Budweiser clone

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Sorta like going to culinary school in France, coming home after graduating, and getting job in a diner making tater tots
 
Do you have equipment for lagering? If so, check out some recipes for light American lagers. If not, check out Cream of Three Crops and Yooper's Fizzy Yellow Beer. Those aren't Bud clones, but they're recipes that are sort of in that style.
 
Do you mean Budějovický Budvar, had that when I was in Prauge, not a bad beer.

But I have always like Budwiser.
 
Rice, 6-Row, 2-3 cones of Willamette, American lager yeast.
 
an exact recipe, don't have one.

general guidelines:
hardly any barley, lots of rice or corn fermentables. Miller uses alot of one Anheuser-Busch uses the other (cant remember which is which)

low acid hops for bittering.
 
an exact recipe, don't have one.

general guidelines:
hardly any barley, lots of rice or corn fermentables. Miller uses alot of one Anheuser-Busch uses the other (cant remember which is which)

low acid hops for bittering.

Pretty sure it's rice. Toured the brewery a while back and they mentioned rice as one of their primary grains.
 
I imagine it to be a tough beer to make. There is no where to hide off flavors. Make sure you can maintain lager temps. As far as a recipe, I don't have one but would be interested to see what serious replies you get. It's easy to crap on it but I don't think a lot of brewers can successfully brew an American Light Lager cleanly...
 
Also, if you are going to lager and want a quick turn around use the california lager yeast (Wyeast 2112). It's very versatile. I brewed a Helles with it last year that scored very well in competition, and it was turned around and ready to drink in about a month.
 
At the risk of being inflammatory, probably 99% of homebrewers couldn't brew a Budweiser clone if their life depended on it. Budweiser has some of the best equipment and technical brewing expertise in the world. While not my favorite beer, I can appreciate the technology, skill, and yes art that goes into making consistently flawless light American lagers. I can't even brew two beers back-to-back that taste the same, let alone millions of gallons every year.

There are some good recipes on here for beers that are like Bud that your friend might like as well. I'd go with this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/
 
At the risk of being inflammatory, probably 99% of homebrewers couldn't brew a Budweiser clone if their life depended on it. Budweiser has some of the best equipment and technical brewing expertise in the world. While not my favorite beer, I can appreciate the technology, skill, and yes art that goes into making consistently flawless light American lagers. I can't even brew two beers back-to-back that taste the same, let alone millions of gallons every year.

There are some good recipes on here for beers that are like Bud that your friend might like as well. I'd go with this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/

I agree with you, it is a really hard beer to make and to make it taste good.

If your boss is a Bud drinker why not make something else that is really drinkable, a nice simple amber or a light wheat beer. Even a really mellow Pale Ale would be good.

The biggest problem you have is if you try and clone Budweiser it probably wont end up as good as Budweiser as weird as that sounds.
 
At the risk of being inflammatory, probably 99% of homebrewers couldn't brew a Budweiser clone if their life depended on it. Budweiser has some of the best equipment and technical brewing expertise in the world. While not my favorite beer, I can appreciate the technology, skill, and yes art that goes into making consistently flawless light American lagers. I can't even brew two beers back-to-back that taste the same, let alone millions of gallons every year.

There are some good recipes on here for beers that are like Bud that your friend might like as well. I'd go with this: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f62/cream-three-crops-cream-ale-66503/

I gotta second this. People disparage them all the time without realizing how hard it is to consistently brew a beer like this that is utterly unforgiving of flaws, especially at the scale they do it. Is it my favorite beer, absolutely not, but I can at least respect the process.

Also, iff you don't want to lager, look at brewing a cream ale or a kölsch. Those generally go over very well with light lager crowds.
 
It's for my bosses b day I hate Budweiser

If you are actually serious about this, the recipe is fairly simple. It's the process that's tricky.

60% Domestic 2-row malt
40% Rice (milled, cooked and added to the mash)
(maybe a touch of CaraPils to give the beer a little texture)

AB uses a ramped infusion but for simplicity's sake mash for 60-75 minutes @ 149F.

Use a blend of Noble type hops (Saaz, Hallertau, Tettnager, etc)

Add enough of the hop blend at bittering to get 12 IBU and maybe put a 1/4 oz in at 15 minutes or so. Pitch a huge starter of Wy2007 or WLP-840 and ferment in the low 50sF until finished. Lager @ as close to 32F as you can for a few weeks and then package.
 
AB uses a ramped infusion but for simplicity's sake mash for 60-75 minutes @ 149F.

I believe it's a reverse-ramped infusion, where it starts at like 160 and lowers to 140 over two hours, IIRC. It's a highly attenuative mash schedule, and they don't need to add any enzymes that way. All the other macrobrewers use extra enzymes to deal with their adjuncts.
 
I believe it's a reverse-ramped infusion, where it starts at like 160 and lowers to 140 over two hours, IIRC. It's a highly attenuative mash schedule, and they don't need to add any enzymes that way. All the other macrobrewers use extra enzymes to deal with their adjuncts.

I had heard they start at about 118F and ratchet it up from there. Either way they are wringing every possible molecule of sugar from the mash.
 
Cream of Three Crops in the Light Hybrid recipe section would be a good place to start. I have no where near BierMuncher's mastery, but would suggest a little lighter on the corn and a little heavier on the rice. Maybe substitute some of the 2 row with 6 row. I would also add 5% wheat malt. Stick with Nobel hops as a previous poster suggested. Saaz and Hallertau would be my suggestion.

If you bottle, after 4 weeks conditioning, put in fridge for 4 more weeks, then serve.
 
No wheat malt or corn in the original. Use 5%. Crystal 20 . They use a proprietary malt that is very similar
 
brewingmeister said:
If you go on their tour they say barley, rice and corn are used for the mash.

They have a lot of products with corn in them, but rice is the exclusive adjunct grain in Bud and Bud Light.
 
Brewskii said:
They have a lot of products with corn in them, but rice is the exclusive adjunct grain in Bud and Bud Light.

I just made a classic American pilsner using about 25% corn and it didn't taste like bud much at all. Much sweeter - more like a Coors than anything (but much better tasting! ;)). So I'd probably agree with the rice. Maybe add a touch of flaked maize if you want to experiment?
 
Thanks I think I'm gonna try the cream ale recipe thanks for all the help
 
Why don't you just make a nice hoppy apa and call it a day. I agree to cone any of the big brewery beers is going to be very hard, and if it is not dead on, people will tell you just that, many reason why I almost always say " I make good beer, but it is no bud light" right from the begining
 
iMac6 said:
I just made a classic American pilsner using about 25% corn and it didn't taste like bud much at all. Much sweeter - more like a Coors than anything (but much better tasting! ;)). So I'd probably agree with the rice. Maybe add a touch of flaked maize if you want to experiment?

Not to de-rail this thread but...I was surprised to find out that "classic American Pilsner(2C)" is more of a rare style than you'd think and certainly a completely different profile than "Standard American Lager (1B)".
Jamil's article in BYO last month was very interesting.
 
Not to de-rail this thread but...I was surprised to find out that "classic American Pilsner(2C)" is more of a rare style than you'd think and certainly a completely different profile than "Standard American Lager (1B)".
Jamil's article in BYO last month was very interesting.

It sounds like the Classic American Pilsner morphed into the Standard American lager over the years at Anheuser-Busch and other American mega-breweries. As Jamil said, the Classic American Pilsner is "your grandfather's Budweiser". Ahh, the evolution of brewing.

That article was my motivation to give it a shot. In fact, that was the exact recipe I used, because I wanted to see what pre-prohibition American lager tasted like. Turned out really well - very interesting beer style. I liked it more than I thought I would! :drunk:
 
I can appreciate the difficulty of brewing huge amounts of Bud, that are ALWAYS consistent in taste. That being said, just because something is difficult to do does not mean it is necessarily a good idea to do it... ;)
 
Ive tried and sorta failed several times to make a really light Pale ale. As others stated above it was really hard because the slightest mistake in my process was SO magnified. On the flip side it really helped me improve my process and find some problem areas because of how magnified the mistakes are in a beer like that. I think you should try it a few times. God knows homebrewers do much crazier "expiriments". I took some to my LHBS and the owner started telling me what some of my processes and equipment were as he was drinking without me even telling him and reccomended several pointers that REALLY helped me.
 
Oh yeah, speaking of process. In case it hasn't been mentioned (and in case you didn't already know), in any style that light water profile is going to be very important. You're going to want a pretty low mineral content.
 
Oh yeah, speaking of process. In case it hasn't been mentioned (and in case you didn't already know), in any style that light water profile is going to be very important. You're going to want a pretty low mineral content.

IMO water is toward the bottom of the list in importance, after #1 yeast handling, and #2 mash/grist handling. Unless it has really high magnesium, sodium, or sulfate, moderately hard water is fine. I brew a Munich Helles-type beer fairly frequently, with water that has a GH of 4-5dH and KH of 2-3dH. It's not nearly as soft as people generally recommend for pilsen water, but all other minerals in my water are single digits, so it works well for me.
 
I'm just used to placing a lot of importance on water because my local water is extremely hard. So I don't really think about the fact that other people aren't in the same situation as me I guess :)
 
Alkalinity is bad, to the extent it needs to be neutralized when brewing light beers. 50ppm of calcium isn't bad, but 50ppm of magnesium is. 50ppm of chloride is ok, 50ppm of sulfate is bad. It's easy to just say "soft water" or "hard water" but it's a bit more complicated than that.
 
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