Alchemist Luscious Clone

[Bugs318]

Hi All,

Anybody have any ideas about how to approach the flavour, mouthfeel, and body of Alchemist Luscious in an RIS? High ABV English style. Anybody ever try this?

 

[Bier1080]

Bump

I was just thinking if anyone had any info on this beer too. It is fantastic and would love to try and make something like it!

 

[MrPowers]

I would be curious about this too. I still have one can in my fridge that I brought back on my vacation.

My initial thoughts are all Thomas Fawcett Malts:

OG somewhere around 1.090
FG somewhere around 1.020
ABV: 9.3%

Pearl/Maris Otter Malt (Remainder)
6 - 8% Crystal/Crystal Dark (60-90L)
6 - 8% Dark Chocolate Malt
2 - 4% Roast Barley
0 - 4% Oat Malt (Possibly. Most of the body is from the Conan yeast, but a little oat malt could be a nice touch)

Probably hop extract for bittering. Shooting for 60ish IBU. Little to no flavor/aroma hops. If there are any, it's probably something earthy/floral like EKG/Fuggles/Willamette.

Conan Yeast - this is where most of the body comes from.

Balanced water profile and shooting for a mash PH of around 5.3

The trick is taking this grain bill and getting that chocolate malt flavor to leap out of the glass like The Alchemist beers do. I believe attempts to clone The Alchemist's beers will benefit dramatically from implementing some low oxygen brewing techniques such as a soft boil with a low boil off rate and avoiding herbstoffe at all costs.

 

[Bier1080]

I like it. Thanks for the input Mr Powers. Let me know if you take a stab at it. I might try something but have a few other brews on the list already
Cheers!

 

[MrPowers]

I like it. Thanks for the input Mr Powers. Let me know if you take a stab at it. I might try something but have a few other brews on the list already
Cheers!

I’ve got a few beers on my list too, but I am planning another imperial stout for this winter. Maybe i’ll try something in a similar vein and see how it works out!

I’ve got to figure out Heady first though!

 

[Newbie2]

I believe in one of the Luscious YouTube videos he states that his recipe consists of almost 50% specialty malts. He also mentions that he uses a lot of late addition hops. Being from Canada I have never tried the beer but the descriptions seem amazing and I’m interested in following along.

 

[MrPowers]

I believe in one of the Luscious YouTube videos he states that his recipe consists of almost 50% specialty malts. He also mentions that he uses a lot of late addition hops. Being from Canada I have never tried the beer but the descriptions seem amazing and I’m interested in following along.

I just looked it up now that you mentioned it, he does say that it’s near 50% specialty malt. That’s a staggering number for how drinkable this beer is.

I wonder if he changed the recipe at all with the later released. Either way, it may be back to the drawing board.

 

[day_trippr]

Makes me wonder what his definition of "specialty malt" includes...

Cheers!

 

[Alastair Thomson]

I believe in one of the Luscious YouTube videos he states that his recipe consists of almost 50% specialty malts. He also mentions that he uses a lot of late addition hops. Being from Canada I have never tried the beer but the descriptions seem amazing and I’m interested in following along.

I just got back from a tour of the Alchemist brewery in Stowe and I heard an interesting comment that may be relevant. As we were climbing up to the top of the mash tuns the guide said "Imagine the brewers bringing up 60lb pails on extract". So, I suspect that to get to the 9.2% in luscious they are adding a goodly amount of extract rather than just relying on a vast amount of the Pearl malt that is the base of almost all their beers (though there was about equal amounts of Bestmalz Pilsner in their malt room - likely for the Kolsch they also make in the Stowe brewery (Heady is primarily made in their older Waterbury one).

 

[cefiro355]

There's some useful info for people cloning Alchemist beers in this YouTube minidoc posted several days ago:

 

[JMK1992]

Did anyone ever get around to brewing something like this?

 

[malhal]

At 5:28 in the video we see:

Fawcett Pearl
Fawcett Chocolate
Bestmalz Munich
No hooks is a sack branded by Country Malt (their malt supplier) (also see in Focal Banger brew day) could be oats, wheat or rice hulls. My guess is rice hulls because oats/wheat would probably come in a Briess sack which is not seen and Kimmich says his beers are gluten free. There is a label on the pipe that states make sure last 8 bags are pearl malt which they would want on top of the hulls.

At 4:55 we also see a Weyermann sack in the background probably for another brew.