Alesmith IPA clone

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juggabrew

juggabrew
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So i have been searching for a legit recipe for the Alesmith IPA and have not came up with much. I did find this recipe from BYO.com but not sure of it. see link below. I also pasted below. Help me out fella's!!! little confusing to put into beer smith

http://byo.com/english-scottish-strong-ale/item/153-attack-of-the-hop-clones

AleSmith IPA clone
(AleSmith Brewing Company)
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.073 FG = 1.014
IBU = 93 SRM = 9 ABV = 7.6%


Ingredients
14.66 lbs. (6.6 kg) Gambrinus 2-row pale malt
2.0 oz. (56 g) crystal malt (15 °L)
2.0 oz. (56 g) CaraPils malt (6 °L)
2.0 oz. (56 g) Munich malt (10 °L)
2.0 oz. (56 g) wheat malt
1.0 oz. (28 kg) honey malt
7.0 AAU Columbus hops (FWH) (0.5 oz./14 g of 14% alpha acids)
7.0 AAU Simcoe hops (FWH)(0.53 oz./15 g of 13% alpha acids)
3.25 AAU Columbus hops (60 mins) (0.23 oz./6.5 g of 14% alpha acids)
1.33 AAU Amarillo hops (30 mins)
(0.17 oz./4.8 g of 8.0% alpha acids)
2.25 AAU Simcoe hops (15 mins)
(0.17 oz./4.8 g of 13% alpha acids)
2.66 AAU Columbus hops (10 mins)
(0.19 oz./5.4 g of 14% alpha acids)
2 AAU Cascade hops (5 mins)
(0.4 oz./11 g of 5.0% alpha acids)
5 AAU Cascade hops (1 mins)
(1.0 oz./28 g of 5.0% alpha acids)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Columbus hops (dry hop)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Amarillo hops (dry hop)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Cascade hops (dry hop)
0.25 oz. (7 g) Simcoe hops (dry hop)
0.25 oz. (7 g) Chinook hops (dry hop)
1 tsp. Irish moss (15 mins)
White Labs WLP001(California Ale) 0.75 cups corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step
Mash at 152 °F (67 °C) for 60 minutes. Boil for 90 minutes, following hop addition schedule. Whirlpool wort and let sit for 15 minutes before you begin cooling. Fermentation temperature 68.5 °F (20.3 °C).

Extract option:
Replace pale malt with 7.25 lbs. (3.3 kg) light dried malt extract and
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) 2-row pale malt. Steep crushed pale malt plus specialty malts in 64 oz. (1.9 L) of water at 152 °F for 45 minutes. Follow the boiling and fermentation instructions above.

Thanks to Peter Zien of AleSmith for his extensive help in constructing this clone.
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I would trust the recipe. BYO does really try to contact the brewery on their clone recipes and they do credit the brewery for helping them with this recipe so I would go for it as it is. I have brewed several of their recipes and they were outstanding!

"Thanks to Peter Zien of AleSmith for his extensive help in constructing this clone."
 
I'm drinking a bottle now (f-ing delicious) and I find it hard to believe that there aren't more hops in it.
 
I've brewed the byo recipe a few times with success. I would not say it's an exact clone but makes a dam good ipa
 
I just kegged this recipe 2 days ago. Holy hops! I ended up at exactly 1.073 OG, and went down to 1.01 for ~8% ABV. For reasons including the quality of the recipe and improvements in my process, it's definitely the best IPA I've ever made.

I used San Diego Super Yeast and it really turned out amazing. It cleared out quite well after about 20 days in primary. I cold crashed for 2 for a total primary time of 22 days. It really came around in that final 3rd week. It tasted really green and a little "hot" on the tongue after ~10 days. But after the full 3 weeks it really mellowed out and the hops came through.

Some pics attached. Primary, dry hops, and final product.

alesmithipa_primary.jpg


Alesmith_ipa_dryhops.jpg


AlesmithIPApint.jpg
 
That's a fantastic-looking beer. I'm assuming you dry hopped in primary? I'm curious as I just brewed a very similar IPA with a re-pitch of San Diego Super Yeast and am not sure if I'm going to rack it to secondary for dry hopping or leave it in primary for the entirety of fermentation.
 
I forgot to mention that I racked to secondary for about 10 days. I dry hopped the last 7 in secondary. Total time from pitching to keg ~30 days.

This recipe has a huge hop aroma with lots of tropical fruit. It goes down incredibly smooth and the 8% ABV really wallops you after drinking. (Edit - The actual Alesmith IPA is 7.6% - I got higher efficiency that expected.)

San Diego Super Yeast clears up the beer really well. I'd say it gives off a slightly more estery flavor and smoothness over WLP001. American IPA hop punch and aroma with a tad bit of the Englishy mouth feel and smoothness. The differences are subtle, but there, probably not very noticeable to most people.

Here's a better picture that shows how clear the beer is. See the decal on the other side of the glass through the beer...

alesmithipaclone3.jpg
 
That grain bill's pretty crazy (not saying it's wrong, I've never had the beer myself). Does 1 oz of honey malt really make a difference? Or 2 oz of Munich? It's kind of hard to believe Alesmith (or any brewery, for that matter) would use such small percentages of so many different grains.
 
Ok, so this beer turned out excellent. However, I am definitely deeming it NOT CLONED. The biggest differences are 2 things - the yeast ( I used SD Super yeast) and the hop aroma and flavor profile. The mouthfeel and appearance are very similar.

The crispness of the real Alesmith IPA is much more than the beer I brewed. The SD Super yeast is definitely more estery and englishy.

The hop profile is very close! When I first cracked the bottle of Alesmith IPA and sniffed it I was like Whoa... Thats it!! But after further quaffing, I am noticing some non trivial differences. The Alesmith IPA has less tropical fruit and more pine. It's almost a nobelish hop taste compared to my brew. However, that being said, I think this is pretty darn close.

If I had to make some adjustments to my recipe, I would say definitely use WLP001 if you are going for a true clone. It's possible that some of these hop aroma differences are simply due to SDSY vs WLP001 hop accentuation. I would also mash slightly lower, maybe 150 instead of 152. The Alesmith IPA is very dry and crisp.

Finally, its very hard to put my finger on it, but there's definitely something different with the hops. While the up front main hop aroma and flavor is VERY close, theres definitely something different going on at the more subtle levels. I simply cannot identify it concretely. Piney, Nobley, more bitter - Less fruity, tropical and estery.

Comparison photo attached.

Edit: Mine is the left, real thing on the right.

alesmith ipa comparison.jpg
 
That's a fantastic-looking beer. I'm assuming you dry hopped in primary? I'm curious as I just brewed a very similar IPA with a re-pitch of San Diego Super Yeast and am not sure if I'm going to rack it to secondary for dry hopping or leave it in primary for the entirety of fermentation.

Dude, I don't think it matters much.

I dry hopped in secondary just because... well thats what I did.

This beer went from fermenter to keg in 30 days. At that timeframe, secondary is pretty much not worth it. I would just dry hop in primary and call it a day.

Let it ferment for 3 weeks. Dry hop the 4th week. Rack to keg or bottle at the end of 4 weeks or ~30 days.
 
I'm going to be brewing this recipe next weekend, but I have a couple questions. Hoping someone who has brewed this can chime in.

When I enter this recipe into the software I use (Brewer's Friend), it shows IBUs as 52.93... not 93 as listed by this recipe (it also gives me an SRM of 5.15, not 9). To add to my confusion, I also noticed that Alesmith themselves list IBU for their IPA as 73 on their own website.

All of my volumes and stuff seem correct for hitting 5 gallons/19L going into the fermenter. Expected gravities and ABV are on target too. Should I be increasing the bittering hops listed in this recipe? Or have those of you who have brewed this recipe found this hop schedule to be correct?

Thank you for any insight!
 
Last edited:
I would bet alesmith uses at least double the amount of hops to get 93 ibu. Maybe closer to 200.
 
I entered this into BS and came up with an ibu of 72.2 so close to Alesmith numbers not the 93 BYO recipe. Color on BS is 5.0SRM?

I would love to take this recipe and make it into the special release 9% version of the beer. It is real good. Called HALL OF FAME IMPERIAL SAN DIEGO PALE ALE .394
 
So i have been searching for a legit recipe for the Alesmith IPA and have not came up with much. I did find this recipe from BYO.com but not sure of it. see link below. I also pasted below. Help me out fella's!!! little confusing to put into beer smith

http://byo.com/english-scottish-strong-ale/item/153-attack-of-the-hop-clones

AleSmith IPA clone
(AleSmith Brewing Company)
(5 gallons/19 L, all-grain)
OG = 1.073 FG = 1.014
IBU = 93 SRM = 9 ABV = 7.6%


Ingredients
14.66 lbs. (6.6 kg) Gambrinus 2-row pale malt
2.0 oz. (56 g) crystal malt (15 °L)
2.0 oz. (56 g) CaraPils malt (6 °L)
2.0 oz. (56 g) Munich malt (10 °L)
2.0 oz. (56 g) wheat malt
1.0 oz. (28 kg) honey malt
7.0 AAU Columbus hops (FWH) (0.5 oz./14 g of 14% alpha acids)
7.0 AAU Simcoe hops (FWH)(0.53 oz./15 g of 13% alpha acids)
3.25 AAU Columbus hops (60 mins) (0.23 oz./6.5 g of 14% alpha acids)
1.33 AAU Amarillo hops (30 mins)
(0.17 oz./4.8 g of 8.0% alpha acids)
2.25 AAU Simcoe hops (15 mins)
(0.17 oz./4.8 g of 13% alpha acids)
2.66 AAU Columbus hops (10 mins)
(0.19 oz./5.4 g of 14% alpha acids)
2 AAU Cascade hops (5 mins)
(0.4 oz./11 g of 5.0% alpha acids)
5 AAU Cascade hops (1 mins)
(1.0 oz./28 g of 5.0% alpha acids)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Columbus hops (dry hop)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Amarillo hops (dry hop)
0.5 oz. (14 g) Cascade hops (dry hop)
0.25 oz. (7 g) Simcoe hops (dry hop)
0.25 oz. (7 g) Chinook hops (dry hop)
1 tsp. Irish moss (15 mins)
White Labs WLP001(California Ale) 0.75 cups corn sugar (for priming)

Step by Step
Mash at 152 °F (67 °C) for 60 minutes. Boil for 90 minutes, following hop addition schedule. Whirlpool wort and let sit for 15 minutes before you begin cooling. Fermentation temperature 68.5 °F (20.3 °C).

Extract option:
Replace pale malt with 7.25 lbs. (3.3 kg) light dried malt extract and
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) 2-row pale malt. Steep crushed pale malt plus specialty malts in 64 oz. (1.9 L) of water at 152 °F for 45 minutes. Follow the boiling and fermentation instructions above.

Thanks to Peter Zien of AleSmith for his extensive help in constructing this clone.
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Did you ever brew this? If so, what changes did / would you make? I had a six pack of this last week and while I'm not a huge IPA drinker, that's a damn good beer.
 
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