Aroma Steep 60.0 min Hop           13       0.0 IBUs      
2.00 oz               Bravo [15.50 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days       Hop           21       0.0 IBUs      
0.50 oz               Centennial [10.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days  Hop           22       0.0 IBUs      
3.00 oz               Chinook [13.00 %] - Dry Hop 7.0 Days     Hop           20       0.0 IBUs      
4.0 pkg               American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) [124.21 Yeast         19       -             
14.00 g               Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins Water Agent   1        -             
5.13 g                Calcium Chloride (Mash 60.0 mins)        Water Agent   2        -             
2.88 ml               Phosphoric Acid 85% (Mash 60.0 mins)     Water Agent   3        -             


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 19 lbs
----------------------------
Name              Description                             Step Temperat Step Time     
Mash In           Add 6.58 gal of water at 161.4 F        151.0 F       75 min        

Sparge: Batch sparge with 2 steps (0.05gal, 4.35gal) of 168.0 F water

 

[poptarts]

Hey forgot about this thread.. I just brewed up Version 3 last weekend, its fermenting away on a Nottingham yeast slurry. Everything the same as above recipe except honeymalt is 2oz not 4oz, and 2 row is 8.5lbs not 9. Hit 1.090 OG.
I decided to back off on the honey malt since my last batch was just nasty sweet. In between v2 and now I brewed up an ipa with a very similar grain bill and was quite pleased with the results so this time I actually brewed 5 gallons.

 

[sudbuddy]

Project Thor’s Hammer – Yeastie Beasties​

I know Odell’s easy street wheat can be harvested for its yeast and I’m fairly sure that is their house strain and I’m fairly sure that’s the same yeast used in Myrcenary.

Well, that's one way to do it. But since you live in Laramie it might be worth it to take a field trip down to Fort Collins and get the yeast from the brewery. Back when I lived in Fort Fun I swung by and got a nalgene full of house yeast from the brewers. It's an awesome yeast, see if you can sweet talk them into giving you some

 

[poptarts]

I was able to successfully harvest their yeast from a bottle of mercenary. I even got it plated out and slanted so I should have a fairly pure culture. But yea I could swing down there its not a bad drive at all.

 

[sudbuddy]

I was able to successfully harvest their yeast from a bottle of mercenary. I even got it plated out and slanted so I should have a fairly pure culture. But yea I could swing down there its not a bad drive at all.

If you go, stop and get an awesome sandwich from my friends Andrew and Abby at the Goodness truck. They're usually parked outside Odell but just check their facebook page to see where they are when you're in town. Get the Hogfather, it's epic. :rockin:

 

[Radobrewer]

Anyone brew this recipe? Is it comparable?

 

[poptarts]

my last attempt v3 sucked but it was because of old hops, the malt bill is very close, I plan on rebrewing it with fresh hops again and no tweaking to get a better idea.

 

[Radobrewer]

Hmmm- all those hops at 60/30 min in version 3 you posted would put your IBU's off the chart (certainly not 29!) I also calculate the OG to be too high. Did you brew it as posted?

 

[poptarts]

Yes outside the notes I posted after.

 

[Radobrewer]

Ah, I see. The only hops during the boil was the FWH. The rest were all whirlpool and dry hopping. Let us know if you brew it again! I really want to replicate this beer.

 

[poptarts]

yea ill keep you posted.

 

[Ghostnuke]

Has anyone made any progress on this?