Constructing a clone recipe for Rogue's 2019 Santa's Private Reserve with candy cap mushrooms

[ChlorineQueen]

Hey all,
I'm pretty brand new to brewing- I bottled my first batch (Honey Cream Ale extract kit from William's Brewing) on 9/21, and it turned out pretty darn good. I picked up this hobby in the hopes of being able to make my own versions of beer I can't get in stores, whether it's been discontinued or is only sold in a different area, the first of which being Rogue's 2019 Santa's Private Reserve, which is a strong ale featuring candy cap mushrooms (8.1% ABV, 20 IBUs. Some sites have it categorized as a red/amber ale). Here's a couple articles describing it:
https://www.thebrewsite.com/candy-c...-and-public-coast-stackstock-candy-cap-stout/https://brewpublic.com/beer-release...rry-choctabulous-and-double-time-cherry-lime/I contacted Rogue about recipe information, this is a copy/paste of their response:
The recipe is proprietary but we are happy to share the ingredients we use to make this creation (and a tip or 2)

• Pac Man Yeast
• Our 2 Row blend
• Munich malt
• Baumalt (I think this might be a typo of Brumalt? Nothing comes up on Google for Baumalt besides a Croatian cement adhesive)
• C40
• Dex Pils
• Rebel Hops in 2 separate doses (This was a bit surprising as the Brewpublic article mentioned Cascade hops)
• Candy Cap Mushrooms added when transfered to the fermentor.

So as I said, I'm super duper new to all of this, but I did read up on each ingredient and get a general understanding of what each one does. I'm not necessarily opposed to ordering the grains and jumping into BIAB, though extract brewing definitely feels more on my level right now. What I'd ultimately like help with is what any of you would do in my shoes as a complete newcomer to the hobby- order a kit for a similar style and add my own mushrooms in secondary, then play around with recipes once I'm feeling more familiar, or go ahead and try making some small experimental batches? And if/when I go for making up a recipe, does anyone have any suggestions as to the grain ratios, hop schedule, or what kind of tips you'd be asking Rogue for? Any and all answers are appreciated- thanks!

 

[NiwotBrew]

Hey all,
I'm pretty brand new to brewing- I bottled my first batch (Honey Cream Ale extract kit from William's Brewing) on 9/21, and it turned out pretty darn good. I picked up this hobby in the hopes of being able to make my own versions of beer I can't get in stores, whether it's been discontinued or is only sold in a different area, the first of which being Rogue's 2019 Santa's Private Reserve, which is a strong ale featuring candy cap mushrooms (8.1% ABV, 20 IBUs. Some sites have it categorized as a red/amber ale). Here's a couple articles describing it:
https://www.thebrewsite.com/candy-c...-and-public-coast-stackstock-candy-cap-stout/https://brewpublic.com/beer-release...rry-choctabulous-and-double-time-cherry-lime/I contacted Rogue about recipe information, this is a copy/paste of their response:
The recipe is proprietary but we are happy to share the ingredients we use to make this creation (and a tip or 2)

• Pac Man Yeast
• Our 2 Row blend
• Munich malt
• Baumalt (I think this might be a typo of Brumalt? Nothing comes up on Google for Baumalt besides a Croatian cement adhesive)
• C40
• Dex Pils
• Rebel Hops in 2 separate doses (This was a bit surprising as the Brewpublic article mentioned Cascade hops)
• Candy Cap Mushrooms added when transfered to the fermentor.

So as I said, I'm super duper new to all of this, but I did read up on each ingredient and get a general understanding of what each one does. I'm not necessarily opposed to ordering the grains and jumping into BIAB, though extract brewing definitely feels more on my level right now. What I'd ultimately like help with is what any of you would do in my shoes as a complete newcomer to the hobby- order a kit for a similar style and add my own mushrooms in secondary, then play around with recipes once I'm feeling more familiar, or go ahead and try making some small experimental batches? And if/when I go for making up a recipe, does anyone have any suggestions as to the grain ratios, hop schedule, or what kind of tips you'd be asking Rogue for? Any and all answers are appreciated- thanks!

Hey all,
I'm pretty brand new to brewing- I bottled my first batch (Honey Cream Ale extract kit from William's Brewing) on 9/21, and it turned out pretty darn good. I picked up this hobby in the hopes of being able to make my own versions of beer I can't get in stores, whether it's been discontinued or is only sold in a different area, the first of which being Rogue's 2019 Santa's Private Reserve, which is a strong ale featuring candy cap mushrooms (8.1% ABV, 20 IBUs. Some sites have it categorized as a red/amber ale). Here's a couple articles describing it:
https://www.thebrewsite.com/candy-c...-and-public-coast-stackstock-candy-cap-stout/https://brewpublic.com/beer-release...rry-choctabulous-and-double-time-cherry-lime/I contacted Rogue about recipe information, this is a copy/paste of their response:
The recipe is proprietary but we are happy to share the ingredients we use to make this creation (and a tip or 2)

• Pac Man Yeast
• Our 2 Row blend
• Munich malt
• Baumalt (I think this might be a typo of Brumalt? Nothing comes up on Google for Baumalt besides a Croatian cement adhesive)
• C40
• Dex Pils
• Rebel Hops in 2 separate doses (This was a bit surprising as the Brewpublic article mentioned Cascade hops)
• Candy Cap Mushrooms added when transfered to the fermentor.

So as I said, I'm super duper new to all of this, but I did read up on each ingredient and get a general understanding of what each one does. I'm not necessarily opposed to ordering the grains and jumping into BIAB, though extract brewing definitely feels more on my level right now. What I'd ultimately like help with is what any of you would do in my shoes as a complete newcomer to the hobby- order a kit for a similar style and add my own mushrooms in secondary, then play around with recipes once I'm feeling more familiar, or go ahead and try making some small experimental batches? And if/when I go for making up a recipe, does anyone have any suggestions as to the grain ratios, hop schedule, or what kind of tips you'd be asking Rogue for? Any and all answers are appreciated- thanks!

Hey welcome to homebrewing!
There’s lots of ways to do this, but why not keep it easy and within your range.
You could get the Red Ale kit from Wiiliams, add another 4.5 lbs of their extract and use 2x the yeast, then do your thing with the ‘shrooms.
That would be close in a lot of ways, then you could make adjustments as you get more advanced.

 

[ChlorineQueen]

Hey welcome to homebrewing!
There’s lots of ways to do this, but why not keep it easy and within your range.
You could get the Red Ale kit from Wiiliams, add another 4.5 lbs of their extract and use 2x the yeast, then do your thing with the ‘shrooms.
That would be close in a lot of ways, then you could make adjustments as you get more advanced.

Increasing the extract and yeast (while keeping to a 5 gal batch, I'm assuming?) is in order to raise the ABV, right? I could also maybe see ordering their Red Ale extract and using Rebel hops and Pac Man yeast as a reasonable step between going off just a kit and fully trying to replicate Rogue's recipe. Thank you for the input!

 

[NiwotBrew]

Increasing the extract and yeast (while keeping to a 5 gal batch, I'm assuming?) is in order to raise the ABV, right? I could also maybe see ordering their Red Ale extract and using Rebel hops and Pac Man yeast as a reasonable step between going off just a kit and fully trying to replicate Rogue's recipe. Thank you for the input!

Yes to 5 gallons and boosting gravity to give you a beer around 8%.
Rebel is a proprietary hop to Rogue, so you won’t find it, and at just 20 IBUs it’s not totally critical to this beer, I imagine you want just enough hops for bittering, so the mushroom flavors can stand out.
Pac Man is available, but again I doubt yeast character is central to this beer (although I’ve never had it).

 

[camonick]

Pac Man is available,

Where?

 

[NiwotBrew]

Where?

Gotcha, I didn’t realize the big producers stopped making it.