Guinness Hop House 13 Lager

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89Hen

89Hen

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My son went to Ireland a couple years ago and had some Hop House 13 from Guinness and he wants me to try to make something similar. I've searched and searched for a clone recipe but have come up empty. Apparently you can't even buy this beer in the US, so it's going to be really hard for me to figure out what tastes similar.

Anyone ever had this beer?

GUINNESS® HOP HOUSE 13 LAGER

BEER TASTING NOTES:
Aroma: Light and hoppy with floral and citrus notes
Flavor: Flavorful lager, hoppy and citrusy on the nose
Palate: Lively palate, crisp and refreshing
ABV: 5% ABV
Appearance: Dense head on a golden amber colored beer
Hops: Galaxy, Topaz, Mosaic
 
Last edited by a moderator:
It's been a while since I've had it, but despite the sexy hops my memory is of pretty anonymous Eurolager, somewhere in the helles/Vienna mould.

So I'd start with pilsner malt with a bit of Vienna or crystal, don't go for too much bitterness, carbonation or flavour...
 
Thanks, I should mention my son is a novice beer drinker, so limited flavor is to be expected from his young palate.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
It's been a while since I've had it, but despite the sexy hops my memory is of pretty anonymous Eurolager, somewhere in the helles/Vienna mould.

So I'd start with pilsner malt with a bit of Vienna or crystal, don't go for too much bitterness, carbonation or flavour...
Click to expand...

I came here to see what others were doing for a HH13 clone. Your summary of the beer struck me a little. It's definately NOT a boring, tasteless Euro lager. If anything it's a hybrid between an IPA and a Euro larger. It is, to my taste anyway, quite heavily hopped. Not that bitter, quite fruity and tangy, but definately not flavourless. It's also heavily carbonated. Though I agree it's not that bitter, though definitely full of fruity/tangy/sharp hop flavours.

Very similar to Archies or Maggies Leap IPAs which is what the the local pubs offer when they don't have it.

There is always the possibility that the version which gets exported to the states is different.

I'm not really aiming for a true clone, but want to get some of that hop taste into a red ale. But when I put the three hops listed into a brew calc with only 25g each and 30/15/5 mins I get insanely high IBUs like 60. Googling suggests HH13 should be around 18-20.

I can't find Topaz locally, but Summit was suggested as an alternative. So... aiming for a fruity, sharp, tangy IPA-like beer, how would you profile these three?

Summit
Mosaic
Galaxy
?
 
Hi all,

My partner is just starting brewing and would love to get him the recipe of hop house 13 - did anyone manage to make a clone?
 
Big fan of hop house. it’s in most bars now in Dublin, They had an advert for hop house on tv here in Ireland and it said they use Polaris Hops. But on there website it doesn’t list that hop.
 
Lets crank this thread up. So I'm looking to create, collaborate or steal a recipe to pull this together. After some short research, I have this to offer.

Knowns:
- They use the St James water profile
- They Use Galaxy(AUS), Topaz(AUS) and Mosaic(USA), double hopped.
- They use Guinness yeast, as stated on their site. (debate topic below)
- Irish barley (stated on their site)

Unknowns:
- Grain bill
- Adjuncts (rye? flaked barley? oats? corn? rice?)
- Clarifying agent? (Worfloc? Irish moss? gelatin?)
- Hop addition timing?

Tasting notes:
Crisp, full flavoured, subtle malty, and fresh hop aroma.
- Aroma: Light and hoppy with floral and citrus
- Flavour: Full flavoured, hoppy with hints of peach and apricot
- Palate: Lively, crisp and refreshing

Debate 1 - Anyone think they use the same yeast as Guinness Stout, just at lower (lager) temps? this might be where they might end up with the peach and apricot notes. Or, have they come up with a different yeast all together? or is that all coming through the Galaxy hop?

Debate 2 - Their site states "Irish Barley". Are there maltsters in Ireland? Does Guinness have a local supplier? Any Irish homebrewers have info on this? or do they just add "Irish Barley" to the grain bill?

I think they use the Topaz as bittering, however subtle it may be, but when? And how much? Mosiac late possibly for the citrus hit?

Lets get this pulled together!
 
camonick said:
I don’t have anything to provide about the possibility of a clone recipe, but Irish malts are available. I use them for my stout recipe.
https://bsghandcraft.com/malting-company-of-ireland
Click to expand...

The "Irish-owned" thing is an important caveat - the dominant supplier is Minch Malt, owned by Boormalt since 2010. There's been a lot of controversy in recent years about the prices paid to Irish farmers and the extent to which Boortmalt are prepared to import malt and/or barley into Ireland, and malt Irish barley in eg Antwerp - the farmers realise that their best bet is to take the protest to St James Gate and try to embarrass Diageo over their whole "Irishness" branding. It may be one reason why there seem to be a couple of new independent maltsters popping up in Ireland in recent years, in a way that hasn't really happened in England (but who needs them when you have real craft like Warminster). But yep, historically Guinness used Irish malt.

The likes of THBC carry Minch malt.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
The "Irish-owned" thing is an important caveat - the dominant supplier is Minch Malt, owned by Boormalt since 2010. There's been a lot of controversy in recent years about the prices paid to Irish farmers and the extent to which Boortmalt are prepared to import malt and/or barley into Ireland, and malt Irish barley in eg Antwerp - the farmers realise that their best bet is to take the protest to St James Gate and try to embarrass Diageo over their whole "Irishness" branding. It may be one reason why there seem to be a couple of new independent maltsters popping up in Ireland in recent years, in a way that hasn't really happened in England (but who needs them when you have real craft like Warminster). But yep, historically Guinness used Irish malt.

The likes of THBC carry Minch malt.
Click to expand...
So getting any Irish ingredient in Canada looks next to impossible, so I will attempt to build my recipe with local supply, and adjust my water to emulate St James water, then go from there.

Munich and UK two row are available here, so lets start with that. Any suggestions for a grain bill? Id like to have a base recipe built for a 10 gal, but 5 gal is fine as well.

:bigmug:
 
My recipe creation skills aren’t quite there yet, but would love a recipe. I’d say a nice clean lager yeast would work well. HH13 is quite clean and the hop flavour and aroma isn’t too strong. I will be in the open gate brewery in the coming weeks, the staff are very knowledgable on the products so I’ll see can they provide any more info beyond what’s on the packaging
 
To note, I have not made this beer yet, but this is what I came up with in attempting to make a clone recipe.

I agree with pretty much everything @actionjackson905 stated in his post. I used Topaz as the bittering hop and put it in for a full 60 mins. I did not, however, use Irish malt, and have only used a base malt in this recipe. The color is VERY light gold, so if there is anything else I would say a crystal 20 or 40, but no more than that.

I think the Guinness yeast is absolutely the same as their stout and we can use 1084 from Wyeast or, the one I plan to use from my local yeast lab, RVA151 from RVA Yeast Labs. However, the yeast would have to be fermented right at the low end of the range. I think you will get the fruity character, and fermenting colder will help the yeast drop for sure.

Guinness calls it a lager because they are putting it through a lager brewing process, so I would say ferment around 60 degrees F, transfer to secondary, then lager.

My only hesitation in brewing this so far is that I feel like there needs to be more meat in the grain bill, but I couldn't really think of anything else to add. So, I agree, let's build this out and see what we can put together!
 
You want to be quick if you want to compare - Guinness have announced that they're withdrawing HH13, at least in the UK. From memory they won't be supplying kegs after lockdown, but smallpack will continue til the end of June.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
You want to be quick if you want to compare - Guinness have announced that they're withdrawing HH13, at least in the UK. From memory they won't be supplying kegs after lockdown, but smallpack will continue til the end of June.
Click to expand...

Not saying it isn't true, but I cannot find a single article confirming that. Do you have a link to one? I am curious as to why they would discontinue it when they just opened the beer to asian markets about a year or so ago and the makers of the beer just created a food pairing for it at Open Gate late in 2020.

Either way, here is hoping we can get a recipe together, and if Guinness is indeed discontinuing this delicious beverage, maybe they can score points with the community in getting us a clone recipe! :mug:
 
It's weird, it's fairly common knowledge in the trade - eg Hop House 13 Delisted by Supplier "We have today been notified by Diageo that following a review of their beer portfolio, a decision has been taken to prioritise the main Guinness trademark in the UK and to delist Hop House 13 Lager. This means they have ceased the sale of Hop House 13 in keg immediately from today 8th March 2021 and all can and bottle formats will follow from 30th June."

but they don't seem to have done an official announcement.

There could be various explanations - it's always done OKish here but not great so it could just be that they're concentrating their resources on the black stuff and on spirits (which is an "interesting" market at the moment, Diageo have been buying up craft producers of gin etc), it could just be a cost thing between the price of Galaxy etc and also the effect of Brexit. Or there's speculation about some kind of deal with one of the big lager producers, and this is tidying up something that could get in the way with regulators.

Or it could just be that it's doing well in Asia and they're concentrating limited supplies of Galaxy etc on a market where they think it can do better.

I've no idea - probably elements of several of the above.
 
We got it here in Australia, it was terrible. Tried it with some mates, no one had anything positive to say about it. I tipped the box I bought, which is rare. Disappeared from the shelves not long after. Lots of beers don’t travel well to oz, we’re a long way from anywhere, but this really didn’t travel well. Unless it was BUL ( brewed under license ) locally. Any beer brewed under license here is not even close to the original beer, and they basically all taste the same regardless of brand. I guess most beer drinkers here aren’t that fussy.

I have no doubt that it’s a fine beer on tap close to where it’s brewed, or before a long boat trip.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
It's weird, it's fairly common knowledge in the trade - eg Hop House 13 Delisted by Supplier "We have today been notified by Diageo that following a review of their beer portfolio, a decision has been taken to prioritise the main Guinness trademark in the UK and to delist Hop House 13 Lager. This means they have ceased the sale of Hop House 13 in keg immediately from today 8th March 2021 and all can and bottle formats will follow from 30th June."
Click to expand...
That's actually really interesting. Everything I have looked at and researched in trying to make this beer it seems it is pretty well liked among the population. Thanks for sharing!
 
Samlbowles said:
it seems it is pretty well liked among the population.
Click to expand...

That doesn't count for much when you're a megacorporation juggling its portfolio. Even if they think a product might grow at 10%, it won't get investment if they have other products that they think will grow at 20%. You have to remember that Diageo is mostly playing in the spirits category, which is the only major drinks category that is growing at the moment - so they're not going to be particularly interested in beer, which is declining overall, and is only 15% of their business with HH13 being very much the second fiddle of that 15%.

And that's before you get onto considerations like distribution. Guinness has always had a bit of a free ride in distribution, as it's one of a kind - which is most definitely not the case with premium lager. With the likes of Heineken buying up lots of pubs it's going to be harder to get HH13 into pubs in the volumes that Diageo will need. In particular I suspect the Marston-Carlsberg tie-up may have hit them quite hard.

Also there's just boring production issues - can they source enough Galaxy to hit the sales targets? It's the kind of hop you want to base a business plan on.

It's always complicated.
 
Northern_Brewer said:
That doesn't count for much when you're a megacorporation juggling its portfolio. Even if they think a product might grow at 10%, it won't get investment if they have other products that they think will grow at 20%. You have to remember that Diageo is mostly playing in the spirits category, which is the only major drinks category that is growing at the moment - so they're not going to be particularly interested in beer, which is declining overall, and is only 15% of their business with HH13 being very much the second fiddle of that 15%.

And that's before you get onto considerations like distribution. Guinness has always had a bit of a free ride in distribution, as it's one of a kind - which is most definitely not the case with premium lager. With the likes of Heineken buying up lots of pubs it's going to be harder to get HH13 into pubs in the volumes that Diageo will need. In particular I suspect the Marston-Carlsberg tie-up may have hit them quite hard.

Also there's just boring production issues - can they source enough Galaxy to hit the sales targets? It's the kind of hop you want to base a business plan on.

It's always complicated.
Click to expand...
All very good points. Never looked at it that way. Thanks for the info!
 
As an example of the kind of thing that is taking marketing budget away from HH13, Guinness have introduced MicroDraught, a "can-sized keg" intended for restaurants etc that don't have proper cellars, keg lines etc :

https://www.diageo.com/en/news-and-...ogen-dispense-solution-guinness-microdraught/
I imagine the "marketing" for this will involve paying for a lot of hardware up-front to give away to restaurants, and that budget had to come from somewhere.

[just noticed the typo above about Galaxy, obviously I meant to say "It's NOT the kind of hop you want to base a business plan on. "]
 
madscientist451 said:
Is there a chance that the Hop House 13 is (or was) the same as Harp Lager with hops added? Big commercial breweries like to keep things simple for maximum production
Click to expand...

It's unlikely given the kind of volume of HH13 being produced, big enough not to need to partigyle with something else. But there's proof in the form of allergen information - Harp only has barley, HH13 has barley,oats, rye and wheat.
 
Had to finally create my account to see if anyone had any more actionable info or experience brewing. Hop House 13 is one of my favorite beers to order when in Dublin and I have a decent amount of Galaxy to use up.
 
Samlbowles said:
I will be brewing my first attempt at this beer tomorrow, I will try to post an update and let you all know how it goes!
Click to expand...
Never saw an update on this. How did it turn out? Been searching for a recipe for a long time with no results … 🙄
 

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