Belgian Golden Strong Ale "Mischeif" - The Bruery's Mischief Clone (Hoppy Golden Strong Ale)

[seandamnit]

Recipe Type

All Grain

Yeast

WLP570

Yeast Starter

Yes

Batch Size (Gallons)

5.5

Original Gravity

1.066

Final Gravity

.998

Boiling Time (Minutes)

60

IBU

40

Color

2

Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)

14

Tasting Notes

Beer-esque

Final Product:

So, I wanted to clone The Bruery's Mischief, a Golden Strong Ale w/American Dry Hops. Definitely a favorite of mine. However I couldn't find any recipe or even attempt at the recipe in my internet searches...so I decided to go right to the source and e-mailed The Bruery directly to see if they're willing to share the recipe. I figured that I probably had put Patrick Rue's kids through college at this point, so I was hoping they'd at least be willing to give up the secret recipe. Turns out they were totally willing to:

From Kevin, Brewing Manager at The Bruery:

Hi Sean, We'd be happy to share a little info on how to brew Mischief. Glad you like our beer!

While I can't do all the work for you, I will get you going in the right direction. You should be able to plug all this into a recipe calculator.
The malt is 100% domestic 2-row pale malt. That is about 85% of the fermentable sugar, the other 15% is added sugar. You can use whatever you like. Something light in color and extremely fermentable. For bittering hops, you can use any high alpha variety. We shoot for about 40 IBUs coming out of the kettle. There is also Saaz near the end of the boil at a rate of about 0.1 oz/gal, and in the whirlpool at about 0.2 oz/gal. Dry Hop is about 0.2 oz/gal of Sterling, and about half that of Summit and Centennial. Utilization will change a lot scaling down from 30bbl to 5gal, so you'll have to play around with that a little.

We use our proprietary house Belgian yeast strain, so I'll leave yeast up to your personal preference. Something like WLP570 would probably do a decent job for this. We start off around 15.5-16°Plato and ferment down to around 0.5°P, or lower, usually.

Good luck!

Cheers,
Kevin
Brewing Manager

From this, for my setup and efficiency, I put together:

Fermentables:
10.75lbs 2-Row
2lbs Belgian Candy Sugar

Hop Schedule:
1oz Magnum @ 60min
.5oz Saaz @ 10min
1oz Saaz @ Flameout/Whirlpool
1oz Sterling @ Dryhop
.5oz Summit@ Dryhop
.5oz Centennial @ Dryhop

15.5 - 16° Plato is about 1.063-1.065 OG, and 0.5°P is 1.002 FG. Mash schedule isn't outlined in the e-mail, so I mashed low at 148 to help dry this out.

For the yeast I ended up embarking on a project I hadn't attempted before: I harvested yeast from 2 Mischief bottles, built it up, and pitched it. Good lord this stuff is a beast...it finished at .998 FG! I'm not sure if you can expect that by using 570 like is suggested in the e-mail, but I don't imagine it would be significantly different.

If anyone attempts this with 570 or any other yeast, I'd appreciate feedback on how it taste compared to the original.

 

[seandamnit]

A few more weeks in the bottle really did wonders for this. I get a lot more hop character in my beer when side-by-siding against the real thing, but prefer the mouthfeel of the real stuff. Mine is definitely not as clear, but it's hard to get commercial clarity from bottle conditioned beers. Without a doubt this beer has been my favorite I've made, and I've gotten nothing but positive responses from my friends.

 

[seandamnit]

Side by side of this vs the real thing. Guess which one is real, lol. Clarity has always been a little elusive for me.

 

[armenianbrewer]

Looks and sounds delicious! I may have to find the original or take a stab at this sometime soon